Just Keep Going

An Actor’s Dilemma

''I ask myself why in the world I choose live performance as a career on, perhaps, a daily basis. It depends on when, as to the vote for or against such a peculiar vocation. And I often hear sound bites fly out of my mouth, previously formed, and only rarely the whole truth, proving that I can’t even trust my own damn cultivated, prepackaged answers: “

Well, I may worry about money and insurance constantly, but I’m never bored!”

I’ll be fully forthcoming for once — yes. Yes, I am bored. Often. And there are several kinds of boredom. There’s the boredom of sitting on your ass when all you have planned on your productivity list for the week is an audition in three days and to walk the dog — when free time stretches out in a frightening wasteland of laziness and inability to stop streaming a Netflix original series. And there’s the equal boredom of having to do a Wednesday matinee of a show you’ve been running for months, only to enter the stage and encounter an entire front row of sleeping geriatrics wheezing their death rattles at deafening frequencies. The truth is, there are a million ways to be bored in anything we do, and anyone with a few self-help books on his shelf will quickly direct me to my own fucking attitude. I know.

I’ll be honest about something else. Money and insurance and stability and regularity and a consistent sense of purpose are very powerful, important elements of a happy life. I’d love to take away the thick slice of the worry-pie that is consumed with whether or not next month’s rent will be covered, or the slice that when, looking for a job, very inconveniently forgets the dozens of professional jobs I’ve been successful in before, which should be a fairly positive sign that another will come. The archetypical artist is, yes, a little crazy, and, frankly, you might be too if you didn’t have that direct deposit every Thursday, assuring you with its soft, compassionate voice, “Yes, you CAN pay your phone bill and ALSO eat dinner tonight.”...''

by Bobby Steggert

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