Ahhhhh the starving actor. There’s a romance to it, no? Struggling and starving for your art. Everyone’s doing it. Eating dirt until one day someone plucks you from obscurity and your fame and fortune begins. I’m not sure who this “someone” is supposed to be. A casting agent? Steven Spielberg? A fairy godmother? Prince Charming?

I remember when I was growing up reading about how Jewel was discovered while living in a VW bus, showering in a truckstop, barely eating, and suffering with an un-treated kidney infection. “That’s the life!” I thought to myself. “Look you suffer, but then you turn into JEWEL!!!!!” Incidentally, why on earth does every amazing “rags to riches” story start off with them living in a VW bus? It’s weird.

I’ve always been fascinated with the starving artist. While I was in the NAVY and I was in my rebelling stage, I decided I didn’t want to live at the barracks anymore. Me and my lovely friend Brandon decided to move into my car. It was very exciting. We parked at the beach and slept with the sea breeze coming through the window, drank some hooch, and talked about how wise we were for our age. Hahaha

The reality is a little less exciting. Living in a sub-standard apartment, freezing in the winter, dying in the summer, eating barely a meal a day, having various utilities turned off periodically, not so exciting. When you don’t have a safety net to get back to, being homeless or barely scraping by doesn’t seem like such a great adventure.

I’ve learned many things about survival. I’ve learned that the minimum I need to eat per day to avoid falling down and to keep my energy up for whatever show I’m working on is 2 eggs and 2 oranges. You have your protein and vitamin C. The eggs are even better if you chop up an onion and sautee them and mix them in. It seems more substantial. During the rough times I also kept vitamin c drops or some sort of hard candy in my pocket for when I needed sugar. This sounds very dire. This is not normally how I eat, but there have been times when I have done this.

When times aren’t quite as bad, I’ve learned to cook stews and soups. It’s what I live on in the winter. It’s cheap and I can throw it all into the crockpot, go to work, and it’ll be done when I return. I am a frequenter of the COINSTAR machines at Jewel. I have been known to pay for an entire meal with quarters. Tacky, I know, but money is money.

How does it feel when I’m struggling, to look at some of my friends and colleagues whose parents are still paying for cars, computers, apartments, voice/acting/dance lessons, etc? In a word: frustrating. Now I certainly don’t blame them. In this day and age life is hard and if someone wants to give you a hand, I say take it! BUT it’s still frustrating. I always feel like they have a leg up because they can afford great training and get to focus solely on their career.

So is this a post where I just bitch about being poor? Hardly. One thing I have learned is that when you can’t afford to pay for others to help you, you have to rely on yourself more. I have to take some of those great techniques I learned in private lessons (when still receiving student loans) and apply it myself. I have to have more confidence in what I’m doing because I don’t get as much feedback. When I do save up and take a class or have a brush up lesson, I appreciate it so much! I work hard and make it worth my money. I love my coaches so much. Even if I’m only able to see them 3 or 4 times a year it’s completely worth it. I value good training so much more than I did when my parents, or the government were paying for it.

I’ve worked through some tough and lean times in the last 5 years, but things are definitely looking up. I am not rich, but I am stabling out. This move to a new apartment feels like a new beginning. I feel like I’m leaving the starving actor at Lawrence and Hermitage. I’ve done it. It was fun. I’m done now. Goodbye. Time to be an adult and time to strike a balance that makes living a life on stage not just plausible, but possible.

Thanks for listening.

Harmony