3 Ways to Grow Your Acting Career While in Quarantine
This 4 minute read can be will help keep your acting career moving through this pandemic. For more ideas and perspectives on an actor’s career, you can get the book, YOU THE CAREER or Register for our FREE COFFEE CHAT HERE or apply for our Zoom Master Class.
It goes without saying that these are difficult times for artists. We are dealing with multiple pandemics: economic uncertainty, supply shortages, isolation, general panic, and a virus.
Somehow, its seems right to incubate, to rest, and to heed the wisdom of the natural world encouraging us to slow down.
It seems right, but also really scary.
As restaurants, bars, and gyms close they take the support income of many artists with them. As networks and productions come to a halt, opportunities and dreams can become frustrated.
But, for an artist, everything is a gift. No experience, if truly experienced, is wasted.
And it’s in times like these that we lay the foundation for our inevitable return. Our industry may have cancelled work, but it doesn’t mean you have to.
This will pass.
And when it does, I hope you will have spent this time well. I hope you’ll be ready.
Here are three ways you can grow your acting career while in quarantine:
1) Reach In
Everything we create is an expansion of who we are. Every word we speak, every thought we write, every feeling we express is an expansion of an inner truth.
Ultimately, your career is an expansion of your life. So, the best place to begin to maintain your career is with the very thing that creates your career: you.
Reaching In is the process of continuous inspiration. It’s going inside yourself to clear off the rust, to shake off the cobwebs, and reignite the fire
Reaching In involves anything that shines a light into the dark forgotten corners of your heart, and reminds you why you started this career in the first place.
It’s a way of nurturing your creativity in creative ways, and it’s like exercise for your creative soul.
In this time of isolation, you will have plenty of time to Reach In
Here are some things you can do while you wait out the pandemic:
read a different play every day—I dare you! (amazon has plenty)
watch a film that inspires you, watch that film you say you’ve seen…but, you haven’t really…
pray, meditate, deep listening, commune with the great creative spirit in creative ways
pretend we’re past this craziness, and write an encouraging letter to yourself from the future
listen to this podcast about how to have the career you want without losing the person you are
schedule time to dream about your future
take a “Walk Awake”: leave your phone at home, go for a walk, and see/touch/smell/hear all the goodness
dance in your living room
write out your personal definition of success . What does it mean to you? Are you on this track?
read the fiction they told you to read in high school…some of that stuff is REALLY good when you aren’t forced to read it
Use this time to keep your fire lit, and when the industry comes back to life, they won’t be able to ignore your flames.
2) Reaching Out
This is the stuff everyone talks about. This is the stuff you probably already know how to do…but aren’t always doing.
Reaching Out is the daily efforts you do to share your work with the world. This is the hustle. This is where the “self-management for actors” stuff lives; the “top ten things you can do for your career” stuff lives; and, the “my acting teacher told me to do this” stuff lives.
But, today, this stuff looks a little different.
Here’s one way you can continue to impact the industry even when you’re locked in your house and the industry is on hold:
Film Festival Research Assignment: Have you ever wanted to work with a specific filmmaker, but that filmmaker is out of reach for you? Have you ever noticed how certain filmmakers tend to work with the same actors? It’s important that you know who the up-and-coming filmmakers are. You need to know their work before their work becomes out of reach. But, where do you begin?
Here’s a quarantine assignment guaranteed to impact your career: go to the websites for the major festivals in your area (SXSW, Tribeca, Sundance, Telluride…). Find out what filmmakers have SHORT films in the festivals from the past two years. Google each filmmaker’s name. Go to their Vimeo page and watch their material. Find your favorites, and begin to track their career. Reach out to them, set up a meeting with them, and get to know them. Find them before the industry does, and see if there’s a project you can help with. Set up a google alert for their name so when their next project announces, you’re already watching.
Then, Reach Out to them on social media (or even better, write them or their manager a hand written letter) to express your admiration for their work. Don’t ask for anything, just Reach Out to let them know you love their work.
*why not track filmmakers who have feature film in the festivals? Because, I want you to find filmmakers who are early in their career. I want you to find them before the big money finds them. I want you to collaborate with them before you need an agent to get in front of them. Most filmmakers begin with a short film before they shoot a feature, so, I want you to be in their next short and earn the right to be in their feature.
This assignment will take you at least 4 weeks, and is a way you can continue to Reach Out during the quarantine.
3) Reach To
This is the special sauce! Reaching To will distinguish your career from every other actor’s career in this industry.
When you Reach To, you extend your attention, you time, and your effort to help others without expectation of return. It’s an act of true service for its own sake, and it is offered without a catch, agenda, or strings attached.
Reaching To will transform your career and you can do it from your home.
Here’s a few ways you can Reach To during this time:
Organize a play reading via Zoom. Pick a play, cast it with friends, and read it together over Zoom.
Find a monologue buddy and use Marco Polo to send monologues to each other for feedback and practice.
Send someone a copy of your favorite play via Amazon. Then have a discussion of that play together over Skype/Zoom/Facetime
Offer to run lines over skype with anyone over preparing for a job or audition.
Offer virtual Free Listening to anyone struggling with isolation or loneliness. For more on that, check out Urban Confessional.
Intentional service to others is the difference between a good career and a great career.
There are limitless ways to remain in service to others during this time without leaving your home. Just remember, the most artistic choice you can make is to work for the benefit of others.
As actors, this is an opportunity to continue to grow your career. But, and maybe more importantly, this is an opportunity to offer your emphatic resilience to the uncertainty surrounding us.
Stay calm, open your heart, and take care of each other. Take care of yourself, also. Do things that bring you comfort and stability: go on a walk, listen to good music, eat good pasta, open the bottle you’ve been saving, and take a nap.
This will pass, and when it does, I hope you can say you grew your career, created cool stuff, and modeled the best of humanity well.
To apply for our $225 a month, ongoing online classes, click here
What ideas do you have for Reaching In, Reaching Out, and Reaching To? How are you managing your career during this difficult time.
Want more info, check out Crash Acting’s YOU THE CAREER 4-Week Workshop and the book, You The Career or Register for our FREE COFFEE CHATS.