If you’re ever going to risk every thing you have, you may as well invest in yourself.

That’s what Racquel Bailey, an aspiring New Jersey actress, did when she used her last paycheck to purchase a billboard in Southwest Atlanta that she hopes will capture the attention of media mogul Tyler Perry.

Details + video & photos below…

Bailey says she goes on up to 20 auditions per week, but she spends her evenings teaching beginner ballet classes at Newark schools.

Her evening gig will soon be coming to an end, but instead of crying over spilled milk, Battle has decided to risk it all and splurge on her future.

Using her last $1,500 earned from teaching the class, the actress rented an Atlanta billboard which is meant to catch the eye of the “top film maker in ATL.”

“Let me be your next leading lady,” it announces, addressing the “top film maker in ATL.”

That person, says Bailey, is Tyler Perry. She couldn’t use his name because of license issues, she says.

The ad, which includes a link to her website, is posted on a billboard located in southwest Atlanta near Perry’s studios and will be up for the entire month of April.

No word yet on if Perry has made contact with the actress and when asked, TP Studio representatives refused to comment.

But Bailey’s $1,500 investment has at least paid off in the form of media coverage. Several news sites have reported on her billboard, as well as Essence magazine and several blogs. Her website was even down temporarily due to a sudden surge in traffic.

“I’ve been doing this for a while,” says Bailey, of acting.

“What happens is, sometimes you get responses, sometimes you don’t.”

And a billboard is, in fact, a lot bigger than those 8-by-10s she hands out at auditions. A single mother, Bailey majored in theater at Fairleigh Dickinson Universityand has appeared in off-Broadway productions. She says she got a little screentime in “Law & Order,” too, playing a reporter. (source)

Bailey has faith that Tyler Perry will eventually respond to her gesture.

Her website includes a demo reel with dramatic, black-and-white monologue footage, another scene in which she yells into a phone and yet another of an intimate conversation with a man.

Bailey was asked in a recent interview if there are any other directors she’d like to hear from if Perry never responds, she replied:

“Steven Spielberg,” she says, at first, then “… Spike Lee?”

As far as why she chose Atlanta for her billboard in comparison to New York and/or Los Angeles, Bailey says that prices in the South a lil bit easier to scale per capita. “Atlanta’s a little more intimate.” she says.

What do you think of Bailey’s billboard idea?

How far would you go to follow your dream?

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