For our spotlight on temporary employment services, Back Stage asks a dozen performers who also temp how they manage to make it all work. Some prefer a long-term temp situation, some like to move frequently from job to job, some are partial to the night shift, others work auditions into their daily work schedule. All are filled with good advice on how to pursue a career in the performing arts and still put food on the table with help from a day job.
Erick Buckley—Be Your Own Boss
Positions Held: proofreader, office clerk
Skills Required: proofreading, typing, clerical skills, light desktop publishing, Microsoft Office (Word, Excel, PowerPoint)
Firms Worked For: financial (Morgan Stanley, Blackstone Group, Merrill Lynch), legal (Davis Polk & Wardwell)
Erick Buckley began working as a temp so that his acting career wouldn't be diluted by the outside obligations of a full-time job. As Buckley temped at financial institutions and legal firms, he was surprised at the number of transferable acting skills he was able to carry over to the corporate setting: "Actors give great interviews because we are generally more present as people. We tend to be verbal, as well as quick on our feet. And I know that if I can learn an entire show in three days, that same fast-learning adaptability will translate very well when given the opportunity."
Not that Buckley advertises his theatrical niche on his professional resume, nor does he discuss it in an interview: "I think it increases your chances of being taken seriously. Professional and theatrical resumes should be completely separate. I'm somewhat in the open because my education was at the Boston Conservatory, but for someone who went to a state school, I'd mention the school, not the B.F.A."
Buckley took a course in proofreading at the Actors' Work Program (a service of the Actors' Fund of America), but he also suggests looking through the jobs section of newspapers to find clerical schools that offer six-week proofreading courses.
Rates for proofreaders run anywhere from $18-$36 per hour depending on the shift and the specificity of the position. With five years of experience, Buckley averages $20-$25 per hour working the graveyard shift (1-9 am): "It is a hard shift, but definitely doable. My days are free. Usually the company will pay for your car, either there or home, depending on the shift."
The biggest minus to temping is health care. Buckley receives health insurance through Actors' Equity Association, but for non-Equity actors, he recommends investigating the Freelancers Union (www.freelancersunion.org): "This is for people who are getting paid but [are] not hired as full-time, so they've banded together to form a union to purchase health care."
In addition to temping, Buckley teaches vocal production to freshmen at NYU's Tisch School of the Arts at the Lee Strasberg Theatre Institute—a position he acquired through someone he temped for: "What started out as proofreading turned into substituting, and now I'm a professor."
Buckley reports that the combination of Sept. 11 and outsourcing have drastically changed the in-demand skills in the temporary employment industry: "It's still much tighter than it was. Proofreading work is much slower, downsizing is on the rise, and you seem to need seven to eight years of experience to do anything now. It's as if the markets learned how to live without the jobs they had to evaporate after the devastation of Sept. 11, and instead of bringing those jobs back, now they're being outsourced. I think this is the first time in my life I'm not seeing a steady progression of the quality of life."
To take advantage of the skills currently in demand, Buckley encourages prospective temps to pursue jobs in the service industry, like information technology (IT) and customer service. He believes that actors have a tendency to undersell themselves because they don't have what they think are marketable clerical skills, but actors' ability to adapt moves them up the ladder more quickly.
"People who have been able to be a performer and make a living don't think of it so much as creating a skill," he says. "Rather, they're creating a side career. Be your own boss and make your own hours. That subtle change of language really helps me deal when I'm not acting at the moment."
—Phoebe Kmeck
Nick Cavarra—Soaking It All In
Positions Held: word processor, Microsoft Word financial operator, graphics specialist
Skills Required: Microsoft Office (Word, Excel, PowerPoint), Adobe Photoshop, Adobe Illustrator
Firms Worked For: law, advertising (Adweek), and financial (Goldman Sachs)
The 1994 Los Angeles earthquake shook up actor-singer-producer Nick Cavarra so much that he took it as his cue to move to New York City: "I knew that when I got here, I would need a position as soon as possible that wouldn't interfere with my career yet would still pay a decent wage."
In L.A., Cavarra managed to support himself with commercials and theatre gigs, as well as a long-term temp position as an advertising display assistant at Adweek. There he learned how to use computer programs that are in demand at advertising agencies, including PowerPoint, Illustrator, and Photoshop. Upon arriving in New York, Cavarra put together a portfolio of the layout and presentation work he had done at the advertising publication and approached temporary employment agencies advertised in Back Stage and The New York Times.
To people just beginning in temp services, Cavarra advises, "Soak in as much as you can when you're on a job, so that you can transfer those skills over to higher-paying positions."
Cavarra branched out from advertising into the financial industry by taking a two-week course offered at Custom Staffing on Goldman Sachs templates. Shortly after, he was offered a seven-month temp position at Goldman Sachs as a financial operator, making a steady $28 per hour.
Computer training is also available to Equity actors at the Actors' Work Program, where Cavarra himself created a course that teaches presentation skills on Word, Excel, and PowerPoint—must-know programs in the financial industry.
As an actor, Cavarra claims that the breadth of schedule available is the greatest advantage to temping. He explains that there are three shifts, with the first shift, 9 am-5 pm, being the most common. He suggests that actors who need to keep their days free for auditions or rehearsals would be better off working the second shift (5 pm-1 am) or the third (known as the graveyard shift, 1-9 am): "While I was at Goldman Sachs, I was cast in a limited engagement of 'King David,' so I simply switched to the graveyard shift. Right after that, I got cast in 'The Scarlet Pimpernel,' at which point I quit temping and worked on Broadway for two years. Temp really means temp, so it's okay to leave when you need to."
Cavarra's most recent project is producing a reading of Ed Dixon's new musical "Fanny Hill," to be held at the Zipper Theatre in October.
"But what's scary is that word processing centers—which are basically a room of people putting together presentations—have already begun to be outsourced. Financial companies see that it's cheaper to hire people in India for $10-$12 an hour. Those $28-an-hour gigs are down to $22-$24, and in the next couple of years, the good shifts will be a thing of the past."
On how to identify a good temporary employment service, Cavarra offers some tips on what to look out for: "Not all places are the same. The first clue showing you that they aren't a top-of-the-line service is if they use a wizard test—which is a multiple-choice test that doesn't acknowledge your ability to use shortcuts." Another indication is if staff counselors lack a working knowledge of the software.
Cavarra offers words of encouragement to actors considering temp services as a source of extra income: "Actors have specific skills that the corporate world is dying for—public speakers, strong communication skills, and outgoing personalities. Play the part."
—Phoebe Kmeck
Sabrina Chapadjiev—If It Feels Right, Take It
Positions: administrative assistant, receptionist, and filing clerk
Skills required: answering phones, typing, "being able to smile and nod"
Firms worked for: entertainment industry conglomerate
When Chicago native Sabrina Chapadjiev moved to New York last February to pursue a career as a spoken-word artist, writer, and producer, a ready source of steady income became her chief priority. Fortunately, her sister has been a New York temp for some time, and because she would receive a bonus for referring people to her agency, it made sisterly sense to keep things familial. It was, Chapadjiev says, a smart move.
"My sister was temping in the heart of it all—Rockefeller Center—and it seemed such an interesting environment: When she wasn't busy, she could work on her [office] computer, and that seemed brilliant because I didn't have a computer at the time." Likewise, during slow periods—which most temp jobs offer, she says—she has focused on her career goals. For example, she founded an event at the Flying Saucer Café, near her apartment in Park Slope, called Theatrical Open Mike, featuring actors delivering monologues and playwrights, working with directors, whipping up short scenes for the actors to work on. She could not have created the event, she says, had her temp job not offered her three things: a steady paycheck, some flexibility with time, and the occasional bit of downtime to get things done.
Chapadjiev's trajectory since moving to New York is, in some ways, typical: She temped for her first two months, then was a waitress for two months, then a stage manager for a month, then returned to temping. Because she knows "very little of computers," she doesn't land high-end, technically advanced temp gigs, but because she's "socially capable—which a lot of temps are not," she says she's frequently in demand for administrative assistant spots: "The fact that I can smile and nod—and I know that sounds silly—seems to be my biggest asset at some companies."
Such jobs took time to find: "In the beginning, when I wasn't experienced, I took what the agency gave me—lots of filing and working around incompetent people—and I began feeling that being a well-greased cog was not what I went to college for. But you have to have an outlook: If you're going to ask me to file, I'm going to be the best file clerk ever. There's no point in temping if you're not willing to give it 100% of yourself."
Right now, Chapadjiev is temping at an "entertainment industry conglomerate" that she prefers not to name but that is, she says, "casting for some TV pilots. In this job, the hardest thing is working for this big company as well as, sometimes, working on my own stuff, and feeling like you're part of producing something that you don't necessarily respect very much."
But the whole key, she says, "is making the temp job work for you. For example, one of the big reasons why I was so excited about this temp job is because I'm writing a play and one of the characters is a business professional, so watching real business professionals came in handy. I figured I could sort of be a spy—I could see how these guys really work; I could listen to what they say; I could take note of how they say it. Like the phrase 'I'm all set.' It's a bit of lingo I didn't know. So while I'm doing my work, I'm doing my work."
In the end, Chapadjiev says taking a temp job is always a matter of "crossing your fingers and saying to yourself, 'If it feels right, take it.' " She says she has turned down jobs that didn't feel right to her, and, fortunately, she doesn't need to rely on a temp agency for health insurance because she maintains her own through other means. But temping, she concludes, "isn't only a means of survival. It's a means of learning on the job."
—Leonard Jacobs
Lori Faiella—Brush Up Your Skills
Positions Held: legal word processor
Skills Required: Microsoft Word, Excel, and PowerPoint, legal document management applications, typing at 85 wpm
Firms Worked For: Kleinberg, Kaplan, Wolff & Cohen and other law firms
When Lori Faiella was offered a full-time job as a legal word processor at Kleinberg, Kaplan, Wolff & Cohen in April, she jumped at the chance: "I'm working full-time because temp work was becoming less consistent, and I'm not waking up every morning wondering where I'm going to work." Faiella worked as a temp at the law firm for several months prior to receiving a full-time position.
She began temping as a legal word processor when she first arrived in New York in 1996. Faiella's previous experience working at a law firm in her native Pennsylvania provided her with the skills required by her first employment service, which she located via an advertisement in Back Stage, and allowed her to earn money from temping while looking for acting jobs. Faiella, who is the WorkShop Theater Company's marketing director and can be seen in the company's production of Tony Sportiello's "LOL" until Oct. 16, found temping to be useful for more than just paying the bills. "I think it helps with your people skills in general, and it makes you read people better," she says. "Acting is transient, so temping helps you to be more flexible on the job, because you're moving around to different spots."
She later transferred to Custom Staffing, where she began working more hours and bought health insurance. Custom Staffing also provided job training for Faiella when many law firms switched their computer software from WordPerfect to Microsoft Word.
Faiella's schedule has changed since she was temping. As a temp, she would often work the night shift so she could attend auditions during the day. As a full-time employee at Kleinberg, Kaplan, she works the day shift. However, she says, the law firm has been accommodating, allowing her to attend auditions.
The demands of both temping and acting hardly conflicted for Faiella when the economy was better. "That wasn't a problem when the economy was good, but work started to slow up a bit in the months before Sept. 11," she recalls. "When jobs became harder to find, it became so much harder to pursue auditions, because I was always looking for work." She knows many other former temps who have taken full-time jobs, but she's also noticed that although temp work is a bit scarce for most of the year, there are still numerous temp opportunities during the summer months, when full-time employees are on vacation.
Faiella offers numerous pieces of advice to actors who are affiliated with temporary employment services. "If you want to become a legal word processor, you need to brush up on your skills, because a lot of law firms run tests in-house and they're difficult," she says. "Also, you should register with a bunch of employment services to increase your chances of finding work, and call them to follow up. Eventually, one of those services will click with you and start sending you out on jobs, and that's the one that you'll probably end up working steadily with."
—Josh Hamerman
Nathan Halvorson—Expect a Tighter Market
Positions Held: mailroom, reception, data entry, administrative assistant, executive assistant, special projects, and seminar host
Skills Required: computers, reception for multiline phone operation, preparing expense reports, travel planning
Firms Worked For: Morgan Stanley, Bear Stearns, Moody's Investors Service, Lehman Brothers, Goldman Sachs, Credit Suisse First Boston.
Iowa-born and -educated Nathan Halvorson moved to New York City in January 1998 and immediately leaped into temping:
"The first year I was here, I did an internship, but I was broke and needed to get a job fast. I wasn't thinking so much about auditioning then. I had a couple of friends older than me from my school"—he attended the University of Northern Iowa and the Circle in the Square Theatre School—"and they sent me to their temp agency, Advantage Human Resourcing. I've been there ever since.
"I had to take a bunch of computer tests and typing tests when I first signed up," Halvorson adds. "I don't think I scored that well, but since I knew people that worked there, that carried some weight. I didn't get the highest-paying job, but over the course of years I've acquired more computer skills. I'm now a genius at Excel spreadsheets, and at first I didn't know anything about it."
Halvorson—an actor-director-producer whose most recent performance was in "Onion Girl" at this summer's New York International Fringe Festival—says he has found temp jobs harder to find.
"Temping hasn't been as reliable since Sept. 11. I used to always have a job. Nowadays it's tougher to get one, because with a tight economy, that's the first thing people cut in the budget. A lot of my friends have stopped temping; I have, too, on occasion. I used to be able to get a job every day—you'd call in and within half an hour or 45 minutes, they'd call and say go here. Every day I'd be in a different place. But not now. This week, I called in three times and there's been nothing. That's pretty normal now. So I try to get a gig for a month or more because you can't rely on day-to-day."
This year, Halvorson admits that he "got lucky." A friend who was working for Halvorson's former employers informed him that a worker was taking a four-month maternity leave. They hired Halvorson, and he worked at that job into the summer, leaving to do the Fringe Fest show.
The young actor says that temp work impinges less on his professional work now because he's a member of Actors' Equity Association.
"Now that I'm in Equity, it's easier to balance my schedule," he observes. "When I was on non-Equity calls, I was standing around all day waiting to audition. When you become Equity, you go line up for a call, get a time spot, and then can go to work and come back for the audition. I've found that works very well for me."
His temp service provides benefits, including health insurance, a 401K plan, and paid vacation days after working a certain number of hours. He says a happy discovery was learning that he received the money for those vacation days even if he didn't take them. He adds that he's not as concerned now about getting health insurance through the temp service, since he has health care through his Equity membership.
His service, as well as others he's dealt with, offers free training in computer skills, including Excel spreadsheets and PowerPoint, he notes, adding, "PowerPoint's the big thing now." He also comments that the "project-oriented" jobs pay more.
—Roger Armbrust
Melissa Hammans—Flexibility Is Important
Positions Held: receptionist, administrative assistant
Skills required: multiline phones, Microsoft Office applications
Firms Worked For: National Geographic, Liz Claiborne
One day, while temping at National Geographic, Melissa Hammans left for a 10 am audition for a production of "Always…Patsy Cline." "I had another administrative assistant cover the desk when I left," Melissa recalls. She expected to be away for little more than an hour, but then she was called back to sing at noon and called back again after that. She had to keep calling her office manager to let her know that she would be late getting back. Luckily, her co-workers were supportive. "I'll get it, I'll cover it, no problem, just get the gig," they told her. She didn't reappear till after 3 pm that afternoon.
Melissa arrived in New York from Indiana just over a year ago. Last October she registered with Manpower and this past June with Choice Personnel, two temp services: "I think it best to register with more than one, so you have more options." Short-term assignments are "good because it still allows you to audition. Long-term—money is secure, but you don't have the flexibility to audition as much. I've had both."
She started out waiting tables last September: "I hated it."
When she signed with Manpower, her first job required that she role-play with managers at an insurance company: "I was a disgruntled employee and they had to deal with me—so that was fun." She also worked at the International Fragrance Association: "They make smells," she laughs. Thus began Melissa's temp career as a receptionist.
She ended up temping at National Geographic for five months, subbing for a woman on maternity leave: "That was incredible. Just being exposed to the publishing and advertising [world]. I get to see so much of New York that I wouldn't get to see otherwise."
Another asset to office temping is the access to fax and copy machines and other office equipment: "It's a good way to kill two birds with one stone because you're making money, but at the same time you can work on scheduling auditions and getting your calendar in order." Melissa tries to schedule auditions around lunchtime. If there are two or three in a day, she takes the day off.
She says that she is content being a receptionist: "Manpower is incredible. I recommend them to all of my friends who are coming to the city. The people who work there are so nice."
Melissa calls in with her availability around twice a month. "I've been out of work for two weeks at a time. And not only does your bank account dwindle, but your spirit goes a little, too." On the other hand, when the work is steady, she begins to wonder, "What am I doing? Did I move to New York to work in an office, or did I move to New York to be on Broadway? I go back and forth with that sometimes, but you do have bills to pay and lessons to pay for and headshots to have taken."
Early on, she was offered a full-time position as an assistant to the vice president at a company with which she was temping. "That was really difficult to say no to," she admits.
She never knows how often she will be called: "Last week, I worked at two different places. The week before that, I was at Liz Claiborne for a whole week." Money is an issue: "I'm learning very quickly to be smart about my spending and my saving."
In late October, Melissa is off to Branson, Mo., with a show that lasts till mid-December. She's already let Manpower and Choice know when she'll be leaving—and when she'll be back.
—Wally Rubin
Randy Howk—Persistent Learning
Positions Held: presentation specialist, programming database operator, graphics specialist
Skills Required: Microsoft Office (Word, Excel, PowerPoint), Photoshop, Illustrator, Quark, CorelDRAW
Firms Worked For: advertising companies, financial industry
When actor Randy Howk isn't rehearsing the new comedy "Bash," opening Oct. 7 at the Red Room, he supports himself on the generous earnings a person with a plethora of high-end computer graphics skills makes. After recently increasing his rates, Howk now earns $30 per hour for normal graphics work and anywhere from $40-$55 per hour for interactive work, including Flash design, animation, and video editing.
"Temp agencies aren't interested if you have a graphic design or IT degree. They're interested in whether you can do the job. Pass their tests and they will send you out on assignments."
Howk currently temps in the financial and advertising industries, all of which utilize the Microsoft Office suite (Word, Excel, PowerPoint) and Adobe Photoshop. The more industry-specific presentation programs he uses are Quark (advertising) and CorelDRAW (financial).
If an actor lacks computer skills, Howk suggests taking $12-$15-per-hour receptionist positions, although he believes that learning Microsoft Office not only ensures employment in any economic climate, but increases your hourly rate by $8. "And when you think about it," Howk adds, "the more you make, the less you temp! Your time is valuable."
Growing up around computers freed him from the fear that often restricts beginners from diving in and learning unfamiliar computer programs. Howk encourages people who face that block: "Use the same persistence that you use for acting for temping as well—don't give up."
He began intensively teaching himself computer programs 10 years ago when he was living in Washington, D.C.: "I was starving and had no money, so I kept showing up to this temp service and practiced on their computers. I think they finally got sick of me, because one day they started sending me out on jobs." Howk also made use of the "Dummies" guidebook series, continuing his training at home. "But I recommend that someone starting out learn a different way than I did. I'm a quick learner, but it is easier to just take a class."
Although free training is harder to come by today, Howk says that services sometimes offer free on-site training, such as Custom Staffing, which taught him banking systems in one of its weekend courses: "If you want to find more temp services, I found tons of listings online at craigslist.com and monster.com. At one point, I was receiving 20 emails a day from each service I signed up for."
Without reservation, Howk says the ultimate draw to temping for an actor is the irreplaceable flexibility: "It's near impossible to find a regular well-paying job that allows you to take off the middle of the afternoon for an audition, or take a few months off to go do the things you actually like doing."
But he cautions new temps to stand firm against accepting less-than-fair pay rates: "The temp counselors are not your friends. They want to make a buck off of you, and vice versa. Like an agent, the service gets a percentage of your earnings, except a theatrical agent is set at 10% and temp agents can fluctuate that percentage depending on what you let them get away with."
While Howk promotes temping as an excellent way to support yourself and at the same time be an actor, he is careful to keep it from hindering his craft: "I know that I could make a lot more money doing what I do by temping full-time, but in showbiz we have to keep our real objective clear."
—Phoebe Kmeck
Mark O'Connell—Prefers Moving From Place to Place
Positions Held: administrative assistant, word processor
Skills Required: Microsoft Excel and Word, typing 70 wpm
Firms Worked For: investment banks
Like many actors, Mark O'Connell chose the temp route because it gives him "flexibility to pound the pavement." As he tells it, the challenge is to find work that is flexible, relatively lucrative, and not brain-deadening. O'Connell, who has been temping for four years with a host of agencies—first in the catering business and more recently as an administrative assistant for investment banks—much prefers the latter.
"Although the money was good and there was certainly flexibility with catering, you do not use your brain at all," he recalls. "Your attention becomes focused inward and you almost lose your ability to express yourself. How much expressiveness is called for in presenting shrimp?" he asks rhetorically, adding that the fallout from catering was getting in the way of giving a good audition. "I found it intrusive."
Temping in the office world, on the other hand, has been a positive experience. Within certain parameters, a level of thinking is required for his work, there is a degree of social interaction with his colleagues, and he has free time:
"I not only get the chance to read the paper and talk to people, I also have the time to send out my headshots from the office and use the computer email to target specific audiences I'm trying to reach for a play I'm producing.
"I even suspect I could get my bosses to contribute marketing materials if I asked," he continues. "Working in an office has facilitated my career."
O'Connell's own activities can never get in the way of his assigned tasks, he points out. And most important, a level of trust has to be established with his colleagues and superiors in order to be allowed to use office time for his own projects, not to mention taking a couple of hours off occasionally for an audition. It should be noted that O'Connell does not do that very often. At the moment, he admits, his attention is most focused on the play he is producing.
In any case, "you have to convince your bosses that you're not resentful about being at work and that you don't feel they're encroaching on your time and career," he says. "In fact, you have to make them believe that their concerns are your concerns and that the tasks they assign you are very interesting. Acting skills are required."
Finding the right temp gigs takes time, he says. "I signed up with many temp agencies before I found the ones that would work best for me. I talked to other actors to hear about the agencies they were using. And if they seemed to be doing pretty well, I'd sign up, too."
Although a downturn in the economy has had its impact on the temp jobs available, O'Connell says that for the most part—at least over the past year—he has not been affected and has been able to work 40 hours a week. "But I will not stay at any job more than a month. Over the past couple of years, I've probably been at over a dozen investment firms. I like moving from place to place because of the freedom."
Undoubtedly, O'Connell has marketing skills that are in demand. "I have a pretty good familiarity with such programs as Microsoft Excel and Word and I can type 70 words a minute," he says. "Anyone with those skills should not be making less than $17 an hour."
Interestingly, O'Connell is self-taught, training himself at home and on the job. He says that if he were in a show that required daytime rehearsals, for that period of time he would not be temping at all.
—Simi Horwitz
Paula Jean Rocheleau—Less Stress, More Creativity
Positions Held: word processor, administrative assistant
Skills Required: Microsoft Word, Excel, and PowerPoint, proofreading
Firms Worked For: Goldman Sachs, Dresdner Kleinwort Wasserstein, Video Monitoring Services
Temporary employment services provided Paula Jean Rocheleau with security and flexibility after she moved to New York to pursue her dream of becoming an opera singer. "I found a permanent job when I first moved to New York, but after I got established, I wanted to concentrate more on going to auditions, and temp work helped a lot," she recalls. "With temp work, I knew I had a job, and I knew that if I was lucky enough to get into a show, I could leave and I wouldn't feel as tied down as I would have with a permanent job."
Rocheleau began temping 10 years ago as an administrative assistant through a temporary employment service she found in Back Stage. However, she soon set her sights on becoming a word processor.
"Administrative assistant jobs are usually 9 to 5, but word processing shifts go around the clock," Rocheleau says. "As a word processor, you can work the graveyard shift and go to auditions during the day, and the pay is better. You can also trade shifts with other word processors to fit your schedule. The availability of different shifts makes it an excellent job to have as a temp and as a performer."
Rocheleau found that in addition to greater flexibility and higher pay, word processing offered less stress and a creative outlet. "In financial institutions, word processors are usually assigned to work in back rooms or corners and you only have contact with the bankers, so it's a more relaxed atmosphere," she says. "You don't have to be anxious because you're meeting with a client or anything like that. Word processing can also be creative, because lots of times you'll be given presentations to work on and you'll be told to use your own judgment to make it look great."
For the past three years, Rocheleau has relied on Custom Staffing (which she located through Back Stage) for temp work. After her first skills test for the employment service, Rocheleau was provided with a free one-week computer course that focused on Microsoft Word, Excel, and PowerPoint.
The married mother of two daughters started working for Goldman Sachs in March after taking time off to stay home with her youngest child, who is now one year old. Goldman Sachs provided Rocheleau with three weeks of paid on-the-job training and is also equipped with emergency daycare for employees whose regular daycare programs close for the day. Although Rocheleau and her husband can afford daycare, she notes that parents who are less fortunate can work alternate shifts to spend time with their children. "If a family is unable to put their kids in daycare, one parent can work an early shift and the other parent can work a late shift," she says.
Rocheleau might accept a permanent word-processing position with Goldman Sachs in the near future. She is also looking forward to performing as an associate chorus member in City Opera's 2005 production of "Carmen." Her colleagues at Goldman Sachs have been very understanding of her rehearsal and performance schedule. "I told them up front when I first got my contract with them that I might need to work around my obligations for 'Carmen,' " she says. "They've been very accommodating. I'm in the repertory, so I might only have one performance of 'Carmen' per week after it opens."
She strongly recommends that actors think of temporary employment service interviews as auditions. "Employment services are basically doing the same thing as casting directors," Rocheleau says. "They're trying to find the right people to fill the jobs."
—Josh Hamerman
Jen Ryan—Apply Your Skills as an Actor
Positions Held: office manager, administrative assistant
Skills Required: Microsoft Office, Medical Manager computer programs
Firms Worked For: various doctors and medical practices
When Jen Ryan was busy casting her leading man for the show she wrote and was about to perform in at the New York International Fringe Festival this past summer, she brought the headshots into work one day. She planned on going through them during lunch, but was understandably nervous. The play was about the life of Leni Riefenstahl, the notorious documentarian of the Third Reich.
She thought her co-workers might think she was crazy: "I'm doing this play about a woman who made movies for Hitler. How is that going to look?" Particularly since she temps at medical offices. Instead, the office manager insisted that she get to see all the photographs as well, asking questions ("How was his audition?") and offering her two cents ("This one is cute").
In the main, Jen has not had a problem juggling her temp work with her life as an actress and writer: "Ideally, you could go on auditions whenever you wanted. Ideally, you'd have a boss who wouldn't care, who would be thrilled you got a part on 'Law & Order.' That's not always the case, obviously. The bottom line is, you've got to pay your rent, and unless they're paying you to audition, sometimes it's not worth your time. You just have to weigh it. I'm generally upfront with the people I work with. Nine times out of 10, I've found that businesses in New York are just very amenable to it. I've never had anybody say to me, 'No, you can't go on that audition.' They think it's pretty neat: 'Oh, my goodness, you're going on an audition, how great!' "
When Jen arrived in New York from Florida three years ago, she had a permanent job lined up. But after Sept. 11, she lost it and began temping through the Larkin Employment Agency for "all kinds of doctors—any number of different fields," from an ob/gyn to dermatologists and gastroenterologists. She learned medical billing programs, which she said were "pretty easy to learn. I think you can learn pretty much any computer program just by sitting with it and learning on it for a while."
She thinks that "skills as an actor apply to every part of life" and that it is most important to have a "good professional attitude." Particularly in a medical environment, often dealing with people not feeling well, "surly doesn't work."
One of the offices she worked for started calling her "their own personal temp. That happens quite a bit. That's an ideal situation. Go in through a temp agency for a short-term assignment, really get along with the people in the office, and it turns into a long-term situation."
Working temp, Jen says, "there are no typical months." She found the Larkin service through a classified ad, but said that other actors are a good source of information about other temp services to try (or to avoid): "There are a lot of losers out there who make empty promises." She usually checks in with her temp services the first of every week. She has no preference between long- and short-term assignments: "The more different assignments, the more skills I can pick up."
Meanwhile, there is what she calls her "Leni Show," the full name of which is "The Incredible, All-True Leni Riefenstahl Show." Jen first tried writing it as a screenplay, but after Leni Riefenstahl died last year at the age of 101, a friend convinced her to try reworking it as a play. When the Fringe Festival ended, Jen Ryan was named a winner of the FringeNYC 2004 outstanding performance award. Wait till her patients and co-workers at the doctor's office hear about this!
—Wally Rubin
Rob Seitelman—Gaining Skills That Help Your Acting
Positions Held: receptionist, assistant account manager
Skills Required: Word, Excel, Internet research, billing
Firms Worked for: Carnegie Hall, Maximum Impact
If you ask Rob Seitelman what skills from his acting training he brings to his temp work, he responds, "Having an eye for the way that people interact really helps in understanding office politics and finding a pretty easy way to stay out of it."
For instance, one day he was working on a project with one of his supervisors. When Rob left work that day, he left the file for the project on his desk, but the next morning it was no longer there. He looked everywhere but in the supervisor's office, which was off-limits. When the supervisor came in, he insisted that Rob had it last. Rob knew that the file must be in the supervisor's office. "Before my acting training, I would have marched in and confronted him on it. Instead, I waited till he went to lunch and I asked the president to go into his office. She found it and gave it to me and she told him that she had had it. He's a very proud person. The cues I picked up from watching people and from my acting training, I could tell. She knew that, too."
On the other hand, Rob has gained valuable skills from temping: "The need to be organized, the ability to plan things out, to be thorough in every aspect of your project, to take a project from its initial conception through dealing with clients and vendors, seeing it through to distribution—I think [these] are incredibly applicable to one's acting. It's really helped me because I have a habit of being complacent and lazy. Having to get into the city every morning and be there has made me audition more frequently. It's made me have to be more focused and on the ball."
Rob just arrived in New York last May from American Conservatory Theater in San Francisco. He had some computer skills but no experience. At first, temp services wouldn't see him, but through a friend, he hooked up with AppleOne. His first job was at Carnegie Hall, as a "school liaison" for a youth orchestra festival. The next week, he was called to work as a receptionist at Maximum Impact, a promotional marketing firm, and has been with them ever since.
The downside is that though his responsibilities have changed and grown, his job title (and his paycheck, still through AppleOne) haven't. The upside is the company allows Rob "incredible flexibility. After the first day, they wanted me to come back indefinitely. I said, 'That's great, but you need to know that I'm an actor and have auditions and callbacks and hopefully rehearsals and performances.' Luckily, the president of the company happens to also produce films, and she was extremely understanding."
On average, he goes to three auditions a week. He tries to give his office a schedule "for the week in advance" of what he is planning to do. For EPAs, he will go and sign up before work for the last available appointment in the day (usually around 4:45 pm) and then head for the office. If he has a call that his agent has arranged, he might sacrifice the EPA and go into work early instead.
In June, Rob did his first commercial, and he has just begun rehearsals for a new musical, "Talk of the Town," that the Peccadillo Theatre Company is doing at the Bank Street Theatre this November. The musical is about the Algonquin Round Table and Rob plays Alexander Woollcott. Hmmm… One wonders if even Woollcott, with all his verbal agility, could have handled that missing project file as cleverly as Rob.
—Wally Rubin
Danny Wiseman—Working More, Sleeping Less
Positions Held: graphics specialist
Skills Required: Microsoft Word, Excel, and PowerPoint, Microsoft Video
Firms Worked For: Goldman Sachs, Smith Barney
Danny Wiseman is always the first actor in line for auditions. He doesn't camp out in front of casting offices; he just manages to arrive very early. Wiseman's flexible work schedule as a temporary graphics specialist at Goldman Sachs is behind his ability to be at the head of the line. His current hours at the company are Tuesday to Saturday from 11 pm-7 am, and he wears clothes that resemble those of the characters he auditions for to work.
"You've got to work if you want to eat," he says. "My hours aren't that bad, actually. I just think I've gotten used to not having a lot of sleep. If I wasn't at this job, then I'd be working the graveyard shift somewhere else."
For the past five years, Wiseman has worked on and off as a temp with Custom Staffing. One of the Texas native's friends recommended the temporary employment service to him in 1999. "I like being at Custom Staffing because they're well-respected and they're very selective about who they pick," he says. "Companies that work with them might be willing to pay temps more because they know they're getting the best."
Wiseman, whose brother is a computer programmer, took books out of the library and taught himself how to use Microsoft Word, Excel, and PowerPoint. His studying paid off when he took his Custom Staffing skills test, and he later took advantage of the employment service's on-the-job training.
His friend's recommendation also helped him become a Custom Staffing temp. "Getting a job as a temp is a lot like getting a job in acting—it's who you know," he says. "If you have a friend who works with a temp service, that's one of the best avenues to take."
Wiseman admits to using his acting abilities as a graphics specialist. "Being an actor is useful because in any job you need to be able to put on a happy face, go with the flow, and improvise at times," he says.
Although he has temped during night shifts in the past, his 40-hour week at Goldman Sachs (where he has been employed for over a month) is new. He's also noticed several key changes in the graphics specialty field since his first temp job in 1999. "There aren't nearly as many graphics specialists as there used to be," he says, "The workload has also increased. I used to have less work and I was much more rested and relaxed."
Wiseman, who sang in "The Barry Z Live Variety Show" at the Gramercy Theatre on Sept. 27, is happy with one particular perk he receives from Goldman Sachs: a car service that drives him to and from work.
—Josh Hamerman
