(warning, this is a rant. This is mostly rhetorical and comes out of a purely emotional space. You have been warned)
Some days I really hate the fact that I'm NOT in a place where I can go to work every day -- wait. I think I need to define work.
See, I would be happy and fulfilled and finally where I want to be when I'm the resident Stage Manager working under an Equity contract for a professional, largeish (ie, more than 500 seats) house, where I don't have to worry about paying rent every month, where I don't have to choose, like right now, between food and meds, where I have one or two house ASM's that I can count on and work with, where I don't have to be constantly looking for work.
And while I know this dream of mine is not unique to me, because there are a gazillion SM's out there who have the same dream, nevertheless it is MY dream. Might not make it special and I don't know whether or not it's attainable but you know what? Right now I don't think I'm ever going to get a chance to get anywhere even within spitting distance of my dream. So everybody else who has the same dream I do, don't worry. It's still out there for everybody else.
Because I am still trying to make contacts (howcome it's so much easier for actors?) from people who don't remember me even though we worked intimately with each other, and it's really not working. I feel like I'm drowning in a sea on anonymity. Nobody knows me here. It's been 15 years, and directors have no idea who I am, though I've been doing multiple shows every year for those last 15 years.
And since August I've been trying to actively network and make contacts (nothing quite like closing the barn doors after the horses are gone, but hey, better late than never, or so they tell me) and while the potential job pool has opened up quite a bit, the number of rejections has also gone up.
I've been rejected for an avarage of a show a week for the last six weeks. I don't even get to the interview stage anymore. The nicer folks send a letter or an email back saying that for some reason or other they don't want me. Usually it's because the position has already been filled. So now, I'm totally behind the curve and coming out of the gate a lot later than everybody else.
I'm so discouraged right now. And scared, too. I mean, if I can't get a summer job that pays a gas stipend in community theatre in Minneapolis, what the heck kind of chances do I have of *ever* actually working in New York? And sure, there are stages, and steps, and ladders and things. But if I can't get to rung one, how am I going to get to rung 3? Or 7? Or 14? How am I to take the first step when I can't get the experience I need? I really hate vicious cycles. I need experience. I apply for positions. Nobody hires me. Which means no experience. So I apply again. And the cycle continues. And my parents crow about how they knew that my being in the arts for a career was a bad thing and how they are right and I ought to go into being a teacher or some other 'safe' profession, or perhaps a receptionist wouldn't be such a bad life?
*sigh*
I am sick to death of spending money on getting photos to send out with the copies of my resume, of paying postage and taking the time to compose opening letters, of desperately searching want ads and websites and email lists and forums like this one -- all for absolutely nothing. Or worse than nothing, actually . . .some folks don't even bother replying to me.
And now, I have to start to wonder. Is it me? Do people hate me and not want to have me there because they've heard about me through the grapevine that I can't get into? Is there something about me that's personally repulsive?
Sometimes I hate people.
I just want to do my job. I want to be a stage manager in actuality instead of in potentia. I want to utilize my skills. I want to gain experience.
Forget work. I just want a job. And I can't get one! And I'm depressed and frustrated and worried to death about the fact that I can't get one. I'm trying everything I know to get a show and nothing is coming through, so I'm afraid that I'm doomed to do this for the rest of my life. I'm 32. How much longer can I wait to get my career to take off?
And in the meantime I need to do something else to keep a roof over my head and food in my mouth. Which begs the eternal question. How do you manage to do a show as a SM with daytime rehearsals if you have a day job? And right now for me the only jobs open are box officing during the evening, or ushering, or working at our local theatre supplier in their retail store during the day. So how do you do rehearsal at all if you're an usher? Or working at the box office? Or selling makeup? I hate to seem whiny, but dang, how all circumstances do inform against me. How do I break out of this cycle?
If theatre was easy, everybody would do it. But does it really have to be THIS tough?
Whitewater, the frustrated