Arts Careers

Importance of the Personal “Why”

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Scott Walters has a couple of entries on Theatre Ideas worth reading if you have a career in the arts or are considering having a career in the arts or if you think an arts degree is useless. (My assumption is there aren’t a lot of the latter in my audience, but if there are, read on.) If you haven’t read his blog before, Walters is a theatre professor who is eminently concerned that higher education theatre arts training programs, are not adequately preparing their students for the the real world upon graduation. This includes reinforcing some unrealistic expectations in the students. Some of his entries have been about how training programs and the system that surrounds them are failing the students, others have been about that and how students can fail themselves.

Given this context, I was interested in reading about how he would answer a theatre major who expressed some trepidation as she was about to graduate. (Part Two appeared today.) While the state of things does weigh heavily on his mind, Walters shows his wisdom by urging his student not to define herself primarily by her theatre degree, but to also make her degree meaningful to herself.

Let’s start with what you have going for you. This has nothing to do with theatre:

1. You’re smart.
2. You’re articulate.
3. You’re likable.
4. You’re educated. (you have a BA)
5. You can work as part of a team. (that’s what shows are based on)
6. You are self-disciplined. (or else you wouldn’t learn your lines and show up for rehearsal when scheduled)
7. You can present yourself in front of people. (acting)
8. You can manage people. (directing)

So you have all the tools to be successful in whatever you do. Remember that — the conventional wisdom that a degree in theatre isn’t useful in “real life” is stupid. Don’t accept the fallacious idea that your options are waiting tables or working temp.

This may sound a lot like one of those rationalizations about how your degree in an apparently less than marketable field really gives you skills applicable in any industry, but he tells her there is some additional work she will have to do to discover what place her degree in theatre will have in her life. He urges her to do some thinking/journaling/talking to discover what her “Why” is. This is related to the post I did on the ““why” that drives big companies, only on a personal level. Again, he urges her not to define her why specifically in relation to theatre. In today’s sequel entry he says:

“Also, beware of this phrase: “Theatre is the only way I know…” To put it bluntly, theatre isn’t the only way to do anything. If that’s the only way you know how to do something, then you need to use your imagination a bit more, because there are lots of ways to accomplish a “why.” So you say ” Theatre is the only way I know to throw what I think I know and believe out there- to bounce it off someone else’s life, their perspective, their beliefs- and get an immediate response.” Really? What about more direct, less mediated ways like, say, having a conversation or writing an email or giving a speech on a street corner? Wouldn’t those options also involve saying what you believe and getting an immediate response? Wouldn’t it be more direct to become a minister or a politician rather than an actor? And are you really saying that, as an actress, you will always be speaking about what you think you know and believe? When you do that industrial, or TV commercial, or get that gig in Jersey Boys, will you be speaking your truths? Or will you, instead, be providing the mouthpiece to speak somebody else’s truths?”

It occurred to me as I read this that there should be an expectation of a type of two way street. If we want people to value their activities watching movies, singing in the church choir, dancing, writing, etc as arts participation, it is only reasonable that we encourage people with arts training to values their general abilities and activities in a non-arts context. After all, if we want to advance the value of arts education and creativity to business and industry, it would seem appropriate that we advocate employment/involvement in non-arts business and industry to those with arts training. The burden for making a case for creativity can’t be borne by the accountant who was in high school band alone. There have to be some exemplars from the arts world standing up too. What Walters says about arts people not selling themselves short by defining this as being a temp or waitress is right on the money.

Who Knew They Were Talking To Theatre Guys Today?

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The assistant theatre manager and I team spoke about working in the arts at a high school career day yesterday. Ah, I forgot the joys of teenage apathy in the classroom! Actually, I think the lack of engagement we received was due to the design of the routing assignments the students were given. We were told that the students choose which speakers they wanted to hear. The reality was that they chose which career track in which they had an interest. We were part of the arts and communications track.

We didn’t discover this until about 5 minutes into the first session when we finished our intros and asked people about their arts involvement/interest and the response was barely tepid. It turned out that none of them knew they were going to a room where theatre people would be speaking. They had simply been assigned to the room. The same was true in the second session, only we asked earlier. Few in the room were involved in performance or visual art creation even as a hobby. Those that were didn’t seem to have a lot of confidence in their abilities and no one in the room was exclaiming that someone was being too humble and was actually awesome.

We had come prepared on selling the arts as a career, but this was going to be a tougher sell. At the same time, it was a really great opportunity to introduce the concept to people who had never really considered it. I am not sure how successful we were, but there were a couple people who stuck around after each session to ask us about our performances (we brought brochures, of course) and talk a little bit about their arts experiences.

Another benefit to speaking to this sort of audience was that they seemed to take our warnings about how tough it was to make a living in the arts seriously. There didn’t seem to be anyone who felt we were talking to the others people in the room who weren’t as talented as they. We didn’t just speak about having careers in stage, screen and art galleries but also noted the importance of creativity in the coming economy.

Next week were are speaking at the career day of another school. Knowing what we do now, I am going to contact them again and determine what it is exactly the students are selecting when they are choosing to attend our presentation. We had brought a simple powerpoint presentation comprised mostly of images of shows we had presented to give a sense of what opportunities were available. If the students we interact with next week are going to have the same level of awareness about the arts as those today did, we will probably alter the content a little to better suit our audience.