"Ah, poor so & so," goes the familiar refrain. "Always wanted to be an 'artist', always got the lead roles at school but since we left university he's really been struggling. He can never afford to come out with us and is always couch hopping, can't pay rent. Oh no, I don't envy him at all".
I heard some variation on this recently and, let's be honest, this isn't an alien situation for many of us. The divide between my 'artist' friends and my 'real job' friends is growing ever wider as each post-Uni year passes. For me it's been two years since we graduated and the latter are now already starting to amass savings, eye up mortgages and nestle in on the lower but sturdy rungs of the career ladder. They are generally starting to create fairly structured lives for themselves that include regular socialising, holidays, partners etc. On the other hand, the rest of us seem to be flitting around attempting to create some semblance of a personally chosen and shaped existence.
Life for creatives (and, as different creative disciplines spawn a variation of routines and demands, I'm going to focus on actors here) can be quite difficult to impose any sort of order on. Acting roles come in dribs and drabs, sometimes they'll contract you for a few months at a time and sometimes for just a few hours. Opportunities can be few and far between for long periods of time and then, like the proverbial buses, they'll come one after the other in quick succession. This means that actors need to be ready and willing to take up said opportunities at any moment. Keeping in mind that there is already a dearth of work available for the sturdy, dependable employee it's even harder for actors to find jobs flexible enough to provide regular income alongside such an unpredictable routine. Yes, actors may need to 'suck it up' and wave bye bye to the concept of a 'comfortable' lifestyle but not being able to afford rent and a tin of beans is when things start to get a bit debilitating.
For example, simply to cover my (extremely reasonable) rent, travel card and basic food bills I need to earn a few hundred pounds a month. This is before we factor in that I, like many others, own a car, pets and often need to pay for clothes, make up, prescriptions, postage stamps etc. And in order to give myself every opportunity to make my way in an oversubscribed profession I need to be able to be available at a moments notice, work on profit share, go on tour and find work soon after a contract ends. Easy peazy, lemon squeezy.
At university I did a course called Working in the Profession where we were encouraged to try to find 'actor-friendly' jobs. These include the stereotypical waitressing and telesales gigs but, to be honest, drop out of these jobs one too many times and you'll still find yourself in a bit of a pickle. I think some people really do get lucky and there are jobs where employers will be understanding enough to try to work around you if they can. In my experience however the tougher the job market gets the less an employer needs to be concerned about working around your schedule because, frankly, there's always someone ready to take your place.
I thought I had the perfect job. I was pretty smug. I work as a tutor, it's well paid enough that I didn't have to do a great deal of other work, I have some degree of flexibility and it's only a couple of hours a day. I thought this meant that I would be in the uniquely beneficial position of having the majority of the working day entirely free for writing, doing admin, auditioning and the like. I was obviously aware that an early evening job would potentially affect any theatre auditions I might get but I figured I'd deal with that when it came to it and that, since no theatre work was immediately on the horizon, in the meantime I'd be earning an okay amount of money. But no job is really that flexible. I realised pretty quickly that I wasn't really going to be able to get odd nights or weeks off very easily and that taking a few weeks off to do a single (potentially unpaid) theatre job would mean I'd probably be out of a job. Telling myself I was still in a pretty fortunate position, I've stayed in this job for over a year now. I haven't at any point stopped working on creative projects but I've certainly shied away from auditions that would demand any sort of commitment to theatre runs or shooting schedules that would interfere with my hours. Soooo...yeah. I've avoided pretty much any performance work for over a year. I only just realised this. I've done other things with that time of course. I've written and produced a play, run a comedy club, taught classes at an arts organisation and I've been sensible with regards to being able to pay the bills. But I wonder if I've been a little too cautious and focused on only the immediate Work concern and left my personal equation rather unbalanced by putting the Life I want at risk.
The other day a friend asked me if I'd heard of a particular theatre company.
"Oh yes," I replied. "They're pretty well known".
"Yeah, I thought so," she said. "The guy who runs it went to school with my brother. Apparently he was struggling for years, doing the 'artist' thing and they all felt rather sorry for him. Suddenly everything seems to have changed all at once and now he's doing really well."
It's nice to hear a happy ending to the story and it makes you realise it doesn't have to all go to plan from the very start. But it seems you do have to put yourself on the line before that can change. So, if I believe in those sort of things, perhaps that was my sign.
:) chin up n keep on, picklebum xxx
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