Finding Your Niche

by Ashley Griffin, Stage Directions

If you conduct a poll of young people who want to make their career in the theater, most of them will say they want to be a performer. Likewise if you ask young people in the dance world most of them will say they want to be a dancer or in film and T.V. – an actor.

But of those who want to pursue a career in the arts will have changed their focus by the time they get out of college.

Why?

Is it because being a performer isn’t a viable career path? No. Is it because they discover they don’t have talent and have to take a “runner up” career? No. In fact the vast majority that I’m talking about don’t change from a career in the arts to one out of the arts, but rather to a different artistic focus. And a lot of that is because we almost never give young people an opportunity to explore the arts outside of the focus of being a performer.

There are tons of theater programs where young people can perform in a play or musical… dance schools around the world train young people to, and provide opportunities to perform… but there are rarely, if ever, equivalent programs that give young people the chance to explore writing, directing, designing or entrepreneurship.

Some of this is practical – it’s much easier to pack in an ensemble of young people learning a musical routine… things like writing, directing and designing require one on one work. But that’s not the only reason. It partially has to do with our lack of focus on the need for training or recruitment in those areas. But they are needed. And sometimes, on our lack of respect for them. There’s a reason at awards shows the awards for Best Actor and Actress come right before Best Film/Show. Performers are out front, right in the public eye. They draw the most attention.

But more importantly then the need for recruitment is that we’re delaying, or even hindering, people’s ability to find their niche. Often the first time someone has the chance to explore lighting design, or the business of theater, or criticism, or combat choreography is in college, where such things are required across many different majors.

A girl I went to school with had always wanted to be a musical theater performer. She was very talented and got into some of the best schools. But when casting went up the big musical at are school she was devastated when she got cast in the Vocal Minority - singing in the pit. Now this wasn’t a “lesser” role, this was a musical where a vocal minority had been written into the score, and only a very few of the top vocalists were selected. She was so upset she considered quitting the show, but was convinced to give it a go.

She discovered that she LOVED vocal jazz performance, changed her major and is now a professional jazz singer.

And she’s one of hundreds of stories like that. Some of the best stage managers, designers, teachers, directors and composers I know started out wanting to be performers and, when they were suddenly introduced to artistic subjects outside of performance classes, realized that they had been pursuing the wrong calling.

Some people who might have wanted to be in the arts never pursued it because their only introduction to the industry was performing – and that’s not what they wanted to do.

And that’s not taking into account all the jobs that aren’t a part of college programs or, sometimes, aren’t a job yet at all. Then artists have to strike out completely on their own.

Alicia Rodis pioneered the role of intimacy coordinator in the United States. Starting as an actor and dancer, she began to specialize in movement, choreography and staged violence at Wright State University. Her professional experience as an actor, fight choreographer, and stunt performer, eventually led her towards the choreography and coordination of romantic, sexual, and highly suggestive scenes. Seeing an unfilled need, in 2015 Alicia co-founded the not-for-profit Intimacy Directors International with the progenitor of the phrase “intimacy choreographer,” Tonia Sina. Together, they created an organization to research and promote the role of intimacy professionals in T.V., film, and theater. She and her colleagues worked with directors, choreographers, psychologists, social workers, trauma experts, and other professionals to research and codify a system of addressing the performance of nudity, simulated sex, and intimacy. 

After being hired by “The Deuce” on HBO, Alicia worked with long-time producer Nina Noble to craft a better system for intimacy on a major television series. A system that is now becoming the industry standard.  Alicia has also consulted with The Hollywood Commission, ACTRA, The Stage Directors and Choreographers Society (SDC), and is working with SAG-AFTRA on standardized intimacy protocols.

Sara Judd, a professional dancer and choreographer discovered a gap in the dance world when she helped her grandmother retire and close her ballet studio. Trying to figure out what to do about the massive costume collection her grandmother had amassed, Judd realized there was a great need for a marketplace for gently-used and new dancewear and costumes. She realized that need extended to artists who needed a side gig and independent dancewear designers/creators who needed an outlet. Combining her dance background with her love for tech, she created a one of a kind company called Tutulist (https://www.tutulist.com ). Described as “Etsy meets Poshmark for Dancewear”, Tutulist  promotes sustainability and seeks to provide access to dance for all. Tutulist also connects dancewear to fashion (a leotard and bodysuit are really the same thing after all and Balletcore is all the rage.)

Judd says: “My whole life has been eat, sleep and breathe dance and specifically ballet…I’ve actually spent my last few years in finance and technology and I’ve just felt this gravitational pull back to the dance industry and what’s been very exciting for just me personally with Tutulist is it’s a marriage between technology, and innovation and my passion which is dance. So it’s been a really fulfilling business to see growing and connecting with other dancers in ways I never could have imagined.” To date Tutulist has sold and/or donated over 25,000 dancewear items or costumes and are currently supporting Brown Girls Do Ballet (a non-profit focused on providing access to dance to underrepresented populations and promoting diversity in the arts).

 You can check out my full interview with Judd at: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UmWUGSMGrnY

That’s another thing that often gets perpetuated – we all know the old adage “if you can do anything else, don’t be a performer, but if you have to perform, do it.” But what about if you have to be a performer… but have other interests too? Love history? Science? Tech? Advocacy? Painting? They may not be what you want to focus your career on, but there are ways to incorporate them into your life (and career) in the arts. Judd loves dance and tech – she didn’t have to sacrifice either of them.    

But often those diverging from the traditional path are met with an enormous lack of support… until they become wildly successful. We have got to start separating the idea of “giving up on your dream” for negative reasons, and “changing your dream” for positive reasons. In the dance world success is still primarily defined by what rank you achieve as a dancer (principal is the highest) and at what company (The Royal Ballet or “Small Middle of Nowhere Company That No One’s Ever Heard Of”?)

If you’re going to college to study drama, or moving to NYC to pursue theater it’s “How Many Broadway Shows Have You Done?” But when someone discovers they don’t want to perform on Broadway because they really love being a sound engineer, or they actually want to design dancewear instead of being a dancer, or they want to incorporate what they’ve learned as an arts major in a seemingly totally disparate field (several doctors I’ve met with horrible bedside manner could definitely benefit from an acting class or two to help them learn about objective, responding to a partner and sometimes just basic empathy…)

There’s a great scene in the brilliant series “Slings and Arrows” where the artistic director of a famous Shakespeare company has to run several corporate outreach sessions (to a company that makes plastic products for the construction industry) on “Developing Leadership Skills Through Analyzing Shakespeare Characters” (i.e. “Claudius’ crisis management techniques”). And it actually… turns out really well. Not because they learn to sell more plastic thanks to Shakespeare, but because they end up discovering things about themselves and the human condition that actually bond them and give them more agency over their choices and actions (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pmaTTMEi74Y)

The Gallatin School of Individualized Study at NYU is an entire school dedicated to majors that, well, don’t exist yet. An American student I went to school with (she was at Gallatin, I was at Tisch) discovered her niche before college – she wanted to do drama therapy with special needs students in France. No major or training for such a job really existed… for the drama/drama therapy part she would need to go to drama school, for the teaching and special needs therapy part she would need to go to teacher’s college, for the French part she would need to become fluent in French. Gallatin allowed her to create her own major, taking whatever classes she needed from every school at NYU – she studied drama at Tisch, French in the College of Arts and Sciences, etc.

We need to not only make room for artists with unique and divergent interests and specialties, but find ways to support and encourage diverse artistic interests from an early age. The only reason I was able to start exploring dramatic writing as a child is because the Artistic Director of my theater company mentored me and other teachers gave me opportunities – I wrote a musical that I and other students performed for my third grade class, I wrote our fifth grade class show…. I only got to start exploring directing because the youth program at my wonderful rep company needed more hands on deck and I got thrown into being an assistant director.

This same company had a requirement for all advanced theater students doing the summer show – early in the process we were given a giant list of dozens of jobs other than being a performer, writer or director. They included stage manager, house manager, PR, costumes, etc. We had to pick (and rank) our top three choices, and then we would be assigned (and mentored through) a job throughout the rehearsal process (no one had to do something they absolutely hated, but often our assignment was chosen to challenge us and introduce us to something our directors could see we had a talent for but we weren’t necessarily familiar with).

Those doing PR had to learn about press releases, make choices about advertising the show, and help in developing and executing the PR campaign. The House Manager, before they went onstage, had to coordinate the ushers, the cleaning of front of house and audience relations. Obviously the Stage Manager didn’t call the show (as they were performing in it), but they shadowed the adult stage manager, acted as the liaison between the cast and directors, etc. It was fantastic!

My fourth/fifth grade teacher Ann Whitley did something similar with the shows we put on. She created more “jobs” than just performing and celebrated all of them equally. One boy in my class was a brilliant visual artist – and he won the role of poster/program designer, creating beautiful works of art that were on the front of our programs.

We need to find more ways to create similar opportunities – and ones that go further into actual training. If nothing else it’s invaluable for those who want a career in the arts (I’m so grateful I can have an intelligent, technical conversation with members of every department on a production) and creates a strong ensemble feeling with everyone on the show, not just the cast. But it can also help young people discover talents and passions they might not encounter for decades, or worse, never encounter at all.

We need to support the Sara Judds’ and Alicia Rodis’ of the world. Who knows what wonderful “niches” we don’t have in the arts because of those who never had the opportunity to discover theirs…