My Other Job

Abstract

Actors in New York City are rarely just actors. Due to the mercurial, enigmatic nature of the profession (and, of course, the cost of living there), actors are more-often-than-not employed in at least one other job: their survival job. But which is an actor’s primary job—the one that pays the bills or the one that feeds the soul? At what point does an out-of-work actor stop being an actor and start being a waiter, bartender, or babysitter? What makes actors choose to pursue an acting career in the first place; and what, if anything, might cause them to leave acting behind in pursuit of greater stability? These are just some of the questions posed to 5 real working actors based in New York City. The realities of an acting career are often glossed over for flash and fame, but show business is just that—a business—with all the strategy, politics, and compromises the word suggests. Using the actors’ own words, My Other Job asks audiences to think a little more deeply about the lives of these active artists—their struggles, humor, grace, and determination—as they divulge very personal, very real stories about the business of pretending.