The Director Sector

One of the problems that frequently comes up in conversations is the lack of money. Specifically, the lack of money in the hands of artists. In this economy it’s no wonder that this is a concern! There are many of you out there who pursue theatre professionally and would love to do nothing more than work theatre full-time and make enough money to live in comfort and security.

Alas, that’s not the reality we live in today. Most of us need to have a way of paying that rent, buying that food, paying for the doctors visits. @JessHutchinson Tweeted recently that she felt sick but had to go into work because she needed the money. “Why must I choose between health care and money?” she asked the Twitterverse. It’s a dilemma that we all face at some time or another.

I know that many of you have day jobs that you suffer through in order to pay those bills. Some of you work as number crunchers for the health industry, others as hosts and hostesses at restaurants. Some are receptionists and some are floating by the grace of their parents’ money. Nothing wrong with that.

But let’s face it. Very few of us, with the exception of the latter group, are happy with that situation. We want to do theatre, dammit, and by God we’re going to sacrifice everything else to pursue that dream. We’ll even wash dishes in some seedy restaurant if need be.

The good news, folks, is that you don’t need to stoop quite that low. The solution is simple: become an expert in something else. Find something else that you’re passionate about and become an expert in that field. Once you’re confident that you can walk into a room full of people and be the most knowledgeable person in that room about that topic, you’re set!

Let’s look at myself, for instance. I’m a web designer by day, director by night. When I go into a room, there’s a 99% chance that I know more about web development and web design than anyone else in that room.

How does that help me, you ask? Well, let’s say a theatre needs a new website. I’m their guy. Let’s say a company needs emails fixed to look good on all web browsers and email clients. I’m their guy. And I get paid to do this. And not to brag, but I get paid quite a lot to do this.

Let’s look at another example. Dan Granata, whom many of you know and love in the theatre community, is an accomplished actor. He’d love to become a full-time actor, but that pesky bill thing gets in the way. So what did he do? Did he take some crappy day job and suffer through it for the sake of his art? Well, yes, he did. But recently, he attacked the problem from a new way.

Dan has spent the last few months researching and studying and training himself. Now, Dan knows more about social media and how to use them in marketing and business than most people I know. He’s currently doing seminars for a variety of companies, teaching their employees how to use Facebook to their advantage, to bring in revenue and increase the customer-base.

Let’s be frank, people, we all love Facebook. We love it, we love to hate it, and we’re always on it. And Dan has taken something that’s an enjoyable activity to him, something that he’s passionate about, and taken his passion and skill in theatre and entertainment, and combined the two into something that is marketable: social media consulting.

You, too, can do this. Find something (besides theatre) that you’re passionate about or that you’re good at doing and figure out a way to turn it into a business advantage. Can you teach people how to use your area of expertise to increase revenue for their business? Can you provide a service for them that they need? If they don’t think they need it, can you convince them that they do need it?

Most of you are actors of some caliber, and one thing that actors do very well is speak in front of people. Not only that, but you make it entertaining. So find another topic that you enjoy, research it, and pitch it to companies for seminars or consulting work.

Are you more of the technical type and less of the public speaker type?  Find an area that is related to your field and become an expert and get a day job doing it!  I’ve always been good with computer programming, and I think it’s incredibly fun and challenging.  I made a decision one day to learn as much as I could, so I spent three weeks doing nothing but writing web sites and making sure that I knew what I was doing.  Now I make a decent living making web pages.

If Dan can do it, if I can do it, then you can do it.

Trust me, it’s way better than waiting tables.

I love Twitter.  There, I said it.  I won’t bring up my love for this amazing service again.  But I do want to clear up some misconceptions about Twitter and tell you why it’s useful and why it’s not useful.

The other night I was discussing to a friend about theatre-related topics, specifically his callbacks in St. Louis and how I’ve been able to network in Chicago via Twitter and the blogosphere.

My friend is an actor.  A damned good one, at that.  But he’s hit some financial woes that have forced him to move back home near his parents, so they can help him out.  He wants to pursue acting as a career, but he’s having a hard time even getting his foot in the door with auditions in St. Louis.  Why?  Because he doesn’t know anyone.

I started telling him how I met most of the Chicago theatre people that I know: my blog.  I started blogging a year and a half ago (has it been that long already?) and through building up a presence here (one that has been sorely lacking of late) and reading and commenting on other blogs, I’ve made a series of connections that allowed me to get involved with a few theatres here and meet many many more people.

Blogging is fine and dandy, but not every thought or question or what-have-you is blog-worthy.  That’s when Twitter comes in.

The common misconception about Twitter is that it’s just “a series of blurbs like Facebook statuses about what people ate for breakfast.”  That couldn’t be further from the truth.

Okay, sometimes, I’ve been known to describe what I ate for breakfast.

But that’s not why I use Twitter, and it’s certainly not why Twitter is such an amazing service.

Twitter is best at networking, announcing, jump-starting discussions, spreading information, and crowd-sourcing.  What is crowd-sourcing?  It’s getting a whole bunch of people from a variety of places and disciplines to come together to solve a problem or answer a question.

Case in point, @feliciaday (whom I follow on Twitter) is in Austin, TX for the SXSW conference.  When she arrived, she tweeted something along the lines of “Hey Twitterverse, where’s a good place to eat in Austin?”  Fifteen minutes later, she tweeted “Thanks, guys!”.  The next day, @travisbedard (who lives in Austin) tweeted “I swear I just saw Felicia Day at Magnolia’s.”

See what I did there?  Felicia asked her followers (of which she has thousands) a question.  Within minutes, she’d had enough responses to solve her dilemma.  She found a good place to eat.  Cool, huh?

Here are some more examples of using Twitter to accomplish various goals:

@nickkeenan often buys and sells and acquires theatre items, props, sound equipment — you name it! — by asking for it on Twitter.  How many followers does Nick have?  184 as of right now (wow, I’m slacking..).

@dangranata re-tweeted a message from @aboutfacechi (About Face Theatre).  It read:  “Help me help @aboutfacechi - the first 5 people who reply or DM me after having made a $10 contribution will be profiled in a blog post.”  Dan will write a blog post profiling the donors to About Face Theatre on his blog.

@wilw (Wil Wheaton, of Star Trek Wesley Crusher fame) writes books.  He had a “Crazy Idea” and Tweeted “Hey Twitterverse, would you be interested in a PDF version of my latest book for $5?”  Within 15 minutes he had his answer.  An hour later, he says “Get my book in PDF format for $5 here” and shared the link via a TinyURL service.  The next day, Wheaton announced that he had sold more PDF copies of his book in the previous 12 hours than he had sold hard-copies in the previous three months.  Amazing, huh? (BTW, if you want the book, you can get it here)

Finally, @rebeccacoleman in Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada tweeted a few weeks ago about “World Theatre Day” celebrations in Vancouver.  The Theatre Twitterverse’s ears’ collectively perked up.  “What’s this?” asked some Chicago Tweeps.  So fascinated by the idea, @newleaftheatre approached the League in Chicago and asked if they would like to do something.  Just a few weeks later, Mayor Daley pronounces March 27th to be World Theatre Day in Chicago.  You can check out the WTD09 blog here.  This went from a simple Tweet from Vancouver, to a full fledged celebration in Chicago in a matter of weeks.  Without Twitter, we might never have heard of it.
As you can see (if you’re still with me), Twitter is above and beyond just another “status” update site or service.  It’s a mechanism for getting things done, for solving problems, for sharing information, and for networking.

So give it a shot.  Add me (@directorsector) and a few of the others mentioned and start tweeting.  You’ll find that it’s a lot more interesting than you thought.  My friend has rethought his approach to Twitter.  Maybe you will, too.