I don’t know that I have anything new to add, as there are many good posts that share thoughts I might have written.
I wasn’t that scared when my kid went to college for this degree. It was always her passion and I never really thought twice about my kids following their interests. No college major is a guarantee a graduate will get a job in that major. The way I see it, my MT daughter went to college and got a college degree. She studied what interested her. I was confident she’d then pursue this field, but it would be OK if she didn’t, because many people in the work force are in jobs that don’t match their college major. To me, college is about becoming more educated and is not just about the major.
Nonetheless, my kid, who graduated from her BFA program 8 yeas ago, has worked entirely in music and theater since graduation and has supported herself, which was our expectation. We didn’t have our kids pay any of their loans. I have paid them. That was our gift to start them out with an education… But they wee not supported once they got their final degree.
In my experience (observing)…one important factor is DRIVE. In the original post, my concern was that the parent worried about their teen’s drive. I think drive really matters in lots of things but particularly in a field like theater/performing. I don’t think it is enough to hope you land something or to put all one’s eggs in the auditioning basket. I think one thing that has helped my kid is a relentless drive and not waiting to be cast in something. In fact, she rarely ever auditions. She doesn’t have time and she is always involved in a couple of projects. So, her life doesn’t remotely revolve around auditions. If you wait to be cast, you might be waiting a long time. If you want to perform, you have to find ways to make that happen. One way is to create your own work. Another is lots of networking as the more things you get involved in, the more people you meet and collaborate with and ask one another to get involved in their project, etc. Also, the more you are seen, people come to know your work and may ask you to be in their show, etc. All of those types of things have happened for my daughter.
Another key thing is to have a diversified skill set and not rely on just being in musicals. My kid did NOT have a back up plan in college. She was all-in for being a theater performer. However, she now has 3 simultaneous careers (and doesn’t do any survival jobs). Each career could keep her busy, but the nice thing is, if something is slow in one area, it might be busy in one of her other careers. It is a lot to juggle and she is ALWAYS working with very little down time. In her case, her three careers are: being a MT performer in musicals, being a singer/songwriter (non-MT genre), and being a MT writer/composer/lyricist. She did not train in the second or third careers. She just starting doing it in the latter yeas of college. She truly loves being a singer/songwriter and has done a lot in that area. She wrote her first musical as a project in her senior year of college (and was in it), because she wanted to challenge herself before graduating, but not intending to write other musicals. But that musical took off in the professional world and has led to commissions to write other musicals (which she is in), and so people pay her to write them. She does enjoy the creative process and seems to have a knack for it, even though she wasn’t trained in that. But what her second and third careers also allow is for her to perform a lot in NYC. She is either creating concerts of her original songs, or musicals of her original scores and then performs in these. It has kept her very busy and she even has tuned down some performing jobs.
I think it is difficult to make it in many fields. But yes, this is a particularly competitive field and unlike some other fields, there are some factors beyond one’s control, such as looks and type. A big difference is that jobs in this field are short term and so the person is basically always job hunting (though as I mentioned, my daughter continues to do work of her own creation too and so it not 100% relying on being cast. Other odd things come up, such as my daughter expected to play a great role in a favorite musical this fall in NYC and it has turned out that the funding did not come through and the show now is not happening. But luckily, she has plenty of other stuff to work on and will have to see after that.
I agree with some others that you have to believe in yourself and keep going. It is not a field for the faint of heart. I also think that the goal should not be Broadway or something too narrow. If you love theater or love performing, find ways to do those things and get involved in some capacity. The more things you enjoy, the more skills you have, and so on, helps. I don’t think auditioning alone is enough to have a life in the arts. It is too chancy to just rely on audition-based opportunities.
If is truly hard to make it in this field and earn a living doing it; no doubt about that. However, I have to say that my kid has numerous friends either from her own BFA program, who whom she knew in another capacity (like her summer theater camp) who are doing quite well in the field and have worked at the highest levels in it and they are still in their 20s. So, it is not impossible.
