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I moved to New York with nothing in my pockets but dreams. I was going to act or write. Or play music. Or something. In retrospect, maybe I should have had more in my pockets; maybe a fountain pen, a little change, and a map of the MTA lines. Actually, come to think of it, some money to go along with those dreams would have been nice; my pockets would have appreciated it. Foolishly, I had somehow neglected the fact that New York City is hilariously expensive.
I know what you’re thinking: everyone in the world knows that. Even little children know that. Well, to briefly defend myself: I wasn’t actively prepared for the monetary specifics of a career in the arts. Yes, I’d heard things floating around about how much money I’d need to live in the real world—the big-city world, anyway—to pay the exorbitant rent, to eat, to sleep, to keep warm. But I didn’t know I’d need such a great deal of the stuff, so much to the point where the question of money would consume my every move, my every decision, the majority of my brainwaves during the course of a normal day.  One second, there was ten bucks in my back pocket; Alexander Hamilton was pushing me in all sorts of directions, and his slight but tangible weight below my waist made me glad. Thirty minutes later, a slightly airier skip in my step, I realized I’d spent every bit of that Hamilton on the most fleeting of purchases: a cup of coffee: watery, flavorless. And a bagel: doughy, poppy-seeded, buttered. “Networking?”
As these realizations began to sprout within my first few weeks in the city, I started frantically searching for stable employment in my field of choice. “Networking,” I was told by well-wishers, “is more important than any talent or drive or eight-hundred dollar headshot photo you may possess.” “Networking?” I asked. “Yeah,” they said. I said, “Okay, sounds good,” and then I paused. “This is awkward,” they said. So off I went, looking for a job that would allow me to meet successful, connected people with business cards. I thought it would be helpful to learn the ropes, the hard truths, and to be exposed, daily, to the trials and tribulations of the world I so naively thought I understood. I took a position as an assistant to a successful independent film casting director. For a three-month period, it was my boss and I working in a tiny midtown office, nestled within a building that previously housed offices for Woody Allen and Marlon Brando. Each morning, I sifted through countless electronic and physical actor headshots— separating the “sort of big” names from the “no names,” and organizing the endless personalized notes to my boss that came attached to the photos. This was the most distressing part of the job for me; almost every headshot, young or old, graduate school or no graduate school, came delivered with a pleading note of good-intention, praise for the casting director’s previous work, and words of careful self-aggrandizement, some accompanied by glossy cards featuring the actor’s name and “Motto” (sample motto: Lisa Horn, Hard Worker, Dedicated Performer, Endlessly Curious) and all submissions topped off with a postcard advertising this person’s particular off-off-Broadway play that he or she desperately wanted my boss to come see. They promised him free, front-row tickets. “Anything for you, sir,” they said. It didn’t matter who they were or what they’d already been in, or how many years they’d been in the city. Some of these actors sent flowers, some sent candy, and one actually sent a full meal from a local Lebanese restaurant. I know it’s an old cliché that liberal arts majors end up homeless and confused any way you roll the dice, but why not make valiant efforts to put that cliché to rest?
In those few months I worked for the casting director, I realized a disturbing, if not obvious, truth: All male actors in their late-twenties wear tight, black v-necks and shave every three days. I also learned another truth: things were not only going to be much more cutthroat in the city, but the small bubble of intelligent, like-minded, driven students I once knew and supported had now ballooned into millions and millions, and at least a million of those are actors, directors, writers, comedians, painters, and producers. And they all need day jobs—badly. They need money. And they all want it just as much as you do, whatever it is. At college, one could play for a band, perform in a play, write a movie, paint a picture, or eat a whole bunch of donuts for a cash prize, and there was a place for all of these things, there was a comfort in them, and all of your friends and friends’ friends were willing to come and check it out and root for you and comment on it afterwards, even. There was an audience, a drive, and a budget. There was free ad space. There were PA systems available to rent, stages and theatres to reserve, and gallery spaces waiting with open arms. And the presentations were good, and the teamwork was beautiful, and everything seemed possible. To have all that suddenly stripped is a difficult and frustrating thing that, perhaps, liberal arts schools could do more to prepare their students for. I know it’s an old cliché that liberal arts majors end up homeless and confused any way you roll the dice, but why not make valiant efforts to put that cliché to rest? A class on raising money for independent creative enterprises would have been really helpful, as would more help from the career services office post-graduation for those of us looking toward a career in the arts. Why not require some career planning workshops, creatively taught and discussed, alongside the James Joyce seminars? I ask, because now we’ve been tossed from these uber-expensive colleges—where we were told we were talented and amazing—into a world where everyone is talented and amazing. It doesn’t matter where you went to school, really, unless you happened to meet the CEO of Warner Brothers at your school. Or your name is Shiloh Jolie-Pitt. “everything will happen when it happens.”
Yes, I was pummeled with career center announcements, e-mails, videos, step programs, and obligatory lectures, but nobody ever spoke directly to us arts majors who actually want to try to make a living doing the things we were passionate about in college. In fact, I found myself feeling more connected to the final paragraph of The Lattice Group interview with MoMa director, Glenn Lowry, than I did to any of the career services seminars that focused primarily on helping us foster careers in business or consulting. Since working for the casting director, I’ve had five different day jobs. It’s an up-and-down life here, indeed, but the cards have definitely started to fall into place. The best piece of advice I’ve gotten since then is that “everything will happen when it happens.” I like that advice. One can apply that piece of advice to anything—and it works. It’s far nicer to digest that tidbit than to latch on to the foreign blend of marketing and branding that I still have not entirely mastered, and don’t quite yet understand. According to another casting director I spoke with, about 95% of succeeding in the arts is branding yourself into a “marketable product.” Like…Kellogg’s. Or Honda. Until I figure out where exactly I fit into all of this, I’ve learned to appreciate the idea of patience, letting the chips fall where they may, continuing to let myself be inspired by projects and a myriad of various undertakings, and, finally, ordering another Buffalo Chicken wrap from the deli down the street. In New York, I can get one for $342.99. - Lucas Kavner Illustration by Gustaf von Arbin |
