The Scout
When Trice Koopman '77 first experienced live theater, she had no difficulty entering a state of mind that drama professors sometimes refer to as "the willing suspension of disbelief." The lights went down, the curtain came up, and she felt a powerful, almost instant attraction to that magical world."I never wanted to act," she says, "but just being in that environment captured my imagination completely."
It's no surprise that Koopman was a drama major at Kenyon. After graduating, she studied directing at the Hartman Theater in Connecticut and arts management at New York University. She then enrolled in a highly selective program at the University of Washington that emphasized teaching, but she soon discovered that being an educator was not her calling.
"I was already on the west coast, so I moved to L.A. rather than make the trek back to New York," she says. "I considered the big question. How could I work with actors and not be one?"
The solution was a job at a talent agency, where Koopman learned just how things worked in Hollywood. "It scared me," she says. "Calling to speak to people who don't want to talk to you and asking them for things they don't want to give you is both exhilarating and terrifying."
A talent agent needs to know what roles are available in the industry and help her clients land those parts. Koopman did it for fourteen years at four different agencies of various sizes. During that time, she experienced just about every aspect of the agency business, including downsizing, resizing, consolidation, and being her own boss at a company she ran independently. That's a lot of pitching and a lot of pressure.
"When you are an agent, you must represent everyone on your client list regardless of what you think of them," she explains. "I was very good at selling people who were good, but less successful at selling the mediocre talent."
When she took a step back to reconsider her life, Koopman decided to explore the field of talent management, which would enable her to represent only the actors whose talent she admires. After working with a partner for five years, Koopman is now operating on her own.
"I have about a dozen clients now, and I'm passionate about each one," she says. "I work closely with each person determining with them where they want their career to go and how that meshes with what I can deliver."
She adds, "My job is to find the opportunities and the client's job is to prepare."
She now has the flexibility to meet the needs of her thirteen-year-old twins, Rebecca and Richard, and to pursue her hobby--marathon running. But she's always on the lookout for that magical element she experienced when she first fell in love with the world of drama. Her ability to spot it has made her both successful and satisfied with her career.
"Years ago, I went to a Yale University production of The Idiots Karamazov and there I saw Meryl Streep, this gorgeous young blond, playing an eighty-year-old woman in a wheel chair," she says. "She was sensational, and I knew immediately that she would be a star."
--Linda Michaels
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