6-6-08
Theatre Town Chicago
A 3-part series looking at why people choose Chicago, why they leave,
and how the industry survives.
Part 2 - Why leave?
This is the second article in a three-part series, looking at Chicago as the primary incubator of American theatre talent, and a city in which the performing arts not only thrive, but are an integral part of the community. Part one discussed the many ways that Chicago is the perfect launching point for a theatre career. From training with top-notch talent, to affordable housing, Chicago seems to have it all when it comes to the beginning of a theatre career.
Actor Nick Offerman, co-founder of The Defiant Theatre Company and most recently on Comedy Central’s “American Body Shop,” praised our city. “There’s no ulterior motive in Chicago. If you’re cutting your teeth in Chicago, it’s because you have a love of the art form.” This dedication to their craft is what makes Chicago actors so coveted in L.A. and elsewhere. So why, if they are so dedicated, do Chicago theatre people leave?
The short answer, succinctly put by Steppenwolf Theatre artistic director Martha Lavey, is that they find career opportunities elsewhere that they cannot get in Chicago alone. “Unlike a city like London where you can pursue stage, TV, film and radio all in one city, in the U.S. you are forced to choose between the cities on the coasts.”
If you want to be in film or television, you simply have to move to Los Angeles. If you want a career in theatre—especially if you are an Equity actor—a move to New York is almost inevitable, even if only to be there for auditions for the large regional companies that seem to do all their casting from NYC.
Steve Merle, owner and director of Act One Studios, noted, “If you have that hunger to hit the big time and be known, it’s not going to happen here.” He said that many actors are drawn to on-camera work, which is still limited around here. Unfortunately many of these same actors leave before they are ready.
“Lots of people leave before they have a career here, and they just die out there. If you can’t get work in Chicago, what makes you think…?” Merle trails off rather than finish the thought. “It’s just crazy to head out without connections and a union card.”
“I know very few people from Chicago theatre who move to L.A. and find a happy life,” admitted Offerman. Some friends of his have been there 10 or 15 years and still have no agent. “I just want to say, ‘You could have been doing anything!’”
Sure, they could have been doing anything, but it is hard to compete with the possibility of making $7,000 for four lines on Jim Belushi’s show vs. an entire year of non-Equity Chicago theatre.
People have different motivations for leaving. Some, frankly, want to be stars and find success in film and TV. Some are triple-threat theatre folks who can get more work in New York or on a Broadway tour. The one consistent issue is an actor’s ability to earn a living doing theatre in Chicago, and it seems the biggest obstacle to that is the relative lack of Equity theatres.
Many actors get their start by working with or forming their own small storefront theatre companies. However, as these actors mature into their artistry, they are faced with the choice of either abandoning their company for an Equity card (which does not, in itself, guarantee work) or supplementing non-Equity pay with a day job.
Offerman cited this dilemma as a major reason for his relocation out west. “I was building scenery during the day and acting at night,” he said. “Because of Defiant, I made an effort to skirt Equity.” That meant working at Equity theatres for non-Equity pay and making about $6,000-$7,000 a year as an actor. In spite of the below-the-poverty-line pay, “It was the best time of my theatre life.”
Unfortunately his theatre bliss was derailed by a bad tooth. “I had a molar with a hole you could stick a peppercorn in.” After getting cast in a couple of movies and “everyone” telling him he should move to L.A., he figured, “They’d pay me more and maybe I can get my tooth fixed.”
Even being union in L.A. is easier, where there is an Equity waiver for theatres with fewer than 99 seats. So why is there no such thing in Chicago? I asked Kathryn Lamkey, head of Chicago’s Actors’ Equity Association office. She explained that smaller Chicago theatres can choose to operate under the CAT Tier N or Tier 1 contracts, and Equity feels it is more appropriate to continue with this system, rather than create a new plan that mimics the 99-seat plan in L.A. or the showcase exemption in New York.
“Under the 99-seat plan,” said Lamkey, “there is no pay, just a parking reimbursement. Actors do not get credit toward pension or health benefits.” Under the CAT contract, actors get paid in all tiers (N – 6), and producers are required to contribute to pension and health (except for the first year of Tier N). Starting with Tier 1, an Equity stage manager is also required. In Tier N, the theatre guarantees to hire one Equity actor per show, and that requirement goes up in subsequent tiers. While that requirement is helpful to theatres, it’s limiting to Equity actors, who see the Tier requirements as limitations. What the 99-seat plan does is allow all the actors on stage to be Equity—and just not get paid. The choice many actors in Chicago make is to not go Equity, foregoing better paying Equity jobs, so that they can work at smaller theatres.
Steppenwolf ensemble member (and 2008 Tony Award nominee) Rondi Reed took a “very, very, very long time” before leaving Chicago to pursue film and TV work in L.A.
“People said to me you need to go to New York and you need to go to L.A. I was working all the time at Steppenwolf, and I was married and I just had no interest.” Eventually, though, the marriage dissolved and her reasons for staying started to fade.
In 1992 Reed went west, where she auditioned for a role on “Roseanne” and won the part as Laurie Metcalf’s therapist. That was her first gig in Hollywood, and she proceeded to get four or five more in rapid succession. L.A. seemed to be where she needed to be, so she spent the next 10 years or so living out west and traveling back and forth to Chicago and New York to do theatre.
However, there reached a point in L.A. where Reed found herself auditioning for smaller roles against more established stars. This is a phenomenon that Gene Weygandt (currently in the role of the Wizard in Wicked) noticed when he was out in L.A. as well.
“Chicago is an easy town to be a scale actor,” said Weygandt. “L.A. is a very rough town to be a scale actor. You can’t compete [as a scale actor] in L.A.. You go to an audition in L.A. and you’re competing against Harrison Ford, and it’s absurd.”
“I think I fought the flow about my last two years in L.A.,” said Reed. “The handwriting was on the wall, but something happens to your brain out there. It’s a Las Vegas mentality. It’s a gamble and you live on the hope that it could all change tomorrow. I stayed at the roulette table of my life too long.” Eventually she had to ask herself if she was bailing water out of a sinking boat. “It’s very hard to know when to stay and when to go.”
So, she moved back to Chicago because she “didn’t want to sit there and become one of those depressed and bitter L.A. actors. I am blessed because I have an artistic home at Steppenwolf.”
Actors in L.A. have theatrical artistic homes, too. It’s just that no one goes to see theatre. “No one told me when I moved to L.A. that there’s no theatre community like in Chicago, and that was kind of a crushing blow,” said Offerman. He admitted to knowing nothing of the comedy theatre scene, which seems to draw a much more regular following than “straight” theatre. After working on “American Body Shop” with Beer Shark Mice’s Pete Hulne, Offerman checked them out at iO West, and it opened his eyes. “I had no idea what a legitimate medium it was. I was totally in the dark about the comedy side of things. I might advise Chicago actors [moving to L.A.] to lay off the Chekhov and indulge in some comedy.”
Although moving away from Chicago can be a gamble, it is one that only you can decide to take. If you have built a career here and found that you are not making a living, you are not alone. Some of the best advice that Reed received came from her ex-husband, who suggested she “go where the energy is.” She added, “If there’s no energy in this part of your career, look somewhere else. We seem to be focusing on the things that aren’t manifesting for us and ignore the gifts that are there.
“The problem comes when you don’t feel like there is any energy anywhere. What if you don’t have choices?” She advised at that point is when you make a decision to go somewhere to try something. “Make a decision to see what it will be like. I would never dream of coming to New York without a job. But there are a lot of people who gut it out and survive.
“Luck, chance, being prepared, being driven—even with all those things it could not work,” Reed added. “At some point you just have to give up control. Get out of your own way and let the universe take you where you want to go.”