Ask and You Shall Receive or How I Became a Freelance Theatre Artist

So that we are all on the same page, let me recap that I'm wrapping up week three of my open-ended hiatus from CTC. And I've got my form all ready to send to unemployment. And I've still got bills to pay. And CT and I've pretty much decided we're going to (have to) stick it out in our one room apartment for a little while longer.

Our apartment. That is not our bed, just our couch.

But in true self-sufficient, pull-yourself-up-by-your-bootstraps-fashion, I've been sending out applications and résumés since before I was officially on hiatus. I am happy to report that all of my efforts and frantic e mailing has paid off. Here is how I've been making/planning to make money since April 23:

Week One: Résumé and application blasts to theatres and craigslistings all over the place. By Tuesday I had two interviews with non-theatre companies, one an supplementary education company (read: after-school enrichment center) and one with a print company. The first interview I apparently bombed and the second, the print company, I was hired on the spot. Hooray! I started training the next day, Wednesday. For two days I gave it a go. At $12 an hour, doing graphic design and answering phones and running xeroxes didn't seem so bad. Except I was going to be the only person doing that and was expected to be so awesome I could replace the woman who'd been working for that particular company for over three years and knew all of the account abbreviations and quirks like the back of her hand. It wasn't looking good.

Also on Wednesday, I went to an interview at SJ Rep for a box office assistant position. Many of you may remember I did a stint at The Dallas Opera's box office when I lived in Texas and loved! it! Turns out SJ Rep uses the same ticketing program, had someone leaving the fold, and hey, they wanted to hire me. $9 an hour with hours fluctuating from 10 to 30 a week... well, I thought, it's something. And it's something that is flexible and low-stress enough that I could do other things. So Friday morning I quit the print company, thanked them for the opportunity, and drove to San Mateo to open Pied Piper Player's Once Upon a Mattress.
 

The Queen tries to make Winnifred as sleepy as possible.

Week Two: More résumés and applications including bookstores and Starbucks. Pretty much anywhere I thought I might be employable, I applied. But things that week were pretty low-key and boring. I worked on my friend Margo's website and even my own website. (BTW, now offering portrait and wedding packages!) On Thursday I trained at the SJ Rep Box Office and it was like riding a bike. Sure, there were things that they do differently than the Opera, but it was pretty easy and I felt good about my choice to take the job. And on Sunday I struck Once Upon a Mattress and got the last of my paycheck from PPP and made plans to talk about other work with the company.

Week Three: (That's this week) Everything started to fall into place. Monday I had lunch with the Artistic Director of PPP and we worked out a plan for me to come aboard as the Production Manager for the company, teach during their conservatory, and designing on a regular basis. Tuesday I went to visit family in Oroville.

My sister Hannah and nephew Hunter

Wednesday I worked at the box office. And then yesterday, Thursday, I got a slew of e mails and had two meetings that resulted in 3 gigs (one painting a backdrop, one designing costumes, and one costume supervising) and a call to work over-hire on a load-out for a theatrical supply place in the area. Bada-bing, Bada-boom.

I've done the math. It's not spectacular money for the amount of work, but it's close to what I was making before. And it's on projects ranging from Shakespeare to Gilbert & Sullivan. Which is pretty neat. The thing that has kept me from doing freelance work before is the difficulty at keeping sane. What do I mean by this? Well, in a 9-5 job, even in theatre, there is structure. You go to work, you complete your work, you go home. Sure there are crazy days during tech week and strike, but those are planned in advance, you see them coming, and time is allotted for them and subsequent recovery. As a freelancer, that is on you. Working with five different companies means that you have to be sure that tech weeks aren't going to collide and that you'll have enough time to complete fittings and paint flats and whatever has to happen. And then there is the travel time. And gas. When you work at one theatre you go there and come home. Some traveling may occur for the company, but life is contained. When you work for five different companies you're running all over the city, or in my case, all over the bay area, trying to get everything sorted and done. Sure some work can happen at home (especially costume-related work), but mostly you go to their space and use their tools and then you drive somewhere else the next day... it gets overwhelming.

But perhaps the biggest stress about being self-employed, working gig to gig, are taxes. I've never had more than one 1099 a year, so while a pain, it was pretty straightforward and didn't change my taxes that much. But with this much gig work, I'm going to have to do quarterly taxes or I'm going to end up owing hundreds of dollars I've already spent come April of 2013. I'm not sure why companies can't take taxes out. Okay, I'm sure it has something to do with paperwork and calculations that are far beyond just issuing a check, but can't there be a way to make this easier? Can't there be a way to take the burden of this off the artist? More importantly so that the artist doesn't accidentally spend money that really has to go to the federal government??? For now I just automatically deduct 20% out of the fee and put it in savings. And now with quarterly taxes, I won't get hit with a big OUCH! next year.

So now I can call myself a freelance theatre artist. And really raise my parents' anxiety levels. Woo.

Pish Posh

Check it, I don't have the time to write my blog. I'm working my usual 9-5 job at CTC and I'm working for Pied Piper Players in San Mateo on the weekends for their upcoming production of Once Upon a Mattress. Working seven days a week stinks.

And then you get your paycheck(s).

 And you realize why do the things you do (MONEY!!) and that you are getting paid to do what you love.

Nevertheless, I'm not getting paid to do this, so it's not important (sarcasm). Also, it's hard to avoid talking about things that people could take wrong. I work in a field that is built on who you know and schmoozing. And we're a bunch of artists (i.e. have the emotional maturity of a five-year-old). So writing about the things I think about day in and day out, well, you can tell what editing those thoughts has done to the blog. However, I'm determined to carve out time to write again.

Today I'm going to just give an update about the shows I'm currently doing:

The Life and Times of Ben Franklin, AKA "Ben Franklin" + 6 "Apprentices" tell you about all the cool stuff Mr. Franklin did in his life. And I get the opportunity to make a rear-projection screen out of ironed wax paper. Yep, ironed, basket-woven strips of wax paper. Pictures forthcoming (assuming it stays in one piece once we install it). (Also, I get the opportunity to stupidly design a somewhat touring show, and make a "printing press". Also fun.)

Pirates of Penzance, Jr., AKA "The Great Spring Musical" for Sunnyvale-area students. For this I'm costume designing, which is quite a test of patience and organization. And my alteration skills (hemming a 6-panel skirt 8 inches without cutting!). It's great fun. We go into tech for this show in about 2 weeks.

Once Upon a Mattress, AKA The true story of the "Princess and the Pea." This is the one I'm doing with PPP and it's been fun because I get to work with great and varied parent-volunteers every weekend. Apparently I'm awesome and have us 3 weeks ahead of "schedule" (if we refer to previous production "schedules", or lack there of). Little do they know that my organization is a ruse. Also, side note, this was the last show that I did in high school and my scenic design was pretty lame (still blame it on the director's insistence that though she was transplanting the story to the 1980s, the set still had to be a castle) and so now I get some redemption. Sweet. :)

Lastly, I wish I'd been able to go to SETC this year, and, for that matter, was getting to go to USITT down in Long Beach. Oh well.

I leave you with a picture of Kevin Kline in Pirates of Penzance because, well, he's dreamy and we're ripping off his style pretty clearly in our production: