Put One Foot in Front of the Other
Posted on | December 28, 2006 | No Comments
Though I’ve been pretty quiet about it here, I have been continuing my conversations about training vs. pounding the pavement, and I’ve had a chance to talk to Steve Scott at the Goodman and PJ at TimeLine, as well as a few people who have gone the MFA route and many, many people who are in the same relative boat as I am.
Neither Steve nor PJ out-and-out rejected the concept of MFA Performance training (which may have simply been courtesy: obviously, I was considering it, and they didn’t want to call me stupid for doing so). Regardless, the overriding point seemed to reinforce what I miasmatically ran through a few weeks ago, namely: that there isn’t a clear path or even several clear paths. PJ, particularly, has an interesting career, in that regard. When he graduated from DePaul in the late nineties, he had his mind set on being an actor only: he rejected the initial overtures at forming the company that would be TimeLine. After a couple of years, though, his perspective changed, and he ended up becoming TimeLine’s Artistic Director. He’s doing one show for the company this year, and probably one next year, and though even a couple of years ago he was doing shows up at Writers’, he doesn’t expect to up his stage time in the near future. “I don’t feel the need like I used to,” he says. He’s got a successful and growing company, the running of which, he says, fulfills him just as much as the rush of performing, but in a different way. And, of course, he has a wife and a fresh-from-the-oven little girl at home – so he’s happy where he’s at, without treading the boards regularly. “But,” he says, ” it could all change again. In a couple of years, I could want to get up there again. Or I could want to do something else.”
PJ was very encouraging – but he’s always that way, really. He understood my desire for an intense period of training, though he felt he got that in his undergrad at DePaul. We did talk about the danger of spending the time and money going to, say, ACT’s program in San Francisco, only to ultimately come back to Chicago and be in essentially the same place. “I wouldn’t worry too much about ‘contacts getting old’,” he said. “People remember in Chicago.” He encouraged me to really investigate the programs available – “There are some good ones you’ve probably never heard of.” Ultimately, he said that I’m probably doing all the right things – “Keep asking questions, keep seeing shows, keep doing shows, keep taking classes” – because that’s the only way to get a clearer picture of what it is I want to be doing, and then figure out how to get there.
Steve’s advice was similar, though his view on graduate training programs was pretty pointed: “You go to a grad program for one of two reasons: because you think you need to refresh your skills or because you want to teach.” This last bit is key for me: I’ve always pictured myself as teaching one day. One of my college professors – whose views may end up in a future installment – noticed that and has pushed for me to go to a grad program for just that reason. And I have to say, its tempting – just think of the upside: a steady paycheck, lush vacations, encouragement (and sometimes, compensation) for professional development and productions, molding the next generation of performers and theatre artists. And, many more academic theatre MFA programs offer plush scholarships and stipends.
But then there is the experience of my friend Brad, who has his MFA from just such a program, who is finding that its very hard to find an entry-level professorship at a University in, say, Chicago or New York, where you could legitimately pursue an acting career. An active theatre community means many, many more people just like you, competing for the same position. Your job in academia is much more likely to land you in Gambier, Ohio or Easton, Pennsylvania. Which is not bad, in and of iteself, but is much different than what many people expect – I expect.
I’m taking all this under advisment, and am going to spend some time looking at programs. Maybe I’ll do a rundown here, just to keep the thread going. As always, if anyone has any thoughts, throw them out there. Pretty much everyone I know is in the same liminal state, or has gone through it recently – so I expect it’s on someone’s mind.
Image ripped from www.brown.edu. Thanks Trinity Rep!
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