Dedication’s what you need…
Well, let’s face it. Working as an artist in London is pretty tricky. I’m in the theatre side of things myself, and while for some people it looks to be quite easy from the outside, I can testify that for pretty much everyone who’s starting out, it’s a bit of a challenge. Having been in the game for a few years I’ve seen a lot of my friends get out of the uk teaching jobs, doing ESOL work; many more retrain as teachers; one as a lawyer; and quite a few get jobs with major companies.
A lot of the time, these guys have imagined that it might be possible to keep up a career in the theatre alongside whatever other job they might have.
In practice, this nearly always turns out to be impossible. What inevitably happens is that the demands of what was supposed to be a “day job”grow and grow, as people gain more responsibility, and obviously get better at and more committed to their work.
That said, it’s only a tiny fraction of people who are able to get a full - time, well - paid job doing what they want to do in theatre. And for everyone else, it’s vital to find a way of keeping body and soul together while you try to put together the things you want to do. The risk is that either the work starts to take over your life - or it becomes mind-numbingly dull.
One thing I’ve found brilliant is running drama workshops. I started out with Stagecoach and now work for a private company that does workshops in primary schools. It allows me to use (and even develop) my skills, and it pays reasonably well. Preparation time means that it does end up taking up more time than you’d expect. But still, it’s well worth it - and it means that I’m developing skills that might be helpful in a second career…if I need to go down that road!
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