Concerning the difficulties of working so far from home (3/13/12)

Just got into Cleveland yesterday for a 7 week run of Romeo & Juliet at Great Lakes Theater. This is the start of what my life could be like: Whisking around from city to city, working 7 week contracts here, 16 week contracts there, not really living at my "home" (New York? Somewhere else?), feeling unsettled/like a guest.

I really lucked out with housing this time around. Sue Hastings, a board member at GLT and a lawyer, graciously put me up in her mansion and has been wonderfully hospitable. It's a twenty minute drive from Cleveland, which is a bummer, but really glad I didn't have to stay with Heidi and Seth because that would've been a 50 minute drive!

Despite living in luxury, I feel a bit like a second class citizen....NON-equity. I make $450/wk, which is great for me, but EQUITY performers make upwards of $700/wk. AND get apartment housing within two blocks of the theater. Seriously? I'm complaining about little stuff like this? Count your lucky starts, moron, you're making the best money you've ever made and you're being treated like a prince at this house (gasp) 20 minutes away!

But it's an interesting feeling living in a place for seven weeks and not really able to go home. I'm on a semi-permanent business trip...though i do inherit a nice "family" of actors while I'm here. It's a great opportunity, but I just wonder how long i can sustain living this way, even if great opportunities keep coming along (hopefully they will). My goal in acting life is to make work i believe in and that I WANT to be working on. I've worked with Meadow Brook and now Great Lakes Theater and I'm almost treating them as internships...how do big budget theaters conduct business? Artistic choices? Can't say I love being in a production where the director is looking at a previous recording of this very show, telling us all where Abraham and Sampson and the Prince and everyone WAS standing. Doesn't that seem like imitating art? Or is that how they do it in Russia? We saw a THIRTY YEAR OLD production of the Seagull. I'm sure new actors were plugged in there as old actors left...I'm I judging too harshly?

I couldn't help but wonder how people's time could've been used better at today's first rehearsal. Obviously there is always going to be standing around time, but what if it was a process of group creation? Etudes and improves and critiquing performances done as a group? But does that creat a product that people want to pay $30 to go see? Would only 10's of people be interested in something like that?

Conundrum: I want to make things I believe in and I want to create and be the master of (sigh...hate saying this) my ART...but I also want to make money SOLELY from theatre. Is this possible? If so, where is it possible? Is it possible to support a wife and kids?

I sure hope so...and I sure hope I can find it.