Letters to the Editor
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just do it but also face reality
Just to throw my own story into the "been there, kiddo" stew, so the LW maybe feels less alone:
I was already pursuing a desire to write fiction as best I could while maintaining a reasonably stable life. I finished my MFA, got married, kept working on the book I'd started in grad school while doing freelance journalism to make ends meet and to keep my hard-working husband from feeling I was a deadbeat. Got terribly bogged down in the novel--its ambitions far outstripped my abilities--and right around the same time I was caught in a cycle of trying/failing/trying/failing to get pregnant. Writerly ambitions were stalled, hormonal fertility treatments made me suicidal, marriage was on the rocks, and then somewhat out of the blue, my childhood love of musical performance started haunting me again. Clearly I was trying to escape the present horrible moment, but in any case, I used piano and singing practice to procrastinate on my fiction, then discovered a late-blooming interest in and talent for jazz improvisation, and then almost ditched the husband and the whole baby-making craziness to become some kind of NYC-bound jazz nun. Luckily lots of therapy, couples counseling, and the act of quitting the fertility business (we decided to adopt instead) resulted in more sane decisions. Years later I now have one lovely child and a spot on the agency waiting list for another, a strong, battle-tested marriage, and a modest side-career as a local professional musician. And slowly I do a little writing, too, but without getting too nuts about it.
I know I'm incredibly lucky to have such a life. BUT (and this is the same point others have made) I also know I'll never be as technically good as I might have been if I'd started as a teenager, know I'll never be famous or get big recording label support, know I can't go on tour with small children at home, know that even if I finish one novel it may take ten years and be the only one. I've had to temper my desires and dreams with a big dose of reality. It's true what one poster said--all humans, not just artists, have to grow up and deal with this. The thing is, artists truly are different in some ways; there is a childlike, dream-weaver aspect to our personalities that HAS to be there, else we'd all be accountants and lawyers.
But dreams only take you so far. Once you step in and really start doing something--in LW's case, community theater or whatever--you have to face the fact that it only lives up to your romantic vision in brief moments. There are rude and irresponsible club owners, restaurant managers who try to stiff you when they didn't sell as much booze as they wanted, wedding clients who bitch because you can't fulfill some obscure request from the 1930s to please their Great Uncle Ted, band leaders who ditch you when a better player becomes available, and so on. Once in a while, though, you and your quartet decide to hit Joe Henderson's RECORDA-ME and it turns out like a great ocean of gorgeous melody and rhythm. So you put up with all the other BS and hang on to those lovely moments.
Be what you have to be, but know that life is all about limitations. Best of luck.
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It's not equity, but it's rewarding
Hi! I'm sure you've already heard this a million times, but just in case you have not -- Boston has a lot of great community theaters. In fact, the oldest community theater in America is in Boston: http://www.footlight.org. Sure, you work for free, or for just a little stipend, but you're really on stage, you wear makeup, you memorize your lines, you hang out with fellow actors, the whole bit. Some community theaters are better than others. Sometimes everyone is an amateur, sometimes equity-quality actors slum it between shows. I went back - on the community theater level - after a 10-year hiatus, and within a few years, I realized that I wanted to go back to being pro. Now I am. If you don't know where Boston's local community theaters are, try http://www.theatermirror.com; http://www.stagesource.org; www.netheater411.com/ . BREAK A LEG! You CAN do it all, honey!
-beantown drama queen
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Is this too practical a perspective?
I would be curious to know more about what truly entrances the letter writer: if it is the prospect of a career in the arts, or if it is the art itself. Is there any reason the writer couldn't forge a career in whatever, wherever, and work in community theater or some such? There have to be ways of satisfying (if only in part) the urge to create without dedicating one's whole career to it.
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RE: Should I give up on having a life in the theater?
Wow, LW, I feel like I could have written that letter! I, too, am a "recovering" actress in my mid-30's who let my Union membership (in this case, since I live in L.A., SAG) lapse. I, too, achieved enough to be proud of and build a career on early, then became fed up with temp jobs and retail work and dealing with agents who made me feel bad about myself, even as my acting teachers told me I was good. It's so frustrating!!!
I feel heartened by Cary's response. After toiling miserably in the record industry (but never in a "creative"position) and now at a non-profit that I greatly respect but just can't give my spirit to, I've decided that acting HAS to be a part of my life. I've started working on an original play with two other struggling actresses and I couldn't be more excited.
It has to be there for you -- acting, the theater, the drama, the exhileration, the self-doubt, the exultation! It has to be there for me, too.
Break a leg.
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Maybe it's the time of year...
Why Boston? It's a place that demands conformity and fitting in. Why not go someplace that's full of eccentrics living by their wits? An isolated place with a lot of bright outsiders who have to make their own cultural scene?
But..is it the thing in itself that turns you on, or is it fame you want? It's probably too late for that. But not too late to do the things you love. 35 is old to seek fame in the theater but young for everything else.