#SOBLESSED: the Annoying Actor Friend's Guide to Werking in Show Business (10 page)

BroadwayWorld don’t give a shit. Type whatever you
want. It won’t get deleted. It’s a fuckin’ free for all over there. It’s the
most bizarre community of pre-teens proudly dictating opinions they so strongly
believe to be fact, that as a reader you might actually start to believe them,
until they devolve into communicating with only GIFs from
RuPaul’s Drag Race
.
It would be easy to blame youth for their behavior, but then you discover that
some of the profiles have been around for ten years, and it’s basically the
same people from when you trolled in junior high school. There also seems to be
an adolescent turf-war between BroadwayWorld and All That Chat. They refuse to
refer to each other by name and instead prefer the He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named
approach by dubbing their enemy, “The Other Board.” Broadway is serious, y’all.
I haven’t seen a rivalry that gay since Riff pas de bourrée-d onto Bernardo’s
knife. #BlessedSideStory.

There may come a time when you feel compelled to
create a user name and start posting raves about the project you’re working on.
WARNING:
They will
destroy you
. All That Chat and BroadwayWorld
bond over one common enemy: The Shill (and Lea Michele, they hate Lea Michele).
Praising one’s own work under an online pseudonym is known as “shilling,” and a
surefire way to end up picking a wedgie like you’re a kid in a John Hughes film.
The only way to shill without raising eyebrows is to have a username older than
five minutes. They won’t suspect you as much if it doesn’t look like you
registered yesterday. Just create one now, in case you have something to say in
five years.

They Will Find You

As a performer, Annoying Actor Internet Law requires
you to read anonymous online opinions about you, take them personally, and then
complain about how all those people on the theatre message boards are stupid,
even though their comments are secretly murdering you from the inside out. Even
when you make a point to block yourself from the boards, you can’t block
yourself from the mentions on Twitter. Fans are great about tagging you in nice
posts. You know who else is great at tagging you? People who hate your show.
Refreshing the mentions on your Twitter page is like flirting with someone you
know is great in bed but occasionally likes to take a dump on your kitchen
floor.

In conclusion, you can avoid reviews, but they won’t
avoid you. You can even delete your Twitter account and donate all of your modern
technology to non-equity kids, but you’ll still find a way to attract
negativity from the awkward stage door audience members. I’m talking about the fans
that say shit like, “You look so much smaller on stage!” “You look so young! I
had no idea how old you were.” “I even loved you in that other show you did.” And
my favorite, “Screw The Times. Your show is good!”

There are two kinds of actors in this business, those
who do not read reviews and liars.

GEORGE M. COHAN MEMORIAL HIGH SCHOOL

Once your show is up and running, you get to truly
step back and take a look at how the area from 40
^th
Street to 54
^th
Street, between 6
^th
and 9
^th
Avenues, so closely resembles
your high school campus. I would venture to say it’s like a college campus, but
that would suggest a more established maturity level spread out amongst a
larger region, surrounded by a denser variety of people. Nope. The Broadway
Theatre District is full blown high school all over again. There’s even a
freakin’ #BroadwayProm. How’s that for irony? You move to the big city in an
attempt to break free of your adolescent past, and wind up right back where you
started – except this time the gangs are dressed in imposter Elmo
costumes, and at least at your high school the prom wasn’t rigged.

I like to refer to the Broadway campus as George M.
Cohan Memorial High School. George M. Cohan’s statue stands proudly in the
center of Times Square, where he judgingly scrutinizes tourists’ decisions at
the TKTS booth. George M. Cohan Memorial High School’s alma mater is not sung
as often as it should be, but I think you should learn it. I’m not going to say
it’s
not
set to the melody of the one from
Grease
, but you’ll particularly
enjoy the incredible crassness of the moment when I try to squeeze an extra
syllable into the ninth line.

George M. Cohan Memorial High School Alma Mater

As I go travelling down
to Broadway,

The MTA will aid me on my
quest.

I shall not ever be un
#grateful,

For thou shalt always be
etern’lly #blessed.

When I seek rest from
being jaded,

I will call out - And
lose one eighth of pay.

I’ll follow what Equity’s
stated.

For I am #SOBLESSED to be
on Broadway.

Gypsy of the Years,
Broadway.

Bares of Broadway.

We give 2% to Equity.

Through openings,
Broadway.

Closings, Broadway.

We screlt, Broadway to thee!

Upper Classmen and Lower Classmen

Like any normal high school, the classes at GMC High
are broken down into freshmen, sophomores, juniors, and seniors. It can be
difficult to decipher which class you and your friends sort into. If you still
live for your job, you’re definitely a freshman. If you typically bring
non-theatrical-folk friends into Yum Yum Bangkok VII around six o’clock on a
Saturday and pretend you’re shocked to see people you know, when you really
just brought your friend there to show how popular you are, you fall between a
sophomore and a junior. Allow me to elaborate…

Broadway Freshmen

These are all the Broadway performers who are super-duper
excited about their job and irritatingly wide-eyed about everything that comes
with it. They’re big on social media. They converse with their fans. They
volunteer for every event. They love Broadway no matter how long they’ve been
working there.

Broadway Sophomores

They still love it, but kind of want you to believe
they’re a bit too cool for it – even though everything still thrills
them. Remember sophomore year of real high school when you were so happy to not
be a freshman anymore that you pretended to be more of a cool veteran than you
were? That’s the same here. The Broadway Sophomore is the actor who sees you
across 8
^th
Avenue and screams, “Hey, girl! You going to your stage
door? I’m going to my stage door, too.” They’re nonchalant, but still want
everyone on the street to know what they do for a living.

Broadway Juniors

They’re kind of over it. They don’t go out as much
after the show. They don’t play in the Broadway Softball League. They don’t do
much of anything except pretend they’re freshmen. They put up the front that
they still love performing on Broadway, but secretly they hate it. Perhaps
they’ve been playing the game a bit too long, but haven’t figured out what to
do with their lives next – because college doesn’t teach you what the
hell to do once you make it to Broadway and then stop caring. The Broadway
Junior is the actor you see bitching about you (or something else), as they’re
walking down the street and when they see you they’re like, “Oh, hey girl!
Whatsup?”

Broadway Seniors

They hate it. They don’t care anymore. They’re
bitter. They’re jaded. They complain about their job in front of friends who
have trouble just getting callbacks. They need to do what every senior
eventually does… Graduate.

***

Let the following campus map of the 2013 – 2014
Broadway school year be your guide. Where you sit on campus is crucial…

There is no age limit for each grade, or
qualifications that need be fulfilled to move up or down within Broadway High
School. You can be a freshman for your entire career. I doubt Elaine Stritch
ever made it passed sophomore year. On the flip side, I know a few people
who’ve made their debuts as seniors. Once you’ve been admitted to this
prestigious school, you never really leave. Even if you quit the business,
you’ll always be an alumnus whenever you go below 54
^th
Street.

If your show closes, you’re just being suspended, not
expelled. Think of your unemployment period as a summer vacation while you
anxiously wait for the next workshop or out-of-town tryout to bring forth a new
#firstdayofschool. It’s a cycle. Deep down, we’re all just part of an
incredibly supportive community that publicly roots for each other’s success
while secretly willing shows to close so we can take over their theatre. #LOvE.

dislike: waking up to texts from the well-meaning:
"what show are you in next?" #
funemployment
#thanksforrubbingitin

*

It’s time to experience life on the other side of the
curtain. Believe it or not, there will come a time in your career when you are
not exactly gainfully employed. Unless you are a government employee working at
The
Phantom of the Opera,
Wicked, Jersey Boys, Mamma Mia,
Chicago,
or
The Lion King
, you should come to terms with the fact
that all good jobs come to an end. This is not a cause for panic! This is a
cause for celebration, because the great state of New York (or whichever state
you worked in that has the highest maximum Unemployment insurance rate) is
eager to pay you a weekly salary to audition – and by “audition,” I mean,
day drinking!
And going to the gym at weird hours! Or watching your
favorite TV shows before someone else spoils them! These are all magnificent
reasons for your show to close. Sure, you’ll miss the steady paychecks and
Saturday Intermissions Pics – but wouldn’t you rather have your #SIPs be
of your feet, while lounging in Sheep Meadow? (NOTE: It’s not
Sheep’s
Meadow.
The sheep never had possession of the meadow. They just used to hang out there
before we took it over to #werk on our tans.)

There are times when Funemployment isn’t always fun,
but as long as you keep pretending you’re on an extended vacation, you’ll be
less likely to judge yourself for lying on your couch in your pajamas at six
o’clock in the evening. If you thought performing on Broadway was #livingthedream,
then clearly your show has never closed, because the true dream doesn’t even
begin until after the final curtain. Before I dive further into how awesome Funemployment
is, we should discuss how truly sick and twisted filing for Unemployment is…

FILING FOR UNUMPLOYMENT

Unemployment Insurance is temporary income for
eligible workers who lose their jobs through no fault of their own. The money
provided to you comes from taxes paid by your employer (IT’S FREE!). Figuring
out if one qualifies for Unemployment can be tricky for actors because of the
various jobs one might hold within a single calendar year. Deciphering the
labor.ny.org website is easy enough if you have a college degree, unless it’s a
BFA (Bachelor of False Astuteness). Considering that I lovingly embrace my time
on Funemployment, I am all too qualified and eager to break it down for you…

Qualifying for Unemployment

The Job:
First,
you must have worked somewhere that required you to submit your Social Security
Number. That means 1099s do not apply. All those survival jobs (that we’ll
discuss later) will doubtfully make you eligible for benefits. In fact, if you
try to claim on the $100 you banked dancing as a bear at the Paramus Park Mall,
you’ll probably get the company that hired you shut down and ruin it for all of
us who rely on those weekend gigs to feed our families. Don’t be an asshole. Do
your research beyond my carefully constructed word vomit, and make sure you
don’t land you or your employer in prison. Orange might be “the new black,” but
“red” is the color of your pooper after prison rape.

The Circumstances:
You must have been employed in a job that came to an end through no fault
of your own. If you worked regionally, on tour, or on Broadway, and that show closed,
then you most definitely qualify for Unemployment. If you were fired due to stealing
from the folks in your dressing room, putting sugar in a cast-mate’s makeup
foundation, or being possessed by a South African demon that required the
producers to ship in a shaman to perform an exorcism, then probably not.