[NEohioPAL] A Career in the Theater Arts: What Were They Thinking

[Bob Abelman via NEohioPAL]

What Were They Thinking:  A Career in the Theater Arts

 

Bob Abelman

Cleveland Jewish News

Member, International Association of Theatre Critics 



This article will appear in the 9/26/2014 issue 

 

 

"I get up every day as a freelance theater-maker and try to figure out how to make a living."

                         ~ Caridad Svich, nomadic playwright and songwriter

 

Ms. Svich has had quite a career.  She received a 2012 Obie Award for Lifetime Achievement in the theater, a 2012 Edgerton Foundation New American Play Award, and the 2011 American Theatre Critics Association Primus Prize.  And yet she struggles daily - not with churning out creative work but with turning that enterprise into a living wage.

 

This is true for local artists as well, where there are plenty of theaters but few that support a sustainable, salaried ensemble of players, playwrights and designers.  

 

Acting jobs are particularly rare.  The Actors' Equity Association (AEA) reported that only 38 percent of the professional actors who make up its membership work at any given time.  And they work an average of only 17 weeks a year.  Nearly 70 percent of these working actors earn $15,000 or less.  

 

Despite the odds of theater artists obtaining employment and the difficulty of making a living doing so, college programs designed to prepare students for a career in the theater arts are bursting at the seams. Conservatories specializing in musical theater are as hard to get into as the most competitive medical programs and prestigious law schools. 

 

Last Fall, there were 4,595 applicants to the Mayo Medical School and 1.8 percent were admitted.  Yale Law School accepted only 7.9 percent of its applicants.  By comparison, 2.8 percent of the 800 musical theater applicants to the University of Cincinnati College-Conservatory of Music were accepted.

 

According to a recent article in American Theatre magazine, 98.6 percent of those graduating with a degree in the theater arts leave with student loan debt; nearly half of them owe $50,000 - $100,000.  

 

So why pursue a career in the arts?  Here is what a few local professional theater artists have to say on the subject. 



For more of this article, go to: http://www.clevelandjewishnews.com/news/local/article_8ff1e568-432f-11e4-874d-93ff11b3e778.html



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