It's a well-known statistic that only 5% of actors are in work at any time.
This is a bleak figure to face when emerging into the industry as a new graduate. The reality is the majority of the time you will not be employed to do the job for which you are trained. This can be immensely frustrating: no matter how good you are or how hard you work, the jobs may not be forthcoming.
But instead of drowning in a pool of disillusionment, it is possible to take the power back.
Instead of sitting around hoping the phone will ring, emerging actors can channel their undoubted passion and desire to work into creating something for themselves.
This is what I did, alongside my fellow actor and recent graduate Peter Carruthers, in 2011. We put pen to paper and eventually, after various stages of development, Hidden was born. Hidden is a dark, comic two-hander, in which Peter and I play three characters each.
I started small and learned on the job.
It explores connection, isolation and constructed identities in the modern urban world. Writing has enabled us to start to take control of our acting careers – we are able to address the issues we are passionate about, tell the stories we are interested in and play the characters we want to play without having to rely on other people giving us the chance to do so.
But writing the play is not enough. It needs to be staged. And in order to stage it, with very limited finances, I had to venture into the world of producing. Tasks of marketing, budgeting, scheduling, contracting etc seem a far cry from the skill set of an actor, but ones I had to undertake in order to act. So necessity birthed Black Toffee, the production company I set up to produce Hidden.
I started small and learned on the job. It soon became apparent that organisation and communication, as much as imagination and talent, were the keys to success.
It has been a very gradual journey from a small theatre festival in Preston in 2011, through being selected for Manchester's Re:Play festival, to a sell-out run at Edinburgh fringe last yea culminating in our current Arts Council-funded national tour.
Kevin Jamieson at Harrogate theatre kindly offered to make Black Toffee an associate artist of the theatre and mentor me as a producer. His support and advice enabled Black Toffee to grow. We have established a foundation from which future work can be built, so that I can continue to generate my own work.
However, the challenges can be overcome with discipline...
There are considerable challenges to producing your own work. Time management is the main one – you are essentially doing at least two full-time jobs at any one time. Potentially the acting work (the main reason for doing it all) can suffer because there is only a finite amount of time. I would estimate that I have spent five times longer on the production side of things than on creating the piece.
However, the challenges can be overcome with discipline, good communication, organisation – and above all else, lack of sleep. Ultimately, the long hours have been worth it – producing my own work has been empowering and liberating. I no longer feel like a passive component in my own career.
Hidden is coming to London 8th - 12th April!
More details are available at www.hiddenplay.co.uk.
Check out the trailer below:
>> read the original article on The Guardian website.
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