I have been having a conversation with a very talented and once quite successful friend about his inclination to return to the musical theatre stage after an almost ten year hiatus in the 9-5 corporate world. This inclination apparently resulted from a particularly potent burst of (of all things) shower-singing. He claims (and I don’t believe him, but the story is better this way) that once he made the decision to give up the stage he essentially quit singing, cold-turkey, even in the shower (mm-hm). But recently, his stage-diva heart broke through his well-crafted armor, and he broke down and sang his lungs out, and apparently something essential shifted inside and he suddenly and deeply and painfully missed it.
Since then, he has been timidly inquiring about the present state of the Chicago theatre scene. His equity card is long defunct and he is carrying a ten year gap in his performance resume. He asked if I thought he was nuts for considering a return to the stage at the old age of 35.
“Of course you’re nuts. Don’t do it,” I told him. ”Unless, of course, you can’t live without it.”
A day or so later, I found myself thinking about my own pronouncement. Being the artistic director of a theatre company with very limited resources more often than not places the artist in the backseat to the detail manager. Amongst cash-flow questions and budget resources, season planning, strategy retreats, rights acquisitions, casting, production staffing and networking, I find myself with very little time to remember why the hell I chose to do this . . . why I can’t live without it.
I can point to an onstage moment almost twenty years ago when my geeky teenage life was broken open by the first of a series of I-Can’t-Live-Without-This moments. The moment occurred while singing the final bars of the “Moonfall (Reprise)” in the latter half of the Mystery of Edwin Drood. Standing in the arms of a pretty teenage soprano, we blasted our untrained lungs into the darkness beyond edge of the stage. And it was in that instant that I sensed for the first time, that perfect, widescreen silence between our final notes and the eruption of the applause. And it was that tiny moment of pure, church-like silence that stopped me in my adolescent tracks. To me, that silence was proof that something real and good had been exchanged between myself and the audience, and in that brief moment of silence, we had been somehow unified; sharing an experience that was full and warm and giving and true. I felt generous and at home in that silence. I felt I had given a small, deep gift, and that gift had been accepted with grace and humility, without the clutter of politics. It was a powerful, deeply human moment of connection, and it spoke to something missing in my everyday encounters with everyday people.
Twenty years and two degrees later, that silence still profoundly motivates me. And the perfect expression of that unifying silence alludes me, thank God, so I keep looking for it in the stories I choose to tell. I tell stories in the theatre because the theatre allows a sonorous silence of unity to explode in a room full of disparate, noisy creatures.
It is difficult to talk about something that is without sound or color, something so rich and so personal. But there it is. It is why I cannot live without it.
So what I want to know is: Why can’t you live without it? I want to hear your story.
“Can’t live without it” makes it sound like an addiction to me. “Why does it feed your soul?” seems a bit less desperate. I think everyone gets into theatre as an escape. That escape (if based on love and not need) morphs into a desire to tell stories, to inspire and to feel the satisfaction of entertaining, inspiring and enticing an audience to think and question. For me, I look to inspire conversation; to inspire thought. Simple as that. That is why it feeds my soul.
From the moment I read this blog I thought: “huh, how do I know that I can’t live without it?” I could remember no specific moment — no spark — that thrust me into such an industry. However, what I do remember is the support I received from my family. Cheesy? Maybe. But when I was in college, I had a number of friends who only minored in theatre because their parents wanted them to have some sort of ‘stability.’ “Something to fall back on.” As I listened to my friends struggle to tell their parents that they want to do what makes them happy and that a successful arts career is possible, I counted myself among the lucky ones. Growing up with a single parent and two siblings, I watched my mother take a lot of jobs, but most importantly, she would not work somewhere that she wasn’t happy. She encouraged me to do the same. She knew that my character and know-how is what would carry me through my work, not that a certain industry would bring me down or keep me from being successful.
Our society is completely willing to be entertained by the actors, directors, designers, and technicians that it doesn’t want it’s children to become. Stop living out of fear people and support your children to be what they can be and not what you wish you were or what you think will make them secure. Because really, it is your own needs you are trying to fill.
Jason — I like your phrasing of “feeding the soul.” But I would have to respectfully disagree that ‘everyone gets into theatre as an escape.’ Not only are vast generalizations dangerous, but if you believe the former statement, isn’t that desperation at its height? Needing an escape, wanting something to fill a hole/void/soul. In my opinion, that is even more desperate than the casual question of “Why can’t live without it?”
Kim- Thanks for the discussion.
The idea of feeding a soul was not meant to be negative. We feed ourselves for all kinds of reasons; to live, for enjoyment, for entertainment. We even eat sometimes when we are full.
I will stand by my statement that beginners in the business are looking to escape. We are pretending to be other people for goodness sake. No bigger escape than that, eh? But as people mature and stay around the business I believe a true sense of love for storytelling emerges. Vast generalizations are dangerous and my apologies if you felt I was reckless with that statement, but I call ‘em like I see ‘em. After 15 years of being in and around this life I feel safe in saying theatre people (actors) find theatre to fill a void. That, to me, is not a bad thing. That is how most people find their calling…or that at which they can excel.
Kim- Going back over this blog I need to make a correction. The idea of “escape” was not meant to be negative. Escape is a healthy thing if done correctly. We escape into a good movie or favorite book to refresh and recharge ourselves. We escape from the city for a weekend into the woods of Wisconsin because the city doesn’t give us the same things as nature. So escape is not only healthy, it is a necessary part of human life. Without escape we’d be stagnant. Escape becomes unhealthy when our escape compromises the quality of our life and the lives around us.
I think the reasons why people enter the world of theatre are as varied as the people themselves. But why do we *stay*? It is nearly (nearly) impossible to make a living doing what we do, our audiences are shrinking and getting older, and the personal demands of growing older sometimes make the logistics of producing theatre a titanic effort. But people do stay. And moreover, like my friend, they *come back*, after stepping away for ten years. They come back after learning that something inside them won’t let them live without it.
Why haven’t we given up? Why do we keep coming back?
Indeed, I like your assessment of feeding the soul. As you noted, what I disagreed with was the ‘escape’ part, moreover what I disagreed with was the generalization of all people into one pot. As Matt noted, reasons for people joining the arts industry are as different as the patterns on their faces. And while I agree with you that we all need to put down our laptops and take a breath once in a while, those can be called escapes (at times), but not always. Let me know if I am taking you too literally, but I believe it is extremely projective to say that all people begin their careers looking for escape.
Perhaps this is pretty much a matter of semantics on my part. Or it seems you are speaking mostly from the standpoint of actors and directors? Maybe our definitions are just plainly different. But I can surely tell you I don’t roll out of bed every morning, ride an hour on the train to my arts job and think “thank god I escaped today.” I’m thinking, “I’m living today.”
Right Kim but that is your job. For those who don’t make a living at art, it is an escape to live and breath ’cause that is what makes them love life. Very few folks say “Gotta go do a stupid play tonight when I’d rather (insert normal daily task here).”
I really hit a nerve with you on the generalization idea and for that I mean no offense. I was looking to tie folks together with a common motivation. Sure folks are different, but we all share common emotions and motivations for actions. Its why a room of people from all walks of life can come together in a dark room while watching a play. We all share basic needs, desires, and goals…in my opinion.
Hi there folks. An interesting question, to which I can only say ” what else would I do?”. This has been something I’ve been struggling with as the possibility of relocation with Jess has come into the picture. I stay because this is the only thing that has ever made me happy, or ” feed my soul”. Of course, I also make my (measly) living in the field. I guess it comes down to a fundamental belief that this is what I am supposed to do…and also why I got an MFA. My brother, who also makes his living in theatre, has just announced his intention to leave. Which is shocking and sad, but I guess he just lost the faith. I’m not a religious person, but I definitely have faith in the necessity and power of theatre, which is all it really takes, in my humble opinion.
I think why I can’t live without theater is best stated in how I started to answer Matt’s query: “The simple answer for why I can’t live without family is…”
In theater I have found the people that will be a part of my family for the rest of my life because I can not dare to live without them. They have seen me at my happiest, most creative, and glorious moments and seen me through the most frustrating, angry, confusing, tired, and stressful times. I have stayed in theater (through some rather intense, humbling, and crushing moments) because the people that are drawn to the arts understand the importance of coming together and creating something that is bigger than a single person.
Every time the audience claps or after the show someone comes up to me to say how they liked it/how it affected them I feel an immense amount of pride for everyone that put something of themselves into the show. It’s that feeling that I never want to lose…an unabashed feeling of joy for someone else’s accomplishment knowing that because of my work they were able to be at their best, and knowing that they often have the same feeling for me.
I should also say that as a stage manager I am able to do something that I am good at, and happily get to geek out on my rather ridiculous organizational skills, without having to sacrifice who I am.
Well, I am certainly ready to let this go. I think that our idea of who we are even talking about is skewed. I didn’t realize that you are talking about artists who have day jobs that are not in the industry and then spend all of their spare time cultivating their art (for escape). Or taking jobs that they don’t particularly like so they can have time to do what they love, even if it’s not the American dream of making tons of money and living in the suburbs. At that, I agree with you.
Until the next blog…
@Brandon W:
I don’t know your brother, but I certainly can say from experience that people don’t always leave a career in theatre because we “lost the faith.” I left theatre as a career because I wasn’t good enough or committed enough to make the sacrifices required to be an actor. And, no, that doesn’t mean I lost faith in myself, either. I learned about myself and made a choice, which is not the same thing. And through it all, I never lost faith in theatre. I found faith in other things (I realized that business can change the world for the better, too).
But now, I’m back. In a very different role. As a strategist and a board member and somebody who has learned a thing or two about marketing and finance, I actually can do more for a theatre company than I EVER could have done as an actor. I count that as a victory for self-knowledge. And faith.
Why did I find my way back? Because I never forgot how great it is to play around in a dark room with crafty people. I never stopped missing the camaraderie of theatre that was simply unmatched by a downtown happy hour. Because I just can’t make it fit in my head that I should be in bed by 10 or 11pm. I still feel like I’m theatre people, I guess.
What a beautiful discussion—I hope it’s not to late for me to chime in. Before being an actress I wanted to be a pilot. Both careers sounded incredibly difficult, as well as challenging and exciting (though the dollars added up differently). But it just worked out that before getting into a cockpit, I got on stage. My first moment of, “oh my god, what was that surreal channel of energy—magic? faith? absolute connection?, I want to do this forever” caught me by complete surprise. I loved that this place of theatre, in my heart and in the hearts of others, was open to me even if I was young and brand new to the space. I didn’t know what equity meant or anything about Steppenwolf, but I left show after show stunned by the shared energy. Both as a recipient and a spectator (is there really such a thing?), I’ve experienced that magic. There is nothing better than taking in a show and being reminded of why we do what we do—the selfless giving and the sacrifices—because ultimately it’s about that other person needing to hear your story on the other end. I hope I can always keep this core belief, even as I’m working hard to make this passion a career.