BALANCING ACT

Being an Artist is not a steady job most of the time. You occasionally pick up a theatrical gig that can last weeks or months. But most jobs are very short, a day, maybe a few days, sometimes as little as an hour.

Often, the jobs involve a lot of sitting around, watching others perform, watching crew set-up lkights and position set pieces. Some time is spent rehearsing...which really needs to happen once you get the set pieces in play, props in hand, and all characters in position.

The toughest part about being an actor is mixing family or social life with work. You run to auditions at all hours of the day, you should take in occasional shows, you need to gather at social events after a performance, or just spend time talking shop with others in the field.

But you also need to spend significant time with significant others, above and beyond the normal breaking-of-morning bread, or coffee, or quick walk in the park.

Yet Acting, like other Arts of Music and Painting, involves a lot of time and effort, too much time in fact...it is hard work. You have a big payday, occasionally, but the hours spent leading up to that payday reduces anything you make to a nice minimum wage, at best.

My wife, Risa, paints. She likes to rise early in the morning and take in the sun in her Studio, then settle down later and watch some television, run afternoon errands, and do things.

I like to sleep late, get going around the noon hour, run around and audition and eat bad food and drink lots of pop, and then settle down too late at night and burn-off energy on the Wonderful World of the Internet.

I don't love the thought that people in a relationship need to schedule time just to do things, but it seems to happen more and more in our society, i.e. how many folks remember the days when we as kids spent time running around the neighborhood and dropping in to play with friends at random. Nowadays, you must make "play" appointments with kids to see each other sometimes weeks in advance. Oh, what a life we lead.

But I go beyond my original thoughts here. Being an Artist is hard. It is difficult to say no to advancement opportunities. Hard to say no to jobs that interfere at the last minute with probably other events (baseball games, anniversary, kids) -- again, especially the Acting Arena where you may audition on a Tuesday for a job that Friday, or over the weekend. Or, when weather pushes something to a different day.

I need to make time. Time away from this new-found career choice I'm embracing, and remember to embrace My Real World of Life and the People I have Chosen to Bring into thisWworld and Share a World with!