Lesbian Dancing After The Show: An Improviser's Non Improvised Life

A Bag, A Fan & Blowing Money.

Theater. The land of non-payment. Well don't you do it for the love? I'm sure you have a day job. Aren't you selling out when you get paid?

My response: Do I ask you to do my taxes for free, asshole??

Yes. I do it for the love. Uh, no ...theater and writing is my day job. You have seemed to have confused the term "Selling Out" with "Making A Living," as selling out is doing any hack anything for a dime and making a living is doing the thing you love with no compromise and getting paid for the skill it entails.

Oh and... do I ask you to do my taxes for free, asshole??

Cab Driver: Tell me a joke!
Me: Sure. I will the moment you give me this cab ride for free.

Dry Cleaner: You do improv...make something up now!
Me: Sure. Why don't I mime imaginary money to give to you for my clothes right now.

The world of a comedian and actor is really a put in/not get paid world. You spend thousands of dollars for the classes or the degree in Theater. Hundreds of dollars on the headshots and professional reel. The extra payments for classes, just to be seen at some high end theater in the hopes and dreams of one day becoming a part of that ensemble.

Those extra classes that are for "Educational Purposes Only," to be seen by a Casting Director.

And the turnaround is bleak. "Copy/Credit" or "Food is provided" or "A fun experience." You find yourself getting paid 75 bucks for an hour show at a high end tech establishment that was just mentioned in Fortune Magazine.

Only to realize that the people who asked you to do this gig got paid a lot more than seventy-five dollars an hour. A whole lot more.

Actors and writers in small venues. Writers are on the bottom of the totem pole. Actors are underneath the totem pole. We are actually the *last thought* to any production. The furniture the actor sits on is thought about more than an actor.

When I was not writing and performing, I produced theater and found actors paying work through The San Francisco Improv Alliance. I created the company and thought it was time to put us actors on that totem pole.

Our motto was "Improv and Actors First." We not only produced shows around San Francisco and paid actors a decent wage; We also produced the San Francisco Improv Festival. One of the few improv festivals around the country that actually paid its actors.

With this in mind, I created a program called "The Talent Pool" where companies came to The Alliance to find talented actors for anything from corporate events, to commercials, Educational Programming, and everything theater, film and television.

My actors? They got paid for their work. They got paid *well.* When I told an actor they were going to get a huge chunk of change and they were "Gob smacked" by it? I just simply said: If I'm giving you that much? Imagine what I'm getting for producing it.

For the years I produced the SFIA, it is quite amazing how often companies called and proclaimed, We do not have a budget. I would write emails back to these very large American Companies. Emails with the masked response of Do I ask you to do my taxes for free, asshole?

Larger companies will always try to find the better deal when other theater production companies seem just a little too high. In theory, this is what they are supposed to do: Save money. But, when they look for people who they think are hungry for any sort of work? Or worse yet, feel that anything creative should come to them for free? It rattles my chains.