Should I Quit My Day Job?

You probably remember Didi Conn’s portrayal of Frenchy in Grease. Recall that, on a whim, Frenchy quit Rydell High in order to attend beauty school. Within weeks, she’d failed every class and given herself hot pink hair. Even Frankie Avalon had to come out of the clouds to chastise her for being a “beauty school dropout” before telling her to go back to high school.

Frenchy made a rash decision. If you have to think about quitting your day job for show business, you shouldn’t do it. Well, unless you want to follow Frenchy’s poor example. I’ve talked to several performing artists—be they actors, writers or musicians—and they’ve all said they must perform. They are struggling to get a break while surviving anyway they can. You’ve never heard of them. That’s the point. Thousands of actors get barely enough credits to merit inclusion in the Screen Actors Guild casting book then pay the SAG dues every year until their friends and family tell them, “Quitting your day job for show business wasn’t a good idea.”

You’ve seen the long lines at auditions for American Idol and other reality TV talent shows. Do you think those 100,000 people each spent a weekend enduring that audition as a lark? Of course not. They were trying to get noticed by someone who could advance their careers.

I understand your dilemma. I once wanted to work in radio. I was going to be the next Howard Stern or Jim Rome. I was asked by people in the business if I could be happy doing anything else. If so, I should go do that instead because I’d otherwise find radio far too difficult to succeed.

Before you commit to quitting your day job for show business, ask yourself if you have a backup plan. If so, you know the answer to your question. My struggling artist friends don’t have a “Plan B.” They would be forever unhappy if they were doing anything else.

Voice Over Jobs

The first thing to understand about professional voice work is that it isn’t easy to get. The people who get voice over jobs not only have good–or great–voices, they are excellent self-promoters. If you are lucky enough to gain representation by an agency, then most of the promotion will fall to them, but the majority of voice over jobs are done in private studios or radio stations, in cities and small towns, by folks who also have a “day job.” And we all started somewhere.

The first, and most important thing you’ll need to pursue voice work is a demo. A demo is a recording, approximately 90 seconds long, that showcases what your voice can do. Do you do goofy cartoon voices? Celebrity impressions? Put it on there. Can you sound like a TV mom? A news anchor? A sportscaster? Put in on there. If you don’t already work in radio or TV and are a true do-it-yourself-er, you can transcribe commercials that fit the type of copy you want to read and use that, or write your own. Because the demo is only a maximum 90 seconds, you only need a short sample of each.

If getting voice over jobs for yourself or your child is your dream and you’re willing and able to make an upfront financial commitment, I recommend looking into taking workshops at an audio studio where you live. Be wary of places that want tons and tons of money, but a little professional knowledge isn’t a bad thing. Most studios offer a beginners class that will acquaint you with the basics of what goes on at auditions, including unfamiliar terminology that directors might fling at you, and how to increase your comfort level behing the microphone. Many of these workshops will also allow you to spend time in the booth recording actual commercials, or “spots,” which you will be able able to take with you. This, then, will become that much needed demo material. Again, depending on finances, you may also want to take a workshop specifically designed for demo production. Taking classes also allows you to meet and build a rapport with people working in the industry in your town. It allows them to hear you without pressure to hire you. If they like what they hear, they will know how to reach you. However, do not be lured into believing that in order to be successful you need to take every class available. Skills can be honed, but talent cannot be taught. And the best way to hone skills is through using them, i.e.: work.

Once you have the all-important demo, it’s up to you to plot your course for adventure. The Internet makes this much simpler than it was when I started out twentysomething years ago. I would recommend creating a letter of introduction–interesting, but not alarming–and emailing or snail-mailing your demo to every ad agency, marketing firm, audio studio, book-on-CD publisher, and talent agency you can locate in your area. It is true that much voice work can be done remotely, but until you have a relevant resume and some work under your belt, I’d stick close to home. If you know people who work for or volunteer with non-profit groups, let them know of your ambitions: non-profits often need volunteers to record public services announcements or ads for big events. You might not get paid, but you’d get on the air, and ad something to your resume.

As I said at the beginning, voice over jobs are not always plentiful. There are those who will make it big, doing movie trailers, animated films, and national commercials, and those of us who will have to be content with the thrill of extra money and hearing our voices on the radio. Thing is, you won’t know which one you’ll be unless you take those first steps…

Small Theater Acting

A small theater acting production is probably some of the great places art can originate. Usually it’s on a shoestring budget, the talent is top-notch because they’re unknowns, and the whole crew has to make something spectacular with little or no resources. Five years ago, I wrote, produced and directed a feature length play called THE SHOP. In short it was about a young man who falls in love with a girl but is afraid to tell her the truth about his past. The young man’s family is involved in the mafia and the butcher shop that is owned by the young man’s uncle is the front for illegal activities. I wrote four drafts and when the forth draft came out, I wrote one more to compensate for the location I was in. It was a student production, and we had use of a small theater. Small theater acting in my experience is more intmate because the audience is right in your fave. The theater I used, was small and had use of folding chairs for seats, a CD player for a sound system, and a rusty typewriter that was left in the theater that I actually recycled and used as a prop. My budget was very shoestring and in the budget included advertising (flyers and programs), some costumes, music, props, and some equipment. I paid for all of this out of own pocket because this was my vision and my dream. I was fortunate enough to have my show in a theater department; I had access to their lighting equipment and costumes. That helped a great deal. We were on a tight rehearsal schedule too; I had my theater for the performances but not to rehearse. So I begged and pleased with the administration to give me a room and they found an empty classroom on the nights we had to rehearse. The restrictions of the room were awful there was no real way I could properly rehearse and we had to maintain our suspension of disbelief. But limited resources means that the project either flourishes or diminishes. Regardless if I had to rehearse in a boxcar or something, I knew that my direction to every actor had to be there. So I spent equal amount of time with every actor that worked with me. I gave them all the respect in the world especially since they were doing this for me for nothing (no pay). What they were doing it for was to express themselves artistically and their reward was in the end the applause of the audience. Small theater is so worth it on so many levels. The exposure is there, with my show I had so many sold out nights with just word of mouth that made it worth it. The craft, to actually go out on stage with usually unsolicited or fresh new material is exciting to any actor.

And the experience and the bonding with the cast and crew, you work together for months on something that starts as a table-read and works it out to be a complicated larger than life 3D version of what’s on the page, it creates a bonding. Where everybody is working and taking on extra tasks to get the project done and looking the best it can be. Relationships form and long last friendships could prevail, I met my wife on the set of THE SHOP, and I never regret doing that show.

 One anecdote that I found amusing about the power of being a “director,” the theater that I had the show in actual doubled for a classroom, and as a show of faith to me the teacher actually had her theater students help me unload folding chairs for my performance. As we were unloading the chairs a young girl came up to me, unbeknownst to her who I was, said we should just pile them up against the wall and who would care anyway. I responded, that I would. She looked puzzled at me and asked who I was. I smiled and said the director and she immediately apologized to me. For that one second it felt good to have that kind of power.

            Small stage is not a small world, it’s bigger, better and meatier than any clichéd thing that you could find on your main stage. Small theater acting is all worth it.

How Hard Is It To Get A Job On Broadway?

Getting a job on Broadway these days is harder than it ever was before. Regular plays no longer seem to happen at all; they’re all big show musicals. Even worse, most of them are now based on movies, believe it or not. For instance, the Dolly Parton movie, Nine to Five, is being made into a musical. I love the movie, but I frankly don’t understand why someone decided to turn it into a play.
On top of all this, it seems as though movie actors are getting roles on Broadway more and more often. Some plays seem as if they are “star vehicles” for actors who are already big on the national scene.
That’s just not right. That’s not what Broadway used to be about. There once was a time when getting a job on Broadway was relatively simple if you had talent. And I’m not just talking about the acting roles; writers could create works of art and put them on the stage and gain national followings. Those were the days of Arthur Miller and Tennessee Williams, the great American playwrights. Nowadays, the most popular new musicals are schlock; pure entertainment plays like Mamma Mia! with no artistic merit.
And the worst part is that in this terrible economy, no producer wants to take a chance on anything. There’s a lot of work that goes into a production of say, Les Misérables, what with the costumes and the barricades and the rotating stage and all the techies that need to be hired, and producers in this economy would rather spend less money on sets and techies and “goodness” and more money on getting Hollywood stars to bring in the audience to see some schlock play that really isn’t very good. This makes it virtually impossible to get a job on Broadway if you’re unknown. Of course, David Mamet is still out there writing, but he’s about the last of the playwrights who could possibly write an original, non-musical play and have it performed by stage actors. Everything else has become like an insurance risk; if it’s unknown it won’t be produced. Broadway has become worse than Hollywood. At least Hollywood gave us Juno.