- (On being this actor in this town at this time)
As promised in my last post, I am going to address what it is like being this actor in this town at this time. This is a huge topic, in that to do it any justice, I feel it important to throw in a lot of background. As Obtattatt has already become a series, I will concentrate on my personal journey here and merely touch on other issues that I will expand upon at a future date.
I have bounced around theatre since the 1970’s. I have been a member of the Canadian Actors’ Equity Association for almost twenty years. My introduction to paying work came in 1976. I was one of three university students who portrayed the first-ever Mr. Grape for the Niagara Grape and Wine Festival. I received a hundred dollar honourarium and all the wine I could drink. It was a great gig with no rules. As it had never been done before, we were breaking the ground of what this mascot could do. The following year, they imposed a set of rules. Though invited to participate, I politely declined.
My first paid job in the conventional theatre came in 1978, when I was hired as the sound man for the now defunct Press Theatre in St. Catharines, Ontario. I later became their lighting technician and worked there for two years. I even got paid for designing the lighting plot for one of their shows. In 1980, I got my first legitimate paying acting gig. A summer long cabaret run of comedy skits. That fall I went to Vancouver Island, the beginning of what I now think of as my young-man-grand-tour. I had some offers to go to Toronto at the time. If I had followed that route, I may very well have been vaulted upwards by the explosion of theatre in this city in those days. This is something I have bytimes thought I should regret, but I do not as I was on a different road. I was in search of life experience and though I did not comprehend this then, I was also in search of a home.
In 1982, I washed up on the shores of Prince Edward Island, where I would live for the next eleven years. There was not much in the way of competition for acting jobs when I first arrived. My friend, Bill McFadden, was the only serious male actor who lived full time on the Island. Yeah, I had found a home. In my early years on PEI, my theatre artist friends and I were always bitching that the Charlottetown Festival (holder of long term high paying acting contracts) hired few local actors. This all changed in 1987 when Walter Learning arrived as the new artistic director. I worked five seasons at the Festival, four or five months of the year. This is still laughable to me as the Charlottetown Festival was known primarily for its musical theatre and I am the first to admit I cannot sing. But there were also lots of straight acting jobs and I sang when they asked it of me. In the off-season, I had a hand in running two theatre companies, was an actor for hire, did role play training at the Atlantic Police Academy and got occasional grants and commissions as a freelance playwright. There was one memorable week that highlighted this patchwork of employment. Monday I recorded a radio play for CBC. Tuesday I disrobed for life drawing classes. Wednesday I yelled at, lied to and generally belittled police cadets. Thursday to Saturday, I performed my own one person play, A Man Looking Out A Window. So, here I was, the proverbial big fish. And in 1992, I guess the time was finally right for my road to head to Toronto.
Having performed every possible task in theatre, I felt my versatility was my strong suit. When I arrived in the Big Smoke, I applied for any and every theatre job going. Many times I was told I was over-qualified for the position. Just as often, I was told to find success in Toronto, I would have to specialize. Be an actor or a playwright or- You cannot be an actor and a playwright. Thank the gods this particular discrimination seems to have gone away. Especially as it never made any sense to me. Anyway, upon my arrival, what I viewed as my strength, the locals saw as a weakness. So I would have to do it another way. I fully accepted that I would be required to take on some unpaid acting work in order to get my name out there. I performed in three plays for no money my first six months in Toronto. Though I received a lot of personal positive feedback, no one of any clout took notice. Bills still needed paying however and as I did not have the network I had established in PEI, I ended up taking on the dreaded “real” work. I now had less time, energy or focus for performing unpaid work.
I also possessed an irrational dislike of the whole agent system. I had nothing against agents, I simply disliked the parasitic barrier set up between the employers and the employable. I understood the value of someone taking care of the uninteresting and necessary details on my behalf, but I’m a stubborn so-and-so and thus refused to play the game. With no agent looking out for me and having little free time due to the dreaded “real” work, I drifted away from theatre. I did not appear on stage for eight years, though during that time I did stage manage two shows and acted in three student films.
In 2004, out of a desire to bring about a change in a personally unhappy time, I auditioned for a Fringe play. Turns out I was cast as Charles Bukowski in The Blood of a Coward. This was a very big hit of the Festival and people treated me as if I was an overnight sensation. Though this last brought about great sensations of pleasure, it was also baffling as I was just doing that which I had done for years. Ah, the bitch goddess, as someone once said. Anyway, my road now led to the door of my wonderful agency, Newton Landry. They offered to represent me, even after I expressed my dislike for the system. But I was thrilled to be sought out and told them if they made it easy for me then the answer was yes. Done and done. Since then, they have gotten me a couple of stage successes in Halifax and Port Hope. Which brings me to my current situation. Like so many others I know, I still cannot get paid acting work in this town.
First off, more government cutbacks to the arts is a constant problem and one that I will address soon. For now, let’s just say, less money results in less employment availability across the board. Beyond that, Toronto is a great theatre town. At any one time, there are scores of productions going on. In the case of an actor looking for work, I place these productions in to three categories. The top category belongs to the long term big bucks contracts. The Mirvishes are in this category and so too, by their proximity, are the Shaw and Stratford Festivals. The second category is mostly comprised of those theatres that were born during the aforementioned explosion of the seventies. Both of these categories revolve around the old phrase, it’s who you know. Directors -myself included- are going to hire friends and people they feel confident can do the job. As I first complained and then benefited from this system in Charlottetown, I am not going to complain about it now. I recognize it as just being the way of things. So, ultimately it comes down to getting one’s foot in the door. Unfortunately, I am a terrible travelling salesman (and cannot even tell any of those old jokes right). Being big on having a plan, however, keeps me going. I am hanging around, waiting for someone to hold open the door for me.
Now I come to the sprawling third category of theatre in this town at this time. And it is this place where I am most often found. For lack of any other term, I call this free theatre. Although these gigs sometimes do pay, it is never enough and seldom guaranteed. Fortunately, Actors’ Equity listened to its members a few years ago and it is now possible to get permission to perform in free theatre. Because as my friend Cayle Chernin (check out her website www.cayle.ca) says, it’s all about the work. I take this to mean the doing of it. Getting paid is wonderful, of course, but ultimately an actor wants to act. It’s a calling, it’s an addiction, it’s who we are. Although I cannot speak for others, I love equally the differing processes of rehearsal and performance. And I feel doubly fortunate that I am blessed with my own particular talent and that I get to bring it out to play sometimes. And, you know, on your way out, if you would remember to prop open the door, I mean I might be in the bathroom or something….
