NYCHILA Theater At Its Best

January 22, 2010 by Dennis Baker 

NYCHILA is an acronym coined in the theatrosphere to describe the theater ecosystem in New York, Chicago, and Los Angeles. The insanity that is this video is a good visual demonstration for the need for decentralization of theater.

Filed under: Acting, Chicago, Los Angeles, New York, Theater/Theatre
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Self-Producing Theater Artists

January 7, 2010 by Dennis Baker 

The talk of the “town” is the new TDF book Outrageous Fortune, waiting for my copy in the mail. From what I am hearing it is a grim look in the life of a playwright and the state of affairs for new works in American theater. It has gotten director Isaac Butler to declare, “If I want to make a living from theater, going the institutional route is almost certainly the way to do it” and “I no longer wish to pursue making a living as a theatre director in the American Theatre Industry.” J. Holtham quotes it numerous times and states,

Plays are finished in production. Period. I think just about everyone can agree with that. That’s why this discussion matters. It’s part of the Pursuit of the Hit Play, the perfect, unit set, small cast play about large themes and big issues that will run forever and provide subsidies for the original theatre in perpetuity. So much of our industry is oriented in this direction, it’s like a black hole, pulling everything that has worked in the past to create just those kinds of plays and better ones out of whack. This is the insurmountable problem that I was talking about. And the system goes around and around. Unless, you hop off the merry-go-round, write your plays and produce them. Spots, problems, mistakes and all. And learn. That’s the way I’m going this year.

While all this I agree with, what I can’t get out of my head, is the idea of self-producing in large markets. Does Los Angeles, Chicago and New York really need another theater, no matter what kind of theater it produces? I know this has been beaten over the head by the likes of The Prof, and Doug Hall has been doing it for eighteen years in Chicago, but I think it is going to be the next issue that is addressed once all the new self-producing theater artists get going, and there’s the rub.

Butler’s thoughts are similar to my own. The one difference becomes that I am married with an infant. For the last eight months, I have not been able to do any theater except for one understudy gig because I was allowed to not be at rehearsals when I needed to be home with the baby, as my wife works three nights a week as a nurse. The downtime has caused more reflection and conversation in the theatrosphere. We will be moving back to Los Angeles this summer, as we are from there and her parents live there. While that gives us support, and potential time for me to work in theater, for me to be a freelance professional actor, I have to ask myself the question The Prof asked Butler, “does my dream of directing acting full-time include the non-stop travel that such a career seems to demand, at least if you are participating in the regional theater circuit. How often do you want to be away from your family for 4 – 6 weeks at a time?” The answer seems to become self-produce or move on. Butler continues,

The Mission Paradox blog had a fantastic post awhile ago that I can’t find for some reason where he discussed that the fundamental problem of many theatre companies is that their hidden mission is simply to propagate their members’ work and help their careers and thus they begin to fall apart when they move towards actually fulfilling whatever it is their stated mission is because it turns out none of their founders were actually interested in that in the first place. I don’t want to do that. I don’t want to start a company devoted to Me. I mean, I guess I could like the do in the dance world and just start The Isaac Butler Company or whatever, but I’m not so sure that’s a good idea.

Personally, that is why the idea of the smaller markets of Portland, Austin, and Philly are intriguing, and ever more still are the rural markets of less than 100k, where one could raise a family, be part of a community, and possibly create theater. But then again, leaving Los Angeles puts us in the same position we are now in, no support. This may change over time as kids get older, but for now I am on a quest, to explore and examine how self-producing, entrepreneurial artists are making theater, where, and what kind of theater they are creating. The research list includes: Community Supported Theatre at Stolen Chair Theater, New Leaf Theatre, New Works/New Communities at California Shakespeare Festival, Cornerstone Theater Company, and Cambiare Productions, just to name a view. Always love to hear more.

In the end, the artist’s passion will lead the way. Holtham sums it up well, “find the solution that fits for you. You have to figure out what you value, what the priorities are and follow them where they take you.”

ERPA Clip 5 Jon Stancato/Stolen Chair Theatre Company from The Field on Vimeo.

Filed under: Acting, Arts Entrepreneur, Chicago, Los Angeles, New York, Theater/Theatre
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True Community Theater?

December 25, 2009 by Dennis Baker 

Given the reputation as one who is possibly more tenacious than The Prof about the necessity to make artists part of a community, I could not pass up reflecting on Tom Loughlin’s post about the 2008 NEA survey. Loughlin’s reflection/passion reminds me of a need for what Cornerstone Theater Company did between 1986-1991. According to their website, they created twelve musical productions in ten states. These shows were epic interactions between classic plays and specific American communities: Moliere’s disintegrating and combative families in the Kansas farmland, Shakespeare’s civil strife in the streets of Mississippi, and Aeschylus’ ancient rituals on a modern Native American reservation.

“With each of the 13 communities that Cornerstone visited, one of their goals was to leave behind a group of local people, experienced in how to do theater and infused with the love and understanding of “community theater”. The community residents involved with Peer Gynt formed Stage East upon Cornerstone’s departure. Beginning with their first performance of Play Boy of the Western World in the fall of 1990, Stage East has provided a wide range of theater, three and four productions every year, involving audiences and young people and adults both on and back stage, in the creativity and excitement of the theater experience.” (Stage East Bio, Picture from production of Peer Gynt)

During graduate school, my Applied Theater class watched a documentary on Cornerstone’s work during that time and it has stuck with me. Due in part to the cast being a mix of professional actors from Cornerstone and the community members, it was even more of an incentive to attend the production as the audience wanted to see their fellow community members, but also the productions were speaking to the issues within the specific community. The power of communal storytelling created a “reality that people who don’t go to the theatre really, truly don’t want [wanted] to go to the theatre”. I have been wondering if what Cornerstone did could be replicated over twenty years later. Is there enough artists out there who would be willing? What would such a project look like now? Does it have to be a traveling company? Can the same work be done within the community in which the theater practitioners live or are the theater artists minds focused on the gigs that will get them to NY/LA/Chicago? I am concerned that if the mindset/work of theater practitioners continue to focus on those reflected in the NEA study, true community theater will be lost.

Below is a paragraph from Loughlin’s post. There is no summary I can give that would give this post justice. All I can do is to implore you to read it.

Hopefully by pointing all this out I have given the theatre world a holiday gift it can truly appreciate – the assuaging of their guilt. Once you fully understand the reality that people who don’t go to the theatre really, truly don’t want to go to the theatre, you can then stop feeling guilty about declining attendance, lack of diversity, class inequities and the like. After all, don’t you really want to produce theatre for those who want to be there, and can afford to be there? Isn’t that what counts? Isn’t that where the road to your professional success truly lies? You don’t really want the American public in your theatres, do you? Why, that might mean getting theatre out into America, and having more artists live out in America, and meet everyday Americans of all sorts of backgrounds and income levels and ethnic backgrounds and political persuasions – and what an inconvenience that would be! I mean, you just can’t get a good bagel and a smear out there! – What’s all the fuss about? (Or why the NEA study shows how successful we are!)

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Filed under: Acting, Chicago, Graduate School, Los Angeles, New York, Shakespeare, Theater/Theatre
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Acting Twitter Conversation

September 27, 2009 by Dennis Baker 

Had an interesting twitter conversation that I thought the blog readers would like.

@dennisbaker: 30 year old actress on @suzeormanshow incurred $30,000. Her excuse, “I thought I would book something”. C’mon #actors get real!

@dennisbaker: Actress: “I was hoping I could just book one of these commercials” @suzeormanshow: “Hope is not a finical plan.”

@dennisbaker: Actress on @suzeormanshow makes $9/hr. #Actors learn skills that U cn #freelance at an hourly that allows U 2 pay bills & pursue acting

@bwaysaint: I can believe it – I’m $25K in debt & paying it down. You can still “hope” no matter what Suze says.Keeps u positive & focused

@bwaysaint: You just can’t rely on JUST “hope.”

@dennisbaker: @bwaysaint I think U make the same point Orman is making. The mindset of going in2 debt until “I book that commercial” is hope w/out action.

@bwaysaint: Exactly. I still hope for that opp. that will take me out of it, but I’ve stopped spending…had to. I was drowning! lol

@__dana__: @daniellecasting Question Pls– about the prevalence of “national” commercials these days, and earnings abilities for commercial actors?

@daniellecasting: @__dana__wellll.. If they book it yes!! They could do two or three and be good

@daniellecasting: @__dana__ it’s a crap shoot like everything else in our business

@dennisbaker: @__dana__ @daniellecasting Is that is book 2-3 commercials a month for rent? Realistic?

@dennisbaker: @__dana__ @daniellecasting What I keep hearing is the days of the $40,000-$50,000 national commercial are over.

@daniellecasting: @dennisbaker you know honestly it depends u get lucky ur what the director is looking for ur good. The more u go out the better the chances.

@daniellecasting: @dennisbakerbut yes u can still make that money not often as b4 but u can

@__dana__: @dennisbaker YesI keep hearing that too! That’s why I asked her. (you, Danielle) That makes me hesitant to advise it as “fallback career”

@__dana__: @dennisbaker I am not certain that #actors can make a living in commercials these days. @daniellecasting Do you think? Solely from them?

@dennisbaker: @__dana__ When has anything acting related bn considered a fallback career?

@dennisbaker: @__dana__ Annual Median income of a AEA actor is $0 dollars a year. http://tinyurl.com/yew4oun My guess is SAG actors are not too far off.

@__dana__: @dennisbaker Interesting to investigate. I think SAG #actors make more, simply cuz film always pays more than theatre. But not sure, average

@__dana__: @dennisbaker Commercials have been “fallback” career, as long as I was in the business.Many actors in NY + LA used to earn there, as living

@__dana__: @dennisbaker When I was actively in the business, my consistent income, before I got ’series regular’ type level, was voiceovers. Back up.

@__dana__: @dennisbaker Think she [@daniellecasting] means 2-3 National Commercials a year–because nationals (vs regional, et al) pay a residual evry airing-

@dennisbaker: @__dana__ I see what you mean. I would also say the percentage of actors, that have acting related back-up jobs, are small.

@__dana__: @dennisbaker I think you are right, but I do know that it’s very diff in NY and LA. I heard the other nite at a SAG event-NY actors grt av $

@__dana__: @dennisbaker I think it also depends on whether an #actor has representation, and the quality and status of their representative.

@dennisbaker: @__dana__ Luv to hear any SAG stats you can get. I agree, 10 yrs ago commercials were considered backup work.

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Filed under: Acting, Auditioning, Los Angeles, New York, Social Media, Web 2.0
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Freelance Artist: Debunking the Myth of the Starving Artist

September 6, 2009 by Dennis Baker 

There is an article floating around the internet of an interview given by actor Thomas Jane promoting his new HBO show “Hung”. It is about how he “hung” on through the hard times to make it where he is today. In the article, Jane talks about how being a starving artist helped him. He mentions that at moments in his life he was living off of food stamps and sleeping on park benches. “There were a couple times I wanted to quit, but fortunately I didn’t have anything else I could do,” he says. “So the thought of quitting would come when I couldn’t find any purchase in the barren soul of the artist, and I carried on. I think I had that advantage over some of my peers, who were very nervous about not having a car and very worried about the social status of being poor, whereas it didn’t bother me at all. I actually thrived and had a good time being poor and made fun of people who looked to social status. I was shown the light in India that that was a bunch of hogwash. It was irreversible and untradeable and an absolute gift. It gave me the strength and wisdom to overcome a lot of rejection.”

While I agree that social status is not something that one should hold in high priority, I disagree with the starving artist myth that is being continually promoted. The acting field is a business, and to come from that perspective, one will see that the mindset of a starving artist could be detrimental to one’s career.

Diversify
The current economy is causing the work force to realize something that artists already know, one needs to diversify their work skills. The age of the freelancer is here. Many people are having to work many different part time jobs to create a stable finical foundation. This should not be news for an artist. As an artist, you need to have many different skills that you can market to many different fields. Sure you got the acting business down, but that is not going to pay the bills. What other skills do you have? Are they ones where you can freelance and create your own hours. Have you set up a business model to sell your many different skills? There are many freelance options: wedding photography, child care, dog walking, virtual assistant, etc. Do you think you do not have any skills? Well, then teach yourself. There are plenty of cheap (and free) online training programs to help you in learning a variety of skills.

Branding
Once you have your multiple set of skills. I emphasize multiple, as things will be slow when you first start out and you will need many different potential ways to generate income. Now it’s time for you to create your personal brand. Here is a hint: the personal brand is you. As an actor, you are the product. Make yourself the product for your other freelance jobs. This is what Marci Alboher calls, in her book in her book One Person/Multiple Careers: A New Model for Work/Life Success, “The Slash Effect”. An evolving workforce in which people are defined through multiple identities rather than just one job title.

Create a brand that ties in all your skills. A great place to do that is a website. As you can see here at DENNIS BAKER LLC, the website highlights my different skills. With Permalinks, it is easy to send a potential customer to the specific page that promotes the skill they need. If I am promoting my web design skills, I give out the web address “www.dennisbaker.net/web-design/”, if I am promoting myself as a teacher than I give out the address, “www.dennisbaker.net/teaching-artist/”. The potential client can read the specific information that pertains to their field, without searching pages that have nothing to do with job they are looking to hire.

Freelance Is About Freedom
Being a freelancer takes a lot of work, but in the end it is about freedom. Freedom to pursue what you want, when and how you want it. It may not feel that way at first as you will probably be working more hours in training yourself in the a variety of skills you need, building your brand, and finding freelance jobs. But for the artist, the positive out ways the negative. With many freelance jobs, you can work from anywhere. Take your laptop (and wireless internet card) on set and while you are waiting hours upon hours to be called to shoot your scene, get a couple of hours of work in for your client. Are you on tour, or away from from home for three months with a theater job, no problem your work can go with you. Your client doesn’t even need to know you are not at your home office. Being a Freelance Rockstar is about maximizing your potential income hours, without having to be tied down to one location.

Share Your Story
I am coming from the perspective of an actor. What artists in other mediums and fields are creating a freelance model that works for them? How have you branded and promoted all your skills. Please leave a comment. Share your story and help your fellow artists. Knowledge is power!

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Filed under: Acting, Auditioning, Film, Los Angeles, New York, Theater/Theatre
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Less Money for Middle Class Actor

July 20, 2009 by Dennis Baker 

From NPR’s All Things Considered:

Beth Broderick is having a tough time making a living as an actress lately. That wasn’t always the case — and it’s not for lack of work.

She belongs to Hollywood’s middle class: actors and crew members who have worked on countless sit-coms, TV dramas and movies. She’s not an A-list celebrity, but she’s also not a waitress waiting for her first break.

Broderick plays Aunt Zelda on the TV series Sabrina, the Teenage Witch and Evangeline Lilly’s mother on the drama Lost. And she tells NPR’s Madeleine Brand that she feels “totally, truly, entirely blessed” for her 20 years in the business.

But over the past decade, the wages for the professional class have plummeted, Broderick says. She used to make $25,000 to $30,000 to guest star on an hourlong TV episode. Now she gets about $6,000, which comes out to $4,800 after commission.

“The studio heads still get paid enormous salaries. They still have huge golden parachutes,” Broderick notes. “Stars still make $20 million a picture, but the people right below them are making scale.”

She says, “It’s really going to have to come down to the leadership — from producers, directors and stars — who say, ‘You know what, thanks for the $20 million, I’m going to take $19 [million], and let’s divvy the rest up between the next 10 people on the call sheet so that those people I’m staring across from the camera at for the next eight weeks — I can feel good knowing that their kid can go to school.’”

Nobody wants to sit where I’m sitting and say, ‘Hey, this is the reality. I did two movies, six guest-star spots and I starred in a one-woman show, and I’m not making any money. I’m on TV every day in every country in the world, and I don’t make any money,’ ” Broderick says.

“Somebody’s got to say it. Nobody wants to take that risk, nobody wants to admit that or put that out there, but it’s true.”

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Artists and Money

June 29, 2009 by Dennis Baker 

It Is Okay for Artists to Make Money…No, Really, It’s Okay
From a Harvard Business School ‘Working Paper’ published June 3, 2009 by Robert D. Austin and Lee Devin:

When art and commerce are mentioned in the same sentence, many people become bad-tempered or think something needs fixing. This paper argues that more artists ought to make more money more often. Harvard Business School professor Robert Austin and theater dramaturg Lee Devin identify and undermine three fallacies about art and commerce, and suggest that it is necessary to carry on a more careful and less emotional conversation about the tensions between art and business and to overcome a general aversion to business common among artists and their patrons. They also stress the need to develop better theories about how art and commerce can achieve integration helpful to both. Key concepts include:

  • The interests of art, artists, and business can be best served if more commerce enters into the world of art, not less.
  • There are three fallacies, often implicit, about relationships between art and commerce: (1) art is a luxury and an indulgence, (2) art is clearly distinguishable from “non-art,” and (3) commerce dominates and corrupts art, and subverts its purpose.
  • Good art should achieve appropriate commercial value consistently, not just occasionally. A conversation takes place when art and commerce are in tension, a conversation in which neither artists nor managers should dominate.

Pay My Rent
Alan M. Berks, writing on the blog Minnesota Playlist, June 28, 2009
Would you feel comfortable with a part-time dentist? Someone who’s got some talent filling cavities and performing root canals but who only squeezes them in at night, after she comes home from the full-time job she does all day, typing at a desk, let’s say, to pay the bills? Or, do you think, the work is going to be a helluva lot better if your dentist could concentrate on the job full-time, all year round? What about your plumber, lawyer, electrician, and accountant? Why then do we accept a system where performing artists have almost no expectation of making a real career in their chosen profession?… I don’t believe that everyone who wants to do theater deserves a living wage. For most people, theater is always going to seem like more fun than dentistry, so more people will want to do it. I think that a market that squeezes young performing artists a little so that they have to choose whether they’re really committed to it is probably appropriate. But anyone who doesn’t think that theater is already a ruthlessly competitive market has no idea what an audition is.

Filed under: Acting, Chicago, Educational Theater, Film, Los Angeles, Music, New York, Theater/Theatre
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Building Relationships with Local Theaters

May 24, 2009 by Dennis Baker 

When a small New York theater company reports that they received 700 submissions for 22 parts in their summer production, it is a telling factor of the odds one actor has in getting an audition, let alone a part. How does this fair for larger regional theaters that hold EPA auditions in New York? People stand in line sometimes as early as 5am to make sure they get an audition. While at the same time, some of these companies still hold auditions, through their casting directors, for actors that were submitted through agents.

Instead of only doing these cattle call auditions, an actor needs to find other ways to build relationships. What are possible ways to skip the middle man and go directly to the buyers, the directors and artistic directors?

Define Your Area
What regional theaters are in your area? Define your area. Is it the theaters that are less than an hour drive from your home? Is it two hours? Be clear so you can have a purposeful marketing and networking plan.

Research
Once you have made a list of all the theaters in your area, do the research. Go online and find out what their season is going to be. From their you can determine what roles you would be right for. Send an odd-size mailer of your headshot to the artistic director wishing them good luck on the season and that you would like to submit for a role. Read any of the plays that are not familiar. Also research the artistic director. Are they new to the area? Are they originally from your hometown? This information will help when you meet them at opening night.

Opening Night
If the production you are submitting for is later in the season, go see the other productions. Opening night would be the best night to go, as it is almost guaranteed the artistic director will be there. Don’t be shy (also don’t be pushy or rude) and introduce yourself. If this is after you sent your mailing, then the artistic director might remember you. Make the conversation about the current production and the artistic director. Do not make the conversation all about you and how you would be perfect for their upcoming production. The point of this meeting is not to sell yourself, but to begin a professional relationship with someone in your field. Don’t sound like a needy, out of work actor.

Don’t Forget the Middle Man
While doing all this work, do not ignore the casting director that the theater company hires for each production. You can find out who the casting director is in the Playbill of the production you just saw, or maybe on their website. The artistic director might ask the casting director about you once they see your mailing, or meet you, and it would be good to have a headshot in the casting office so they can look you up.

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5 days left to win the Twitter Ticket Contest. Click here to Retweet (RT) the free one ticket giveaway for the May 31st performance of New York Theatre Workshop’s Things of Dry Hours.

Filed under: Acting, Auditioning, Chicago, Los Angeles, New York
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Reactions to How Theater Failed America in Los Angeles

March 24, 2009 by Dennis Baker 

From blog post The Post Show Round Table by Mick Montgomery

I listened to someone from the Odyssey say the words that spell the down fall of all theaters in this country… “I don’t want to do Children’s Theater, I want to do the Art I want to do.”

My message to those folks running theater in this town is… “Guess what? That’s not your job.” The job of the theater is to support it’s audience and community, not exist soley for the purpose of indulging the creative proclivities of the artists entrusted with running the stage. Artistcally, I may want to do a season filled with “True West” and “End Game” and the like, where I could star in or direct them all, but that’s not my job as the steward of the theater. My job is to embrace my community for who they are, and then go from there. I’m not saying this is soley doing Children’s Theater, but it’s about engaging your audience where they are at, not asking the audience to engage you where you are at. Theater is about people, audiences and artists sharing things together. Theater is not about a building or a ‘great space’ or subscriptions. The theater is the product of the people coming to it, not the other way around. We don’t understand that here in Los Angeles.

I found it ironic that Mike Daisey railed against theaters trying to ‘get more money’ to solve all their problems with paying artists in his piece, and then comedically, 10 minutes after the show when he asked his panel, what would you need to make big changes to the theater culture in L.A. the first answer out of someone’s mouth was… “We need more money.”

Filed under: Acting, Los Angeles, Theater/Theatre
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Theater as Community | WNYC Leonard Lopate Show

January 9, 2009 by Dennis Baker 

Robert Viagas, host of Playbill Radio and editor of The Playbill Broadway Yearbook, and Sandra Gibson, president and CEO of Arts Presenters, the national service organization for performing arts presenters, was interviewed today on the Leonard Lopate Show about the scheduled closings of many broadway shows this month.

What caught my ear most was Gibson’s comment on theater as community.   She uses the example of Suzie Lori Parks being a resident playwright at the Public Theater. Parks wrote her first play in five years during the first six weeks of that residency.  Gibson says this is “because she was linked in a different way to the community there”.  She wants to see a re-thinking of how to sustain artists in this capacity.  Also she is working with theaters to facilitate action that further connects the audience to the artist and show people the developmental process of the work.

I think the residency topic, and how it relates to the community, could be a interview topic by itself.  Writers seems to be the ones who a residency seems to be a natural fit, but how do residencies help connect directors, actors, and technicians to the community? What are some examples of other artist residences that have brought that artists closer to the community?

What about the idea of opening the door to the creative process?  I think this is where theaters can begin to integrate Web 2.0 technology.  By theaters using blogs, pictures and videos audience members can feel that they have a connection to individual artists and the theater as a whole.  California Shakespeare Theater seems to be doing just that.  A look at their home page has links to their facebook, myspace and twitter accounts.  Their blog has numerous contributors ranging from artists, staff and board members.  Do you follow theaters online through these various accounts?  What theaters do you know of that are using Web 2.0 to help connect the organization to the community?

Filed under: Chicago, Los Angeles, New York, Theater/Theatre, Web 2.0
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