One thing that I think actors in the performing arts forget is that, because we live in a world where technology is so democratized, you do not have to wait to be given permission to work. In fact, you really, really shouldn’t.

The actors I know who are happiest being actors in the profession go out on auditions and get hired and do work. However, in those times when they aren’t doing that, they’re getting together with friends, practicing self-tapes, and giving each other feedback. They’re writing things, if that’s something that’s interesting to them. They’re using their iPhones or their cameras, or they’re borrowing equipment from a friend or relative, and are working together to make work themselves.

I think the life of an actor entering the profession after completing a performing arts education or an online performing arts education, or someone who’s getting started in the profession, is really somebody who has to be a constant generator of their own success and of their own work. A successful actor is going to be somebody who is spending time every day having conversations with representation or having conversations with fellow actors.

I know actors who get together every week and read plays together, just to continue to explore things and keep their minds working on text. I know actors who get together every week and do self-tape work with other folks so that they can continue to practice that unique skill of auditioning. I know people who make short film after short film. They make web series. They do whatever it takes to keep practicing.

Because unlike, say, somebody who plays a sport, and can maybe go and practice very easily, or play a pickup game, it’s very easy for actors to think about the whole scope of what it would take to do a production or try to get cast. They tend to focus just narrowly on that one task of getting hired to do the job in a particular way, and they miss how much exercising they can do of the skills that will then make them more likely to get hired. They see themselves as somebody who has the power to make themselves, even when they’re not getting hired at that particular moment.

I guess the question that I get asked most often is, how do I get money? How do I get funded? It’s a great question. Many times, I wish I had better answers. Basically, I guess there are different approaches. It is vital to discuss funding for any performing arts education including online performing arts education.

Tips To Finding Funds

Apply for Grants

Depending on where you are, for example, if you live in Europe, there are a lot of grant opportunities. If you live in the States, there are fewer, but there are still some grant opportunities. Basically, the first thing that you do would be to apply for all the grants and keep it up. Keep applying and reapplying, eventually, you’ll get one.

Do Crowdfunding

Now, for the cases, for all the times that you don’t get the grant, which are quite a majority in our history, we did some Kickstarter campaigns. We were able to crowdfund. This works for many small companies. Sometimes, you can get a partnership. It is very valuable to be in partnership with cultural foundations, cultural institutes, and different institutions.

Get Sponsors

There are many institutions that chip in, maybe a rehearsal space, some money for the set, or payment for the artists. This is how you kind of puzzle together a bigger budget. Of course, another possibility is finding actual sponsors. If you’re a good manager and if you’re a good promoter of what you’re doing, you can get big brands excited about being associated with your experience. That’s when they would sponsor, and your life would become a lot easier.

Start With a Zero Budget

The other approach is going basically on, which I discovered here in New York City. Never crossed my mind before, but I feel like it’s a very important approach to, at least, know. The idea of creating something on a zero budget. You can start with a no-money budget and see what you can do without anything.

It’s crazy, but it turns out that you can do without anything. Almost anything that you can do with a small budget, with a medium budget, and at the end of the day, with a big budget. It’s really a matter of perspective.

It’s fair to say that color-blind casting is a subject of controversy and debate. Does it add to a production? Does it detract? I think it’s interesting that the conversation in the performing arts and performing arts education seems to be moving toward color-conscious casting so that when you ask an actor of color to perform a certain role, you’re well-aware of all of the kinds of optics, coding and signatures of that casting. There’s a sensitivity and an intentionality around that.

And then there’s that notion that you would discover somebody — that you would find somebody completely arresting and unusual.

One of the very early roles that Meryl Streep played was in a piece called “Taken in Marriage” by an American playwright called Thomas Babe. She was in a small theater at the New York Shakespeare Festival, now known as the Public Theater, for six months or so when she had this role.

And where and how she chose to laugh in that production was so unusual that I looked at that young actor in that part and knew I couldn’t take my eyes off her. I was going to be seeing a lot more of her.

I think casting directors look for that serendipity of something in the body and the rhythm in the voice, in the thinking process that is somehow unique and of that moment. I think there’s a temporality, a sense of this person for the zeitgeist, which is important, as well.

And when you get it right, you can overcome all sorts of other things that might be problematic in a production. I think casting directors are among the many unsung heroes of the profession in the work they do to help directors and producers get it right.

I sometimes call this serendipity actor glue. I know that a new play has been so beautifully cast and the roles so exquisitely realized in ways beyond what is even on the page that I am unlikely to ever see a production of that play that good again because in future productions some of the work that didn’t get finished in the writers’ room is going to become more apparent without that magical actor glue.

The concept is hard to explain in online performing arts education or in a classroom, but we benefit from it when we get to see it in an original production in New York.

A former student of mine just did this show. They worked with a guy named Dave LAST NAME? Malloy? who is a book writer and lyricist. It was an a cappella show called “Octet.” It had eight singers who would start singing in harmony on a dime. They all had earpieces because he figured out a way to give them their notes remotely and even do a countdown so that they knew when to come in on time.

From the audience seating, you’re watching this show and wondering how they do it. Since I knew him, I wrote him and said, “How did you put this together?” He told me that it really took a while to figure out, but that it’s magic by the end.

Tech Solution Considerations

There are these technical things you need to take into consideration during your studies and career. As my former student explained, you might need to stretch something out, or show that the actors entered from the house. You might need to show that the way the audience came in is how the actors came in. You realize you’re going to need light in one spot and all of this drumming. You realize that you need to bring all of these elements together.

You need to figure out how much time it’s going to take them to all come through the house, up the stairs and come onto the stage. You need to determine what happens next and the cutoff. At that cutoff, you need to decide when the lights are going to hit and when the stage manager is going to call for the next lighting cue, which might be a blackout or a quick or slow transition.

All of these technical elements take time to prepare. A lot of them are decided and prepared during rehearsals, but they only really happen during the technical phase of preparation for a production. During that phase, everybody gets into the theater for the first time together. It’s that period when things start to change to make certain that everything happens in time: Members of the crew hang and focus the lights. It’s the first time that you’re on the stage with the lights. It’s the first time you’re on the stage with the costumes under the lights, which is an experience that the actors have to get used to before opening night.

Performing Arts Education

Your online performing arts education can give you a solid tech solutions foundation. It won’t only provide you with a history and evolution of technical solutions in theater and performing arts. It will also prepare you, depending on your career track, with knowledge and skills that you need to provide these and additional tech solutions to others working on a particular production.

For performing arts, “You always want Arts managers as part of your company because they’re the ones who want to figure out how to make it possible for the art to reach audiences and how they can enable the creativity from people that they’re working with to achieve their highest possible level and to be as relevant as possible to audiences,” explains Elizabeth Bradley. “You have general managers and executive directors sometimes producing artistic directors.”

Based on her performing arts education, Bradley clarifies, “If you take an example of a company such as the Manhattan Theatre Club, the Signature Theatre, the Roundabout in New York, or the Atlantic Theater, you’d see these are not-for-profit companies, meaning they’re not run to create profit from a particular commercial offering to a group of investors. They have a mission for public good and education, and they are contributing to the culture through the realization of their mission.”

“The people who lead those companies, from a logistical perspective, make sure there’s enough money to put the season up, that there’s an artistic director or artistic producer who’s appropriately supported, that there’s a marketing team, a publicity team, a fundraising team, and a group sales team.” Bradley continues, “Of course, the very important people who work in a theater venue, if a company has their venue, as the Manhattan Theatre Club and Roundabout does.”

Elizabeth then concludes, “Who’s working in those box offices, what ushers are showing the patrons to their seats, who’s hiring the front-of-house manager, who’s working with volunteers in the company, and who’s running the education department? All of those functions tend to reside, depending on the budget size of the company, with a general manager or an executive director, or sometimes an artistic producer.” These are lessons well taught in online performing arts education.

When you’re making music for a production, sometimes, the person who creates the music arranges it. Then, the question is, OK, how do you take that arrangement and throw it on other instruments with consideration to the size of the budget and the size of the house the show is being played in? Online performing arts education is a great start, but in a professional setting, the musical director will take that information and synthesize it with the storytelling. As far as actors go, too, the musical director is frequently in on the casting as well; when I’m directing the music for a show, I usually am.

I’m inclined to be in communication with the writers (or the director, if the writers aren’t around), discussing the intent for the sound, the kind of actors, the kind of people, and asking “how does this come across?” while I’m shaping the music. I shape the music according to the energetic flow of the show. Musical directors might conduct a show, though sometimes there’s a separate conductor, but either way, each show has its own tempo, and there’s always a sweet spot for that tempo.

Performing arts educations don’t necessarily prepare you for finding that sweet spot. I’ve done shows where, afterward, the actors are like, “man, that was too slow,” and I’ve done shows where they’re like, “dude, slow down, it’s like you’re trying to make us go crazy.” Then, there’s just a little bit of work to find that sweet spot. That’s, in my experience as a musical director, how I approach musical direction.

“Once a production you feel is ready to go, and even before you’ve announced it, you want to put together your team, which is public relations, marketing, advertising, people who will be doing your social and digital, and also your management” says Jeffrey Richards, describing the role of a producer in pre-production meetings that take place prior to performing arts shows and productions.

The Importance of Learning Marketing in Performing Arts Education

“So much has changed even since I began nearly 20 years ago, with the emphasis on how you’re marketing a show,” says Richards, who also says “that emphasis has changed from when people just automatically used to take full-page ads in ‘The New York Times’ to now doing commercials on television and using the internet to a much greater extent.”

Richard explains that other members of the team are also frequently involved in the marketing decision-making. “An author or the playwright or the composer and the librettist team have a say in what the artwork is going to be.” He continues to explain “sometimes you include them on the commercial because you want their approval and to feel comfortable in the way that you’re selling the production. To that extent, I have in recent years asked playwrights to have discussions with the ad agency so that they can understand what the playwright is doing in terms of the playwright’s vision, I can say.”

“So they have an understanding of where they should go, and how they should treat the material. And once you have the playwright working with you, I should say it’s the producer’s responsibility to marshal all of those people and to make sure that you have a coherent framework as you are moving forward [with your production].”

Lighting design is probably, at least in my mind, the most important design aspect for theater. You can do a show without scenery, but you can’t do one without lighting. Lighting can tell a story way better than scenery. In fact, lighting helps focus an audience’s eyes where you want them to look. Lighting is a vital storytelling element. A lot of fantastic creative designers choose a career in lighting design because they know that they can affect the show in fantastic ways that other designers can’t hope to match.

Lighting Design Technologies

Right now, we’re seeing a lot of interest by performing artists and crews in using digital technologies to create lighting instruments. You can essentially use projections to create shapes within any video. The process is effortless in programs like Isadora or QLab. You can perform a lot of basic video design manipulation in these kinds of programs as well.

Yet, you can also create these shapes for any performance using a regular office projector and PowerPoint. I’ve seen professional shows in which crews have done incredible things using these methods. A lot of people think of projections as something that is behind the actors or merely a scenic element. But, you can find proof that projections are actually used as lighting instruments.

You might catch an actor in a projection. You might aim your projector on the floor and create specific shapes or video that actors then interact with at any given moment. You might also create interactive designs where lights and video move around the stage based on where the actors are located or what they’re doing in a scene.

Shining a Light on Success

All of these lighting techniques are happening at the forefront of entertainment. You can see the proof at all levels. It’s kind of an amazing time to be a performing arts creative, lighting designer or a student seeking a performing arts education because there are just so many toys out there that you can access that are often inexpensive and easy to manipulate.

For this reason, I encourage anyone currently working in this field or pursuing an online performing arts education to test any technology that they might find around them. You’ll be amazed at how much you can tell an engaging story that audiences remember using common lighting-related tools that you already have available to you.

What many people don’t realize is that many of the greatest artists in history just borrowed the ideas of other artists. This fact looms large in all art forms, including literature, painting, music and, certainly, theater.

Historical Inspiration

Let’s start, for example, with William Shakespeare. People often think of William Shakespeare as the most original, brilliant playwright of all time until they dive into the origins of his works. Yes, he was quite a talented figure, but all of his works were tied into and inspired by source material. Many of his writings were adaptations of previous plays by other playwrights. They also contained elements from the adventures, stories and mythologies attached to famous figures from particular time periods, such as real kings and queens.

Contemporary Examples

This same type of borrowing occurs in contemporary theater. What I love about contemporary theater, especially Black theater and American theater, is that you see these references play out. You see the power of adaptation.

Take, for example, “Hamilton.” It’s an adaptation by Lin-Manuel Miranda of Ronald Chernow’s biography of Alexander Hamilton. You can also think about “The Wiz” in this context, right? “The Wiz” is an adaptation of the film “The Wizard of Oz” that was an adaptation of the book of the same name written by Frank Baum. You can see this pattern of citation occurring all over the place.

There are certainly examples in other plays. If you think of August Wilson’s cycle of plays in terms of “Ma Rainey’s Black Bottom,” for example, he captured the cultural mythology around Ma Rainey. He gave that history new life on stage.

If you think of the work of Suzan-Lori Parks, you can see that she loves her repetition revisions. She calls them “Rep and Rev,” which describes how she takes source material and plays with it. She has a couple plays inspired by Nathaniel Hawthorne’s “The Scarlet Letter.” One of them, “In the Blood,” is all about a character named Hester, and how she engages in 21st century society, or late 20th century society, instead of puritanical society. Suzan-Lori Parks explores abuses and expectations around gender that still exist and still pertain to female experiences around the world.

Online Performing Arts Education

With your performing arts education, your explorations of these types of references to historical events, peoples and previous artistic works can help you determine the direction of your own art. As you learn, you may discover that someone had previously expressed something about a topic that’s close to your heart in ways that you want to adapt and make relevant to, for example, your life experiences or modern events. Whatever your reason for making these citations, you must learn how to use them without infringement and appropriately credit previous artists.

One of the most important things when pursuing a career as an actor is understanding reputation and that your reputation as an actor is what matters most. However, you don’t need other people’s help to create a reputation. You can do that on your own today. You can do that through creating content and through all sorts of mediums because the mission is not necessarily booking more work.

Instead, the mission as an actor is to become known. You achieve that through consistently reaching out, consistently building relationships, consistently showing up at auditions and being the best version of yourself that you can be. This is where the skill and psychology come in. If you don’t have the skills to back it up, you can promote it all you want and build relationships on social media all you want, but in the end, you’re going to have to have the skillset.

At the same time, if you have the skillset and nobody knows that you exist, you’re never going to actually have the career that you want either. So, you need to find a way to bridge both. Fortunately, there are ways of doing this so you can create your own work. Frankly, it’s very easy nowadays. You likely have a phone in your pocket right now, and that’s all you need to have to create something. Just pull it out, come up with something, and start filming.

One thing that actors tend to forget is that because we live in a world where technology is so democratized, we don’t have to wait to be given permission to work anymore—and in truth, you really shouldn’t. Many of the happiest actors in the profession go out on auditions, get hired, and do the work. But, during those times when that isn’t happening, they’re getting together with friends, they’re practicing self-tapes, and they’re giving each other feedback.

They’re also writing things, or they’re using their iPhones or cameras or borrowing equipment from a friend or relative and learning how to make work themselves. These days, an actor entering the profession after finishing school, or really anyone who’s just getting started in the industry, is really somebody who needs to be a constant generator of their own work and their own success.

It also helps to be spending time every day having conversations with representation or with other actors. Many actors choose to get together every week and read plays together just to continue progressing and keep their minds working on text. Other actors get together regularly and do self-work with other people present, just to practice that unique skill of auditioning. Some people just make short film after short film or web serieses. They do whatever it takes to be consistently practicing.

Actors, unlike say, somebody who plays a sport and can potentially go and practice very easily or play in a pickup game, tend to often think about the whole scope of what it would take to create an actual production. Or, they try to get cast and let their focus narrow down to just getting hired to do the job in that one specific way. And when they approach it this way, they miss out on using that time to develop more skills, more productive practice, and doing the things that will actually make them more likely to book work.

To have the best chance of success, they need to see themselves as creators and as somebody who has the power to create things for themselves, even if they’re struggling to get hired in that particular moment.

You can learn much more about the performing arts and how to succeed working in them with an online performing arts education. It allows you to attain all of the benefits and knowledge that comes with performing arts education, all from the comfort of your home.