Aspiring Actors Make Their Own Work
This weekend, the New York Times featured a story about how several working actors made various sacrifices and came together in New York to stage a temporary showcase run of a 50-year-old play in June, "in what amounted to a master class on the sacrifices actors will make to get onstage in Manhattan. On a limited budget the group pulled together a two-week test run of a complicated, three-act play, Epitaph for George Dillon, with the hope that a producer might want to stage it."
There was barely enough money to rent a small, shabby theater and buy costumes at consignment shops. For the director and the actors, some of whom had left behind jobs and families in California, there were no salaries and no reimbursement of expenses...
When [lead actress Anna Garduño] learned that it would cost $1,000 to rent a curtain for the theater, she had one made for $200. Rather than pay $75 a night to have the theater provide a fire marshal, she convinced the assistant stage manager, Elle Aghabala, to go to Brooklyn and take the fire department’s test that qualified her to guard against a fire backstage. Within an hour of the final curtain call, a crew member dashed off to return the rented computer that had provided sound for the show, to avoid another day’s rental fee.
The ad hoc troupe expended all of this effort and sacrifice on the long shot that somebody would be inspired to produce the play. At least, they hoped, it would lead to more work, preferably of the sort that pays.
Cast member Michael Rodgers is almost 40, and is looking for his third temporary home since he left L.A. three months ago, while also working on the soap As The World Turns. Denise Crosby, who played Tasha Yar on Star Trek: The Next Generation, left her husband and 9-year-old son in Pacific Palisades and talked her way into a temporary apartment in Harlem. Garduño has been sleeping on a fold-out couch in the Greenwich Village home office of some friends.
The cast received no pay for the first 12 performances. But after that, as the Times' Patrick McGeehan reports, "Equity rules mandate that the players be paid $10 each per show. So each cast member got a check for $20 at the end of the run, or about 50 cents for each hour of performance." Director (and acting coach) Larry Moss worked for no pay.
Of course, this story may seem a lot less remarkable or unique to the countless actors, writers, and directors who face the same struggles and frustrations every day as they try to foster a career in this city. In fact, in an article published today on BackStage.com called "Making Your Own Luck," Sarah Reiter describes how two actor-writers are creating their own projects to take control of their careers in L.A.
Do you have a similar story? Have you seen any other recent productions like this, or know other people trying to jump-start their careers by working together in this way? Leave a comment and let us know!
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