Creative Contingencies

In 2005, I was a newly minted Theatre Performance college graduate, primed to take the plunge into the “real world” of New York City, the theatre Mecca of my childhood fantasies. I had a vision of what my big, creative life would look like: by day, I would audition, work on my writing, and study acting with the best teachers. By night, I would rehearse in tiny studios and perform in spaces around the city with my fellow actors, growing my network and my resume. On top of all this, I would frequent art galleries, stroll through Central Park, and brunch at sidewalk cafes, sipping coffees and working on the New York Times Sunday morning crossword. Inspiration would find me in these carefully constructed moments. This was my plan.

Where I actually found myself after graduation was living with my parents in my old bedroom in Western New York. Reconciling my job as a Hollywood Video clerk (which I needed to pay off my looming student debt) with my all-too-recent dream of creating theatre full time felt like throwing cold water on a once burning blaze. It was devastating. I took an acting class and wrote a bit, but I didn’t feel like a “real” artist. I felt I had failed somehow because I needed a day job.

It's foolish to keep putting contingencies on being creative. Although I would love to have more time to pour into creative projects, I am making peace with day jobs. While I once lamented that I was likely to have a dozen more different day jobs during the course of my life, now I gaze into that future with a bit more wonder, curious about what those roles will be, and what those experiences will break open for me.

For the last decade, I've maintained this dual identity as both a theatremaker and a day job professional. As I've slowly grown my acting resume, my day job resume has grown right alongside it: a children’s museum associate, a lumber yard receptionist, a waitress at Bob Evans, a substitute teacher, a catering assistant, a temp assistant to a circuit court county judge, and a surgical scheduler at a cancer center. The list continues to grow with each passing year.

"I can't really be creative until...” I fill in the blank with all sorts of conditions: until I get a job in my field, until I pay off my student debt, until I have more time, until I don’t need to have a day job at all. The problem with these theories quickly becomes clear. Even as I've juggled day jobs over the last ten years, I've managed to carve out enough time and energy to write two books, three plays, blog on a regular basis, perform on stage and in film, complete a Master's degree in theatre education, teach creative drama, and co-found two theatre companies. My fear that a day job will stunt my creativity has been, for the most part, unfounded. I haven't been creative in spite of my day jobs, but rather in cooperation with my day jobs.

Having a day job has given me the financial stability to pay my rent and buy my groceries without worry. But on a deeper artistic level, having a day job has thrown me headfirst into the world in which I live; allowed me to step outside the darkness of a black box theatre to bathe in the light of the reality beyond. Job interviews, subway commutes, rushing to meet a deadline, letting myself really feel the tidal wave of anxiety, joy, and frustration that accompany a life outside the theatre—these are the precious ingredients that nourish me as an actor and playwright. Every day interactions become studies of human nature. Conversations I overhear in the cafeteria swim in my head as the seeds of dialogue. Co-workers begin as strangers, grow into friends, and emerge as some of my biggest supporters of my theatre work. My day jobs are unexpected experiences of truth for me. How can an artist reflect truth onstage if she never experiences truth offstage?

Now, when I think of turning back time and revisiting those first few painful years coming out of school, I feel immense gratitude. I wouldn’t give them back. They have helped to make me who I am as an artist. Recently, I had the joy of seeing my first ten-minute play performed at a festival. The play is based on a male breast cancer survivor I met while working at a hospital; without that job, there would be no play. I’ve begun embracing this symbiotic relationship; when you look closely, it’s a beautiful dance.

It's foolish to keep putting contingencies on being creative. Although I would love to have more time to pour into creative projects, I am making peace with day jobs. While I once lamented that I was likely to have a dozen more different day jobs during the course of my life, now I gaze into that future with a bit more wonder, curious about what those roles will be, and what those experiences will break open for me.

The great Buddhist monk Thich Nhat Hanh talks about this interdependency in nature:

When we look deeply into a flower, we see the elements that have come together to allow it to manifest. We can see clouds manifesting as rain. Without the rain, nothing can grow. If we take the clouds and the rain out of the flower, the flower will not be there. Without the sun nothing can grow, so it’s not possible to take the sun out of the flower. The flower cannot be as a separate entity; it has to inter-be with the light, with the clouds, with the rain.

This is how I like to think of us as theatremakers: artistic beings composed of many "non-artistic" elements. Rather than confine ourselves to the stage, I think it is in our best interests to make sure that our life outside the theatre is filled with as many different “non-theatre” experiences as we can cultivate. Only when we dive deeply into the ocean of human experience can we explore what it means to exist, to strive, to struggle, to forge meaning. Isn’t that the story we wish to tell to audiences as well? Instead of giving up our day job, perhaps our goal should be to use everything we can from it. Don't waste any of it. Let's learn to sift through all our “different than we dreamed” experiences, and from the imperfection that we find, give thanks, and create something magnificent.