ï»żThe Journey
Whatâs the step by step journey to becoming a professional performer? Let me take you through it.
[Intro Music]
Hello and welcome to episode 6 of the Theatre Kid Podcast, Iâm Karl Davies and today Iâd like to go through a standard version of how people generally become a professional performer.
There are of course lots of different ways to do this, there isnât a guaranteed route to becoming successful, but there is one route that the majority of professionals have taken. Iâll warn you now, it sounds horrendous. It sounds almost impossible at times but do not let anything I say during this episode put you off. Iâm purposely going to make it sound tough so you know what could happen and how hard it could be.
Iâm going to start at the beginning but bare with me as I may catch up to wear you are in your journey half way through.
The route that so many others have taken usually starts with some kind of drama club as a child or a part time theatre school. Youâve taken part in some shows, youâve got the bug for performing so youâve decided you want to be a Professional Performer, simple right? Not really, letâs look into it in more detail.
Adults look back on their school days with fond memories because there is very little responsibility and âlife seemed a lot simpler back thenâ, that is mainly because as you get older you experience increasing amounts of pressure and stress, and itâs easy to compare your grown up stressful life to your relatively stress free childhood.
However, during your teen years you donât have the knowledge your older self has so your high school exams (GCSEâs here in the UK) are by far the most high pressured and stressful experience you would have had so far, thatâs until you take your next set of exams (A Levels here in the UK).
During this time we are creating coping mechanisms so we can learn to handle the pressure. These strategies are really put to the test with higher levels of difficulty as we get older. Youâll ask yourself will I get into college? How do I get my first job? How the hell can I get a mortgage on my wages? But these are all as equally challenging as revising for those first high school exams.
The difference is that the exam is the first time weâve been challenged at that level. To help you understand the extremities of âThe Journeyâ, I'm going to list what I believe to be one way of getting into the industry.
So⊠youâve just finished your exams whether theyâre GCSEâs, A Levels or youâve just got your BTEC, now itâs time to apply for higher education (Drama School/Musical Theatre College).
You apply to your favourite 2 or 3 colleges, you then realise you have to pay for the pleasure of auditioning for these places and thereâs also the cost of getting to London. You arrive at Mountview (example choice 1) and there are 300 other applicants there desperate to get into this school, you sing through your audition pieces and feel quietly confident youâve done a good job, they made you feel comfortable and you think youâve impressed them. You then surprise yourself with how well you did in the dance audition and walk away from the day feeling exhausted but mildly confident you did well. You then hear that historically Mountview usually enroll older applicants, people who have auditioned for them 3 or 4 times, you then hear nothing from them, no recall, no feedback, nothing⊠you were unsuccessful, but thatâs OK, you werenât too keen on that one anyway⊠on to the next one.
Next up, ArtsEd⊠youâve heard some brilliant things about ArtsEd. Youâre excited about this one, itâs not important to you that you have to pay to audition again, nor is it important that the train fare is higher than the last journey because youâre not paying for it. You know the process better this time, you know what the auditions are like so youâre ready and youâre going to ânail itâ. You walk in with your 2 contrasting songs, they ask to hear the legit song and stop you after 20 seconds, smile and tell you that they donât need to hear anymore, you can move along to the dance session. Wait⊠is that a good thing or a bad thing? Could they tell straight away that I'm perfect for this school and they should be throwing a scholarship at me or; were they not impressed, they smiled so that must mean something right? The dance audition went well, letâs focus on that, surely theyâll like me and offer me a place.
During the long journey home you find out that your friend also auditioned at ArtsEd and youâre shocked to hear that they were asked to perform their legit piece and their contrasting audition piece and theyâve been asked to go back and sing at the next round of auditions.
Youâre both phenomenal performers but your friend has more of a Legit voice and your strength lies in contemporary musical theatre, why did they get a recall and you didnât? The answer is, only the panel knows what theyâre looking for. You may be incredibly talented but if theyâre not looking for your specific, but awesome set of skills, youâre not getting in. Sometimes you're just not what theyâre looking for, thatâs not your fault but hey, itâs still super frustrating.
Thatâs 2 highly recommended colleges youâve failed to get into or maybe not, maybe you are what theyâre looking for, maybe you do get to perform both audition pieces and then do it again with some direction and then do it another time with some random request to sing the same song in a foreign accent⊠boom⊠youâre in, congratulations, youâve done it⊠there is no scholarship tho. What nextâŠ
Letâs say youâre in a really fortunate position where your family can support you financially or you managed to get sponsorship or some funding for 3 years to cover the ÂŁ30,000 feeâs to go to college. Thatâs awesome but, where do you live? Who pays for that? GSA (Guildford School of Acting) is part of the University of Surrey so maybe you can get some funding for University Accommodation. If not, youâll need to find the cash to pay rent in a house shared with some other students, then thereâs the travel costs to college, the trains and the tubes arenât cheap. At some point during your 3 year course youâll need to eat, itâll be difficult to find time to eat during your 12 hour training days but when you do eat, itâs going to cost. Thatâs ok tho, youâve managed to get yourself a bar job to get some extra cash so when you finish a full day of training you can go and work all night to fund your need for food and probably the odd social event.
Congratulations⊠itâs your third and final year, youâve made it this far, all you need to do now is get a good feature in this year's Showcase so the agents whoâve been waiting for this 1 performance to find their next superstar can sign you up. Youâre absolutely right in thinking that their next superstar âshouldâ be you, but how do you convince them of that? It can all boil down to that one performance. You may get lucky and be head hunted earlier in the year or you may perform at the end of year showcase and receive no offers from agents.
Letâs say you donât get an agent, thatâs ok⊠their loss right. You can still sign up to Spotlight, see all the breakdowns that are available to members without an agent (which is sometimes limited) and submit yourself hoping that the casting assistant who is scanning through thousands and thousands of applicants every day will take a risk on you, a graduate fresh out of college with no agent. In the meantime, reality kicks in, youâre not at college anymore, you either need to get a job so you can afford to live in London and be available at the drop of a hat for any audition that might come up or, you move back home, hope that when the auditions come through that theyâre on a day that you can get someone to cover your shift in work so you can blitz last weeks wages on a train fare into London for the day just to be seen for 3 minutes⊠but on this occasion⊠success!
Congratulations⊠youâve got a recall, the first of seven recalls that youâre going to have to attend to stand a chance of getting this job. Letâs hope your friend in work is really flexible and covers all of those shifts and that you have enough in the account to keep travelling into London. Itâs the final audition and unfortunately on this occasion âitâs a noâ, apparently youâre not tall enough. Surely they would have known that from the beginning, why did they call you to 7 recalls if they knew you werenât tall enough, that doesnât make any sense does it! That is going to be the first of many frustrating disappointments you experience, but certainly not the last.
Letâs rewrite the story a little, letâs say you graduated from college, you did or didnât get an agent (it doesnât matter for this example) and you manage to get that job. Itâs a West End theatre job but itâs unlikely to be a lead role, youâll need to work your way up and prove your worth in the ensemble, which is a phenomenal opportunity. The Equity minimum for a West End Contract is ÂŁ483 a week, letâs say you had an agent and that agent managed to negotiate your fee up to ÂŁ500 per week, thank Mrs Agent, thatâs a great wage isnât it. Letâs put our sensible heads on for a moment though, we should probably budget just to make sure weâve got enough so we can go back home for Sandraâs 21st at the end of the month.
A weekly fee of ÂŁ500 is a lot of money however, you now have agency fees at 10 - 12 percent (agency fees can go as high as 22.5%). Letâs take off 10% so youâre down to ÂŁ450 a week, letâs put ÂŁ75 away per week to commute into the centre of London everyday, so thatâs ÂŁ375. We live on the outskirts of London because accomodation is so much cheaper, I say accommodation is cheaper, what I meant was weâre paying ÂŁ400 a month for a box room in an area youâre not too comfortable walking the streets alone in. Letâs put ÂŁ100 a week aside to cover the rent, weâre down to ÂŁ275, then thereâs the food bill, some can live off ÂŁ50 a week but you might want to treat yourself so weâll spend ÂŁ75, weâre down to ÂŁ200. Then thereâs your phone bill, clothing, equipment, mumâs birthday card, etc etc⊠that weekly budget is disappearing pretty quickly. But hey, thatâs ok⊠you may be on a self employed contract for a job so you can claim for those replacement âNew Yorkersâ you had to buy on your taxes. Infact, youâll spend most of your time looking for ways to set off purchases against your self assessment so you donât have to pay any taxes. Youâll wish they taught you how to do your accounts in school, itâs a minefield of confusion so youâll rely heavily on your accountant (who youâll have to pay for) to do your accounts for you. Theyâll want receipts and proof of purchase but although we meant well, we tried to organise everything from the beginning, we have no Idea where the receipt is for that lipstick you bought 10 months ago.
OK⊠maybe I'm being too negative, letâs focus on the positives. Youâre phenomenal, the majority of castings you walk into are successful and everyone wants to work with you. Youâre comfortable, work is good, your relationship is great and you want to settle down together⊠Let's buy a house. All we need to do is send our accounts over to a mortgage advisor and they can tell us how much we can have. However, youâve spent your whole career claiming for everything possible as a business expense to get your taxes down so it looks like youâve earnt very little. The ÂŁ100,000 mortgage theyâve offered you isnât going to buy a garage in the place where youâd like to live, never mind a 2 bed flat. So now weâre changing the way we do our accounts and weâre not claiming for everything âlegallyâ possible so itâll bump up your income so you can get a higher mortgage, however⊠The mortgage advisor wants 3 years of accounts so youâre going to have to wait a while before you can go for the higher mortgage. In the meantime, you have a baby⊠youâre not just earning your wages to feed yourself now, thereâs a little person who is depending on you, that changes everything. I want to be at home to watch my little person grow but I have to work all the hours possible so we can afford to live where we want to live, drive the car we want to drive, have the push chair we want for the little one and so on. It never seems to get any easier. Take me back to my school days where life was so much easier!
My point is this, performing on stage is a gift of a job. You have the opportunity to change someoneâs life (dramatic I know), you can change peopleâs emotions, their opinions, their choices can change all because of something you have done during your performance. That is a powerful gift, you can make someone cry tears of joy simply by doing something that you love to do. For me, it is without doubt the most amazing job I have ever done. My self esteem was at its highest when I had thousands of people rise to their feet to applaud my work every night. My confidence levels were through the roof when projects that I managed were hugely successful. Iâm not saying that to boast, I'm saying that the psychological effects it had on me were incredible. Had my career not have gone the way it did I sometimes wonder if I would be the same person I am today, probably not.
If youâre still listening to this episode you either really want to work in this industry or you want your child to be a professional performer. I havenât purposely written anything in this Blog to put you off, the examples are actually inspired by true stories that iâve encountered along the way.
If youâre a born performer, youâre going to perform but I also think knowledge is power, if you can prepare yourself (either financially or emotionally) then youâre going to have a great foundation to be the very best version of yourself.
If this episode has been an eye opener for you then please do give it a like or a 5 star review, whatever you can to support the podcast would be really appreciated.
I also strongly recommend you check out The Academy over at My Theatre School .com I work very closely with our Academy members to help them prepare for this industry and you are more than welcome to join us.
For now though, thatâs it from me⊠iâll see you next time.
