Into the fire

Well, this is it, kids.  I'm down to my last dollar.  My literal last dollar.  I've been spending an awful lot of time agonizing about what I was going to do once I got to this point, but you know what?  It's not really all that different from anything else I've done so far.

I had my dad ask me if I wanted to be talked up for a 70k-salary job that I'm not really qualified for, if I would just move back to Detroit, and I basically said that A) I'm still more concerned for my mental health than I am my monetary situation, and B) they'll take my body out of Chicago before I leave this city.

Seventy thousand dollars is so much money it almost makes me want to vomit at the thought of how extravagant that is.  Maybe I still have issues determining my self-worth, but I really don't think I'm qualified to make too much more than twenty, regardless of what I'm doing.  Do people really live on more than that?  And what are you supposed to do with it all? 

I'm down to my last dollar, and I'm still sitting in a coffeeshop, editing photos and wondering how I stumbled into working with such wonderful (and unreasonably attractive) actors. 

Is it just me?  Probably. Image (C) Me.  Duh.

I'm sitting in a coffeeshop, paying for my coffee with laundry quarters, and somehow, I'm still managing to fangirl over how stupid cute the gent on the right is.  I didn't think so when we started rehearsals, but people grow on you.  We're finishing up tech and opening the show this coming weekend, and it's been really strange to work on another Equity production.  I didn't think I'd find myself doing Equity theater again, but here we are.

I'm down to my last dollar, and I am going to be fine.  This isn't going to kill me.  The universe provides. 

Exhale

This week may well have been one of the most stressful on record.  I clocked a day on set, tech for one show, and fully costuming a burlesque act. 

It was down to the wire, but I finished the important things, and I rolled with the things that didn't end up happening.  And I learned a few things. Like... that apron I had planned for my burly-q act is totally unnecessary (and also to tie my bustle underneath my corset, because I almost got stuck this week.  O_o)

In the moment, having to finish ten thousand things in the span of about 72 hours is absolutely hellish.  But I say it over and over again, and it's true.  I work best when I'm standing on the edge of a knife.  I don't meander through my projects, I shoot through them with laser focus. 

This week, I'll be spending another day on set, and I have work or job interviews or rehearsal or shows EVERY DAY (except Wednesday.  whee!).  Let's hope we can keep this train moving along. 

Theatre without a net: It's called respect

We all know I'm Stage Managing a show at present.  It is one of three shows that will be running in rep. for the month of March, and the only show that is not being called or run by the company's resident Stage Manager.

This is the second day of tech.  Today.  Today is the second day of tech.  Tomorrow is our first dress rehearsal.  As in: everything needs to be finished tonight.  I was told, TODAY, that the time we had scheduled for tech since December is actually an hour shorter than we had thought it was.

Which leaves me with a cumulative seven hours to tech a two hour show.  Seven hours, over two days, which includes a total of 2 hours of changeover time.

I did mention that I'm only getting paid $200 for this show, right?  When my going rate is usually around $500?  That I burned up my stipend in CTA fares within the first month of rehearsal, and am therefore actually losing about $200 to work this show?

Yeah.  For obvious reasons, I'm not even going to mention who I'm working with here.

WHEE:  SUBSTANTIAL EDIT TIME.  It looks like we were BOTH wrong.  My time for today was ultimately correct (meaning that extra hour is totally still there), but literally no one thought to tell me that they were talking about tomorrow until about seven emails in.  So... there's that, I guess. 

I sound like a dick in my cover letters

A few months ago, I was trolling the internet looking for my next gig, something to keep me going just a little longer, because I'm a freelance-everything, and that's pretty much just what you have to do with your life.  I was looking at Stage Management jobs, and I happened to come across a post for an off-night show which was... pretty much perfect for me, since I perform on Saturday nights.  I composed a cover letter for this job, and pretty much immediately thought I sounded like a self-important dick.  What the hell, I thought, and sent it anyway.  I got that job within the hour, no interview required. 

I've been keeping it in my back pocket, for the times when I really want to be considered for something, and I've had some good opportunities crop up in the last few weeks that called for its modification and return to service.  Surprise, surprise, I got called to schedule an interview less than an hour after I sent it in. 

What I've discovered is something that isn't exactly new.  In fact, it's something that I totally already knew, once upon a time.  I must have forgotten it somewhere along the line of spending three years frying my brain cells out under someone else's fluorescent lighting.  Confidence makes you look competent. 

Confidence makes you look competent. 

I'm not saying that confidence alone is going to qualify you for a job you're not competent at, but it sure seems to go a long damn way.  I've spent so long apologizing for myself, apologizing for somehow managing to be good at Stage Management and writing and photography.  When you write it out, it doesn't seem to be so nonsensical, but in my brain, somehow being demure and apologizing for my abilities equaled being a humble and hardworking employee.  Someone who wouldn't be difficult to work with.  Someone who would just put their head down and do the job and not bitch about it. 

But, to employers, I'm guessing what that says is "I need handholding, because I cannot see how I can possibly manage this task on my own."  or "Ehh... I was mediocre at this, but I still want to keep trying."

Walking into a room, however, and announcing to the group that yes, I'm here, and yes, I'm fabulous... well, that either makes you look like an ignorant blowhard... or it makes you look like yes, you're here, and yes, you really are fantastic at what you do, and you don't need anyone else's validation or handholding to tell you that. 

Who knew?

Theater without a net

Among the myriad things I've been doing with my life since jumping off the deep end, one of the things I really never thought I'd come back to, if we're being honest, is Stage Management.  I busted my ass in school to even be recognized as capable of Stage Managing, I worked quite successfully in the theater my first few years in Chicago, but the cost of trying to balance running a show with working a full-time day job was just too much for me.  I walked away from it for about a year, and then, somehow, managed to allow myself to be talked into doing *just one more* show. 

Now that I'm not working a full-time day job, I find I'm able to be a much more effective stage manager. 

The show I'm working on at present is Love and Understanding and is part of Redtwist Theatre's More Red series.  You can find information about it at Redtwist's website.