Weekend Breaks

I've taken time off from blogging over the weekend because I believe in the importance of weekend breaks. This doesn't gel with the whole "being an actress" thing right?

Well it sort of does. Many theatres are dark at least one night a week, giving you the weekend break of one day at some point during the week. Even if you work every evening, its fun work, and your "weekend break" will then become the period between jobs, which could stretch to be too long really.

I was once told, "As an actor, your job will be finding work and auditioning. Your break will be the performance." I fully believe this. Until last year, I had never been out of a show. Granted these were mostly unpaid performances, but I was always working on a role, and it was VERY fun work. Hard. But fun. People who work 9-5 come home and complain about their days and seem to hate their jobs (after being there long enough) but I always thought, "Acting is fun...I will never experience this boredom at my job."

How wrong I was.

Yes the actual performance is fun. But my job is not to perform...that's the reward. That's the perk of becoming a working actor. My job is to audition. My job is to look for castings and figure out how the industry in the UK works (because it is different to the US. I will explore that even further in my next entry). That's the depressing, tedious bit. No job is perfect. Acting might appear to be great at first light but the long weekend breaks can be very discouraging. Its the hardest job in the world because you have to come through all the rejection and "rests", but if you come through it...if you make it....the rewards are incredible!

Weekends are important times to recuperate for the rest of the work week. Its important to de-stress and relax and spend time with loved ones. Even on a busy acting schedule, it is important to find time to do this, whether your "weekend" is the traditional one or not!

So I took a weekend break from blogging but I can't take any real breaks (at least not now) from looking. We as actors, can't. We have to constantly network and look for any opportunity possible and create ways of keeping our craft fresh.

I'll explain more about this later (once its actually going somewhere) but for me, in order to do this, I have started creating a theatre company. Because we also have to support each other as actors. Otherwise we face becoming crushed by the industry. Support from each other will help us all to make it! "Weekend breaks" or not!