<p>Just talked to a muggle colleague of mine today. Her daughter is 32 y.o. and graduated from OCU as dancer/dance management when that was the only program that offered a “practical” degree. Not sure what she did in her early post-graduation years, but at some point ended up in Singapore, where she met her soon-to-be-husband - a singer/dancer. They have been working the shows on cruise ships for years (together), will get married in a few weeks, and then plan to continue on the cruise ships for the foreseeable future. There is a path for everyone, but is there ever an “end” or “ultimate destination”?</p>
<p>Yes and many Tony awards or nominations later, some artists return to cruise ships. <a href=“PLAYBILL”>http://cluboffers.playbill.com/12022014.html</a></p>
<p>@halflokum - I have been listening to Seth Rudetsky talk about those cruises for years- always seems like such a cool thing!</p>
<p>And who you are as an actor never ends, is never “over.” A dear friend is a multiple crossover award nominee and winner and as she ages she has become a cabaret performer all over the world (kids gone, she gets to both travel and perform) and teaches some of those “special” classes at colleges. Although we invited her to a charity event and she spent much of the time trying to convince appropriate people to create a character for her in their next production! Another dear friends husband was never able to make the transition from leading man to older type - father or whatever. He is bitter and angry in an industry that skews overwhelmingly younger, yet he spent years as an award winning performer. This business sucks for all!</p>
<p>My MT daughter, after two years of moderate success in the business, has decided that she does not find acting intellectually stimulating enough, she felt her brain was turning to mush. While she continues with Improv and Musical Improv, performing on numerous teams in many competitions, etc. she has dropped the more traditional acting paths. She is now back in college taking Physics and Astrophysics courses and will be applying for her Masters in Astrophysics as soon as she has taken enough undergraduate classes in the field. She’s now looking at the privatization of NASA and exploring the Mars (but not until her parents are dead because she doesn’t plan on coming back)! Will she change back again? Who knows, right now she’s thrilled with the intellectual challenge.</p>
<p>@mom4bwayboy LOL “muggle” … </p>
<p>@amtc - While I don’t know the statistics, I’d bet within 10 years of graduation the vast majority of actors, including many who have enjoyed high levels of success, have switched careers. Constantly searching for the next gig and often having to be migrant labor with a too-small short-term paycheck, working long hours with lots of physical demands, under high stress often while away from friends and family, in an industry that prizes youth, beauty and perfect health may seem more glamorous to a twenty-something than to one entering middle age. Plus many people decide they prefer a job where, when they manage to land a local contract, they aren’t always working nights and weekends.</p>
<p>So while building and fine-tuning performing skills during college is great, for my money laying a solid lifetime educational foundaition is apt to be of much higher ultimate value. And, for those who continue performing, there will always be strong coaches to work with for those who seek them out and can afford them.</p>
<p>“this business sucks for all” - seems a rather broad statement. Everyone who enters the arts as a career will struggle at some point or another- but I’m fairly certain that EVERY career on the planet “sucks” in some way at some point or another. (Mine has, as has every other person’s that I have ever known) Pick your poison. My D (who is quite a smart cookie- national award smart) finds plenty of intellectual stimulation in her acting and theatre classes - I read an assignment on character analysis in “A Doll’s House” that she wrote over Thanksgiving break- it would rival anything I put together as an undergrad. (and I went to a darn fine school myself)</p>
<p>Yes, toowonderful, you are right, most careers have a “suck factor” in it, my experience is that in acting it is a much more frequent and perhaps prolonged one. Additionally, most careers consider mid-30’s to mid-40’s to be the peak of your career, while in acting, it is when you move from ingenue, leading lady or man, to wife or mother or father. That transition is not always an easy one for many actors to make. </p>
<p>As to your second point, huh? Did I insult you or your daughter by saying that my daughter found her acting experiences after almost two years out of college intellectually vapid? I’m sorry if I did and that you felt the need to share her Thanksgiving assignment with us, I was just stating a fact for my daughter, one that surprised me greatly, especially since she was a professional actor while in middle and high school so she had a good deal of experience with show business. My point, which perhaps MomCares presented in a better manner, is that we have no idea what the future holds for our kids, what they will and won’t find worth doing but there is little correlation between being a MT major in college and being a starting actor in the real world of show business. I hope that clarifies my thoughts.</p>
<p>“This business sucks for all”. Yes, many/most careers have their moments of suckiness. However, in most jobs, those moments may seem less personal. For the performer, when you are actually in a show, that is all marvelous, but it is a fact that to be constantly auditioning, dealing with rejection on a regular basis, and trying to juggle a survival job with keeping up with training/conditioning/auditioning can be very mentally/physically/financially wearing for a lot of people. For those who keep at it for the long haul, it is not necessarily a question of talent, but whether they have the drive/passion/stamina to stick with it through lean times. Also, outside personal life enters into the equation. If you have a significant other, is accepting an out-of-town job (whether it be regional theatre, tour, cruise ship) financially and emotionally viable? If you have children, that makes that question even harder for many. At what point does the commitment to performing balance with expectations of a more “normal” personal life? The answer is different for everyone. And, there are many solutions, whether that be continuing to perform, remaining in the business in another capacity, teaching, or choosing an entirely new path.</p>
<p>I don’t remember the exact statistic, but I read somewhere that 50 years ago, a majority of the work force retired from the same company where they started their career. Now, a majority of people change not just companies, but careers at least twice during their working life. So I don’t know that it is that much different for performers than from society in general. Teachers give it up because they can’t support their family on that salary, and move to something more lucrative. A successful professional goes into teaching later in life because they feel a passion or calling. </p>
<p>Life is full of decisions, but the good news is that few of them are non-revocable. </p>
<p>@amtc- I will freely admit that I was offended, but I now realize I was mistaken as well. When I read your post (and responded) I did not read carefully enough. I assumed you were talking about your child’s undergraduate classes when you spoke of lack of stimulation- and my example (and I am sorry if you found it trite) was reflective of that. I have no idea what intellectual challenges (or lack thereof) will be in my child’s post-graduate world, and cannot speak to the issue. We never no where any path will lead- best of luck to your child in her new endeavors. </p>
<p>*know- sigh </p>
<p>I didn’t find the comment about the “business sucking for all” offensive at all. I bet it’s true. In fact, I fear it’s true. Sigh.</p>
<p>I’ll admit to a bit of a gulp over the “acting isn’t intellectually stimulating.” First read as written I too found it provocative and perhaps it was meant to be for good reason. But reading again, amtc was saying this is the conclusion her daughter came to. </p>
<p>Not finding acting intellectually stimulating is a fair conclusion as it is personal and respectful of a personal journey. It doesn’t mean anything about the journey for anyone else. Everyone comes at their life journey with the skillset of who they are, and then, life hands them what it does. In some cases, the profession you thought you wanted isn’t enough because the actual work isn’t what you thought it would be. Or, the challenging opportunities that you thought you might have that will test your intellect don’t materialize because you just don’t manage to land the work. Or… you can’t afford to live where either of those things will be tested fairly because you shot the wad on college or… fill in the blank. Life is a journey.</p>
<p>Now for me, if my daughter tells me tomorrow she wants to study physics, I’m pretty sure I’ll have a big party (um… though since my son is a science guy, I’ve been reading that the good jobs in that field are suspect too.). But she won’t and it will never be because astrophysics is more intellectually stimulating to her. She’s great at science and math. Heck so was I. If I imagine myself faced with a crossroads where you could go the hard core science route, or the hard core arts route, to be honest the “sciency” field wouldn’t be as big an intellectual challenge for me anyway because I’d be way better equipped to tackle it and completely ill equipped to bring honesty to a character or do a “buck and wing” dance move (and yes… I did just google tap terminology because I have NO idea about any of it) or whatever fancy stuff these theatre kids are learning that is all Greek to me and scares the pants off of me. Cutting to the chase, (and this is beyond ludicrous) ME challenging myself to be an actor would require way more intellectual stretching than I was born with compared to what it would take for me to succeed in astrophysics, botany, engineering. So though I so want to do a “I hear you” over something sciency being more intellectually stimulating, I find myself looking at myself in the mirror and thinking… um… except not if you asked ME to compare the amount of intellectual firepower that I’d need to be an actor vs. a sciency person. Oh god… please start the Xanax drip now. </p>
<p>“I didn’t find the comment about the “business sucking for all” offensive at all. I bet it’s true. In fact, I fear it’s true. Sigh.”</p>
<p>Ditto…double sigh.</p>
<p>My D is a sophmore BFA MT and I’ll admit at first I fought her desire to enter this field. My hope was she would go into engineering; she was and still is a whiz at math. But she had no passion for math like she does for performing. Oh well!</p>
<p>What I would say is that in her 1.5 years of schooling I’ve seen her mature in her outlook towards the future. She has gotten tougher, and in a good way. She shrugs off auditions that don’t work out. She and her best friend in the program were the last two call backs for the lead in the spring main stage musical and she lost out. A few tears that day and then she moved on. When people ask her what her goals are when she gets done, she simply states she wants to work as an actor. Not necessarily Broadway, not necessarily touring shows (although either would be great of course). She just wants to make a living as an actor and is open to any and all possibilities. And she has already indicated she may want to branch out into say running a non-profit or becoming a theater professor (my choice!) once she marries, settles down and starts a family. </p>
<p>So all in all despite my fighting it for a while, I now know she made the right choice, and I think she will be able to use the degree she has in a variety of ways. </p>
<p>I think that is an important and valuable point- there are SO many ways to be a part of theater, and while performing the “first great love” for many- it’s not the only path. Two fabulous mentors for my D - both teachers at her PA school - are excellent examples. Both are equity actors with arts degrees. They teach, perform (in our good sized city there are nice opportunities) and one runs a local theater company as well (which has been known to cast alum…) They have homes and families- and occasionally take on something bigger, last year one of them took a leave of absence to be in a “major motion picture”. Both lived in NYC at earlier points in their careers, had success and then chose something different. To go back to an earlier point, I am sure endless rounds of auditioning does “suck” (with the obvious opportunities for rejection) - but it doesn’t necessarily mean a career in the arts does. </p>
<p>
That’s certainly one sense in which I’ve seen many kids transformed during school. Often it’s as simple as an actor finally grasping how they are going to be typed, which is so often at odds with the type of roles they’d dreamed of playing. For some people that understanding alone is enough to dampen their enthusiasm about a life in the arts, or to spur them to create work that shows them as they wish to be seen. Others realize they’re more likely to find more compelling (or gainful) employment in another aspect of theatre, moving toward directing, casting, producing, writing, etc. Heck, UMich’s most influential recent MT grads may be Pasek and Paul, who are making a great career for themselves as well as contributing to the industry’s future. Others just gain a more realistic understanding of their probable career trajectory, though of course the future holds surprises for all of us.</p>
<p>Whatever comes, it’s a privilege to watch our brave kids finding their paths!</p>
<p>After first year as freshman MT, S would agree, in part, with lack of “intellectual stimulation”. He has found it difficult to find peers that have much to talk about “behind the face”. On the other hand, he IS being stretched in other ways - similar to those mentioned by halflokum. And ultimately, to “make it” in this field, they will all have to think outside their comfort zones, form relationships, “create” their own work in order to put together a career - in whatever form it takes. And hopefully find a peer group that is similarly minded (aren’t we over-due for a 21st century version of Monty Python? SCTV?) On the “suckiness” side, here’s a link to Washington Post article about lifetime earnings, based on degree chosen. Drama/Theater/Music/Arts do not fare well - UNLESS, perhaps, you can create your own path.
<a href=“http://www.washingtonpost.com/news/storyline/wp/2014/09/29/want-proof-college-is-worth-it-look-at-this-list-of-the-highest-paying-majors/”>http://www.washingtonpost.com/news/storyline/wp/2014/09/29/want-proof-college-is-worth-it-look-at-this-list-of-the-highest-paying-majors/</a></p>
<p>
This was a key driver in D’s choice of schools. </p>
<p>D is freshman- so everything is new and stimulating. And academics drove her choice of schools as well- and she loves the challenge there. Plus- though I post here (b/c there is so much more activity) D is BFA acting rather than MT, so there is a difference in curriculum.</p>
<p>I think my S would also disagree with the lack of “intellectual stimulation” idea. Even at a straight conservatory with hardly any pretensions at general education, he is reading 3-4 plays a week, writing about them, thinking about them and working on some very technical aspects of his technique. I bought him a ticket to Chicago Shakes’ “Lear” a month ago, and when we talked about it later, I was floored by the way he could pick apart technique and conceptual framework and interpretation. (He goes to the theater as often as he can on his own dime, but this was an expensive ticket.) I know he’s not taking any math or science – which he was good at in high school, BTW – bu I do not think he has stopped learning by any means. </p>
<p>Obviously, all situations are different and hats off to the rare individual who can transition from MT to astrophysics. </p>
<p>Of course, next term, he IS going to be learning how to juggle (circus arts)…so yeah, not exactly how we pictured his college education when we started. </p>