I know the kids might have prepped their reasons for the college interviews, but as a family, have you ever really discussed why a kid wants to go into acting? Or discussed the realities after college? I’m curious, because as a group, I think parents here are fully supportive of the acting decision. I’ve had (non-theater) parents say to me “You’re going to let him do that?!” and yes, I’m going to let him do that, if that’s what he wants to do. I will have the student loan discussion tomorrow, just so that understanding is there up front. I will discuss (over the next couple of years) skills that will help with the “survival job” which will need to be in place while he auditions. And so, as I wait for kiddo to decide, I keep thinking that as a parent , I need to prepare my parent toolbox with a new set of tools. CC helped me with the college application process. What’s next? Kind of like reading books about pregnancy when you’re pregnant, and then the babies are born, and Dang! I should have read those books about taking care of babies! OR, maybe my job is to not put any new parent tools in the toolbox…thoughts?
@DoinResearch - I just went through stacks of college stuff we accumulated in the past few months. I have a good article for you. I’ll PM you later, when I’m home.
I’ll be brutally honest. There are days I look back at the audition process as the good old days. The reality of freshman year, especially if your child is going far away like mine is a whole other hurdle. First there is the crazy prep, dorm planning and furnishing and the continued output of money which does not end when auditions are over! Then there is that inevitable day when you kiss them goodbye and drive or in my case fly away. Nothing in my whole life prepared me for the feeling that my heart was being ripped out of my chest. But I did it, you will do it - it’s what parents do when we have to let go. But it was the hardest thing I ever have had to do. Freshman year is a big transition. There will definitely be highs and lows - these programs are hard, hard work - demanding and exhausting at times. It’s not always sunshine and roses and as parents you will come to find out you can’t fix things anymore. Sometimes all you can do is support and love them and send them strength from afar. You will sometimes feel very helpless. But as we are coming to the end of this year I can confidently say that I left a young girl at the beginning of the year and I’m picking up a resilient young woman in two weeks. She has fought through every challenge and I couldn’t be more proud. But I am oh so glad to be getting her home for awhile!
So far, my first three children have chosen performance majors and they are all at different stages. S just wrapped up his showcase and will graduate and move to NY in a few weeks. We believe in him and believe he can make a go of this crazy business. However, with the exception of keeping him on our insurance for the time being and paying for his phone for one more year, he will be expected to earn his own keep. Honestly, I am not worried. He had several non-theater/safety interviews set up during his week in NY. We also spoke with several kids who are making their way as waiters/bartenders while they audition. He is a smart and resourceful kid; he will work hard and figure it out. He’s also not one to wait until things come his way - he will be aggressively seeking opportunities.
D1 is a sophomore in college. She has multiple other theater-related talents (she could assist on costume and makeup crews) so she will find herself working somehow. She is doing a show this summer (stipend - not summer stock) and working as a caterer. Her school isn’t helpful with summer placements and she had an extremely difficult year following a serious car accident it was all she could do to keep her head above water without worrying about summer stock auditions. However, she has already started to look at what type of theater-related work she could do next summer and will plan her fall/winter breaks more carefully. Again, a smart, resourceful and frugal girl - she will make her way.
D2 will commit on May 1 :-). She is well aware that she will need to work for her spending money - all of my kids need to do this after a certain age. She’s got summer work lined up and may also be doing a show for a stipend. I could see her picking up a minor depending on the school and it wouldn’t surprise me if she ended up in dramaturgy or playwriting at some point.
We are not always great at passing along all the “adulting” skills but did teach the kids how to cook, how to work, somewhat live on a budget (not very good at this one!), how to do laundry, pay bills etc. I have great faith in theatre kids and the ability to translate the skills they learn in the classroom into any number of jobs (they make great salespeople!).
I posted this a while ago on a different thread but some might find it helpful here as well since it pertains to the questions @DoinResearch raised.
My D graduated with her BFA in Acting in May. I think I should preface this by saying that my husband and I agreed before my D went to college for her BFA that we would financially and emotionally support her for as long as we could once she graduated since we felt that was only fair given how difficult it is to make it in this field and since we wanted her to have the best chance possible to make it. We also look at her first few years after graduation as her graduate school. If she went to graduate school for a degree in another field, we would have helped pay for her room and board, so instead we are paying for “real life graduate school.” Her promise to us was that upon graduation she would commit herself 100% to finding work and if she decided that it was no longer her passion she would turn her energy elsewhere. I understand that there are some kids who have been able to work and support themselves right out of school. I am impressed! This has not been the case for my D so we continue to help support her. So far, her passion has not waned.
She is living in NYC in a tiny little apartment with a roommate and working her butt off to make it as a working actress. This means that everyday she has 2 or 3 auditions, which not only require the time it takes to get to the audition and the time at the audition itself but also the prep time of getting familiar with the script for each of these auditions. In order to get these auditions she spends a few hours each day scouring the emails from the boards she belongs to that match her with auditions. She then spends time submitting herself for the auditions. She also does workshops and takes classes so that she doesn’t get stale. This all takes a lot of time. For those who think having an agent upon graduation will eliminate some of this work, unfortunately, that is not the case. My D does have an agent and although they do send her out on quality auditions that she would probably not be able to go to if she didn’t have an agent, those only add up to 1 or 2 auditions a week and are extremely competitive. So, if she wants to work continuously she needs to line up more auditions and jobs on her own. As @artskids mentioned, it is very rare that anything just comes to you in this business. You need to be out there hustling everyday, be creative, and network. Your skin has to be even thicker than the skin you grew during college auditions. You will hear no almost everyday and sometimes numerous times a day. You will go on auditions and never hear back one way or another. You will be told you are perfect for the part and then hear nothing. You will be called back 4 or 5 times only to be told that the chemistry reading didn’t go well so you don’t get the part. I truly believe you can only do this if you cannot see yourself doing anything else.
So far she has done a few off broadway plays, a few indy films, a web series pilot, and some voice over work. Nothing that has paid a lot but each job seems to be paying a little more than the last.
We quickly realized that all of this time spent looking for work meant that all she could swing in terms of jobs were the typical very flexible hostessing/waitressing/baby sitting jobs so that she never had to say to an auditon or feel ill prepared when she got to an audition because she was working at some other job. Because missing one audition, might mean that she missed the one that was going to be her break. So we help support her. And that is what we signed up for when we agreed that she could pursue this career path. I understand that not everyone agrees with our plan but everyone needs to do what they feel comfortable doing.
Thank you! @sopranomtmom @artskids @jbtcat I think the financial discussion after graduation is something hubby and I have to discuss - I know what I think…I do think its fair to have that discussion before he decides. one option is no loan, the other are the federal limit loans…post graduation support/no support could sway the decision. So grateful the wise ones are still on CC.
@DoinResearch thank you for indulging my opinion! LOL. I do think it is only fair to have the post graduation support conversation before making a final college decision. I don’t know if my D would have made the same decisions if she knew she was totally on her own financially after graduation. Again whatever path your family chooses is the right path, just let your kids know what they are getting into.
I’ll recommend some books!
FOR LOS ANGELES
Self-Management for Actors: Getting Down to (Show) Business, Bonnie Gillespie
The Hollywood Survival Guide - for Actors: Your Handbook for Becoming a Working Actor in LA, Kym Jackson
An Agent Tells All, Tony Martinez
The Actor’s Life: A Survival Guide, Jenna Fischer
Video lecture on iActingStudios.com: [“Mastering Your Career”](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nomiGMjGPSs) by Richard Lawson
[“Things You Wish You were Told”](https://www.backstage.com/forums/working-actor/things-know-moving-la-789/) - Collected wisdom from the old Backstage forums as compiled by yours truly (also on the Reddit Acting and AskLosAngeles sidebars)
FOR NEW YORK
Acting as a Business: Strategies for Success, Brian O’Neil
Breaking and Entering: From Auditions to Agents to a Career Philip Carlson
An Actor Prepares … To Live in New York City Craig Wroe
While it should really be your kids reading all this, there is no harm in you educating yourself on what they will be up against. If they are like my old classmates, some kids will prefer blissful ignorance plus lots of things will probably change over the next few years anyway, but you can give them the new editions before fourth year when they start getting antsy. And if you just want to read something for the entertainment value, lots of people with no personal interest in acting or the business have found Jenna Fischer’s book to be hilarious.
@Gyokoren That’s a reading list jackpot!! Thanks!
Good advice by all! I think it’s important to have the ‘after grad financial’ discussion at this point because it should be factored in to school choice when looking at financial aid packages. Don’t let these kids graduate with a lot of debt. I can’t stress that enough. And don’t sacrifice your retirement by taking on huge loans yourself! Kids who have student loans to pay every month are going to be at a serious disadvantage. They are not going to be able to get by with server/bartender/babysitting jobs and still pay their other bills.
Living in NYC is expensive and if that’s where your kid is planning to move after graduation, they are going to need a nest egg of probably several thousand dollars just to get started. If their apartment requires a guarantor, which many of them do, be prepared to have to provide all kinds of financial information, and very quickly!
I second the comment by @jbtcat about agents. I smile when I read posts about what percentage of a graduating class has representation. There are agents of all descriptions and of all levels of worth. Your kid may be fortunate enough to get a gem right away or they may be unlucky and get a dud that is of little assistance. This is yet another factor that must be researched but it’s early for any of you to be worrying about that now. 
Just something to keep in the back of your mind.
This discussion might be of interest:
@DoinResearch - we started the conversation about… 10 years ago? lol. When my D started talking about acting as a career, we started talking about how you pay rent. I don’t think we are unsupportive and we are doing everything we can to make sure she will get the education she needs with no debt but we always set the expectation with her that success in acting comes at different ages, that early success is achieved by few, that she needs to be able to support herself in order to continue as an artist. We do want her to be able to pursue her career of choice but we don’t want her to make and either/or decision with being an actor or being a fully responsible adult. That will mean that she will need to make sacrifices in life-style and standard of living and it’ll be interesting how that plays out. It might be a little different for us because D is a character actress -I always keep in mind she might not get her big break for 20 years. I remember a Tony speech a couple of years ago when the actor said he’d been acting for something like 37 years - and that 34 of them had been pretty rough. I want her to be prepared for that.
This thread is excellent! Thanks to all for the great advice & points of view!