DEAR JACKIE:
Are there theatre companies that hire actors to be members for an entire season or even longer, as opposed to hiring only on an as-needed basis? I'm willing to look in other places besides New York, Chicago, and Los Angeles to make my living as an actor, and I'd like to become a member of a theatre company that has a core family of actors they use for their productions.
I have my MFA and can teach for the educational division of the company or at a nearby college or university during the day while performing at night. I'm 49 and accept the fact that the career I envisioned at 20 or 30 may not become a reality. What I can't accept, however, is the thinking that just because my career didn't work out in one way, I have to give up the craft and art form that I have practiced, trained in, and grown to love so much.
—Actor for Life
via the Internet
DEAR ACTOR:
I commend your willingness to look outside the typical box to create a rewarding life in the theatre. Piecing together a career in a smaller market is not easy, but by no means is it impossible. It's not likely, however, to be as streamlined as you imagine. There are theatre companies that work with a regular group of actors, but as you would expect, they are difficult to break into and don't usually provide the stability you crave.
While in graduate school at the National Theatre Conservatory, which works extensively with the Denver Center Theatre Company, I saw up close the benefits of an arrangement like the one you describe. Although the company didn't guarantee steady work and it employed many New York performers, it regularly used the same five or six actors in leading roles. Many of those actors had come to town with the then–artistic director and lived in Colorado full time, benefiting from consistent casting. Yet even there, I heard grumblings from those lucky few that they could never be sure whether that particular season would be their last. Recently a new artistic director has taken up residency, and several of those Denver theatre fixtures have moved on to other climes. It seems even the steadiest of acting gigs is far from permanent.
This is the big issue, isn't it? The span of a theatre actor's career is closely tied to how long he or she is willing to live a gypsy lifestyle. I'm not implying a steady regional living can't be made or that there aren't actors who comfortably ride the tide at a particular theatre company; it's just a very difficult feat to pull off. The working theatre actors I know—and by that I mean the ones who work regularly in esteemed Equity theatres—continuously hopscotch the country to make a living. They don't own homes, have children, or plan much further than a season ahead.
I asked two of them to weigh in on your question. "As far as I know, most regional theatres don't use a permanent company anymore," said the first. "I freelance out of New York City, so the theatres I work for job out their actors from New York or L.A. Some companies that seem to have a steady company with consistent casting are Oregon Shakespeare, Trinity Rep, Alabama Shakes, Utah Shakes, and Seattle Rep, which uses a lot of local Seattle actors. Unfortunately, with shrinking budgets and shrinking audiences, more and more theatres are doing co-productions and using smaller casts."
"There are very few places that I know of that hold a steady company, and the places that I've seen have a very small group that are considered company members," said the second. He named some of the same places listed above, adding Steppenwolf, Milwaukee Rep, and Pacific Conservatory of the Performing Arts. "PCPA is one of the only theatres I've come across to have a full-time faculty that teaches at their conservatory and also composes the core acting company. That's very rare."
Jerry Lapidus, who spent years working with developing theatres for Actors' Equity Association and currently serves as the company manager at Seaside Music Theater in Florida, was similarly discouraging. " 'Actor for Life' is looking for the dream of regional theatre that no longer exists, if indeed it ever did," he writes in an email. "This was the idea behind the whole regional theatre movement and the development of the League of Regional Theatres (LORT). The concept was that theatres would hire permanent companies of actors, who would move to the surrounding cities, work regularly at the theatre, and have, you know, a real life, rather than just being hired as 'stock' players for a show or a tour. This is pretty much gone, even for the few theatres that once had it. Some theatres today at least try to hire for a season, if not individual shows, but that's usually the best one can hope for."
As bleak as this might sound, don't let it get you down. There are tons of companies out there that operate in all sorts of ways. Begin actively pursuing a home that works for you and your career. You can read theatre profiles in American Theatre magazine and online, but your best bet is to put the word out and follow your existing leads. You'll find that many of the companies loyal to a consistent group of talent are smaller, less-known organizations. You may be able to find an artistic home that can't offer you a financial one. Can you make a situation like that work? Would you consider a day job? You mentioned teaching as part of a company, but have you considered teaching in an educational institution—taking advantage of acting opportunities inside the college and town of your employment? You can pursue a scaled-down theatre career anywhere in the country, even New York City. Without the glow of Hollywood or Broadway obscuring your view, you might find settling in to a nice acting scene easier than it sounds.
Lapidus shares my enthusiasm for creatively patching together your dreams. "The good news is that there are communities in which a talented performer—especially someone like Actor for Life, who has other skills—can work reasonably regularly in a variety of theatres," he writes. "Places like Atlanta, Washington, Minneapolis, Seattle, Miami, and many more have a host of theatres that have grown up around and alongside longstanding LORT theatres, and an actor can make a living going from one to another as cast, supplemented by film, TV, print, and educational work."
You may not end up with the career you envisioned, but with research, flexibility, and creative thinking, you can end up content.