At some point in the process, every acting teacher tries to dissuade their students from pursuing the craft professionally with tales of the incredibly high unemployment rate in the Actors union and the dismal amount most of those who are working get paid.
Still, hope springs eternal and the warnings fall on generally deaf ears.
When you think about it, they have some reason for hope given that the status of actors has risen from the historical lows it once occupied. As those of Shakespeare’s age reckoned, Aristotle’s Great Chain of Being looked something like this:
God
Angels
Kings/Queens
Archbishops
Dukes/Duchesses
Bishops
Marquises/Marchionesses
Earls/Countesses
Viscounts/Viscountesses
Barons/Baronesses
Abbots/Deacons
Knights/Local Officials
Ladies-in-Waiting
Priests/Monks
Squires
Pages
Messengers
Merchants/Shopkeepers
Tradesmen
Yeomen Farmers
Soldiers/Town Watch
Household Servants
Tennant Farmers
Shephards/Herders
Beggars
Actors
Thieves/Pirates
Gypsies
Animals
Birds
Worms
Plants
Rocks
Thanks to the Baltimore Shakespeare Festival
Of course, these days actors rate a little higher. Though in light of the role executive directors must increasingly play these days, actors still rank below beggars.
I recently came across a theatre that had shirts, mugs, totes, etc available with this list on their Cafepress shop. The puzzling thing for me was that they have never been associated with an Elizabethean/Jacobean production as long as I can remember. Since they mostly have live music and dance, a smattering of musicals and nearly no dramas, I wondered if it might be sending the wrong message to donors who may not get the joke.
In any case, the parents of aspiring actors can take comfort today, as they did in ages past, that at the very least, their kids didn’t want to become pirates.