Finished up in the warehouse. All went smoothly. I’m now much more confident cutting girders in half. Again I’m not precise on pitching so again I’ll know when the dust settles how it falls out but I’m not gonna finish this process swimming in a pool full of banknotes. I think I’ll pay myself though once I’ve paid everyone else. Learning learning learning.
I’ve just finished my shift at a theatre in London. I was gonna name it but I sometimes forget… There are all sorts of boundaries and licensing issues. Three major departments. Education, Corporate and Performance. Education: We are the most important, protecting legacy, building the next audience, reaching across the world. Performance: We are the most important, doing the shows, doing the real work. Corporate: We are the most important, wining and dining the potential sponsors, building events that bring in good money for the building…
Time was we had to dress in Victorian costumes for events “so nobody could mistake us for the real actors”. Last year I was in Stratford with the daughter of the founding artistic director here. I know and deeply trust one of the early luminaries, who helped create this place. I might not have featured in a column in Important Human Magazine about jazzy actors doing Shakespeare, but that doesn’t mean I’m not a jazzy actor that can do Shakespeare. But … I watched the boundary come into play today. The stilt walker couldn’t get down the stairs so she was the wrong side of the cast iron gate that marks the boundary beyond which the uninitiated must not pass. THAT’S NOT ALLOWED. SHE’S NOT A REAL ACTOR. “Licensing issues”.
I’m largely just a bit nonplussed. Invested people pretend to have just casual conversations with me. ” ‘ello cor blimey I is just being passer by wot is jolly curious, I isn’t investorised in this conversation oh no”
“What’s the show you’re promoting?” I tell her it isn’t a show it’s a party. “Oh it’s just a party?” “Yes, but there is a show, indoors a very good one.” “But you’re just a party, here?” “Yes.”
I’m still pretending I think she’s a member of the public even though someone has tattooed “mystery shopper” on her forehead. I poke her a little. “There IS a theatre here though madam, you should look it up online, it’s very good.” She looks monumentally pissed off for about 0.05 seconds – she hates mansplaining but not enough to blow her cover fully. Damn. “I KNOW,” she tells me, and bites back on saying “Do you know who I am?” I’m disappointed and smiling charmingly. I’m dressed as a rabbit. She walks away.
I’m not in the club. Yet. My best friend is an associate artist. But I’m not in the club. Maybe an audition one day. The current leadership is very adjacent to the people I have been running alongside.
Shortly after I meet the mystery shopper, the bookers are all in a flap and the stilt walker is getting it in the neck and I hear people talking about “licensing” and honestly I just think this sort of thing doesn’t have to be like this, people are so prideful and exclusive. It would be so much better for the whole building if the three departments stopped throwing shit over the wall at each other. Yes, sure, I’m doing improv dressed as a White Rabbit, but some of the gubbins I’ve seen on the mainstage here would make underconfident stilt-Alice look like Eileen Atkins. Quality is not about position. Many heartbreakingly wonderful actors never work in the industry at all after leaving drama school. Anyone that went to one of those places will be able to name a few great people who never launched. Ability counts for something. Luck counts for more. Contacts?
“How do you get these warehouse clearance jobs?” I was asked today. Who I know…
Fair enough.
Everything is about that. Who you know. The more you do in a sphere the more whos you know. I get lots of stuff from that in both spheres. I’ve worked hard not to be a cunt. Does this blog help or hinder? I don’t care anymore I’m just doing it.
Turns out I’m more willing to be bold and pushy and take reputation risks in the clearance frame than the acting frame though and that’s worth looking at. God I love my vocational work though. I think that’s why I’m feeling so enervated right now. Start the day cutting girders in half, end it frolicking on a leyline on the south bank.
AlBarclay 