Unemployment as an Actor

There is no reason to not be working as an actor if that is your passion. There are reasons to go broke doing it, but if you love it, you have to find a way to work. When I moved to Los Angeles from New York, I thought that was going to be the next Pacino. I mean that. I had know idea how difficult it would be. For whatever reason, it felt that I was not able to get the breaks that I seen so many of my friends get. They got the good agent, I did not. They got the good manager, I did not. They got called in to see casting directors, I did not. I had this one agent tell me after seeing me in a play, what a wonderful actor I was. He meant it and was so excited pointing out moments that I had in the play. Up until that point I had never be so praised. At the end of our conversation, he informed me that he wasn’t going to be representing me and would represent the other actor in the play with me. He told me that he didn’t think the other actor was near as talented as me, but he did think that he had a look that he could sell. My heart sunk. from that point on I decided that I was not going to leave it up to outside sources to insure that I would get the opportunity to act. This was in 1987 and I decided that I would start my own group and call it, The Artist Theatre Group. I picked Artist, because this is what I aspired to be and Group, out of respect for the Group Theatre and those wonderful teachers Meisner, Strasberg and Adler, who changed the face of American acting for ever. With my group I produced 90 plays acted in over 60 and directed over 30 and lost money on 89 of them. I felt that I was working my way up the ladder artistically, but down the ladder financially. With my group I discovered my passion for teaching.