What To Do Between Shows: A Helpful Guide for Unemployed Stage Managers

It has now been exactly one week since the show I spent all summer on closed, and despite my Craigslist-trolling efforts I am, for the time being, jobless until the next gig comes up or some bookstore calls me back about being a retail monkey for them.  In the mean time, I am trying to be productive, but have unfortunately forgotten how to do anything besides build Excel spreadsheets and weep into my pillow at night.  To that end, I have created a guide based on the few productive things that I have gotten done in order to help others in my situation!  (I also debated whether this post should really live here or over at The 10-Block Rule, but ultimately decided to leave it here because it's actually more snark than stage management.)  So, I present:

What To Do Between Shows: 

A(n Only Slightly) Helpful Guide for Unemployed Stage Managers

1. Clean your bathroom.

Cleanliness isn't just next to godliness, 

he's part of the damn pantheon.

My bathroom is a glorious bastion of shining white tile and lemongrass-thyme scene right now.  This may well be the cleanest that room has been in over a year.  I can see my reflection in the mirror, and it turns out I don't actually have freckles.  I got the residual black hair dye stains from 3+ years ago off the floor of my shower.  I am now a proud unofficial sponsor of the Mr. Clean Magic Eraser, because if there's one thing stage managers like as much as office supplies, it's cleaning accouterments.  And on that same note...

2. Fold laundry.
Allow me to refer you back to the very first entry of my stage management blog, from nearly two years ago.  See that massive pile of books and clothes?  It's still there.  Or rather, there again.  Or rather, was there, but I folded all the clothes living on my chair and stuffed them into drawers (like a boss) because I really like being able to sit down when I'm editing photos or screaming obscenities at job postings that want 3+ year experience in Underwater Basket Weaving or something equally absurd.

3. Take pictures of your friends the day before they both cut their hair.
I wish I was kidding.  I took adorable photos of my two ASMs, because after living on top of each other all summer, the first thing we did on our first official day of freedom was all get lunch and run around taking pictures together.  The day after this happened, both of them got haircuts.  And then they both left the state to go back to school.  Our timing is super magical.

Look, Sir Oiled McManChest's equally
shirtless friend is in a sequel!

4. Read a book.
Okay, I actually have to scratch this one, because it turns out I did more reading in the last week of the show running than I actually have in the week since it closed.  Oops.  It's still a good suggestion.  Read a book anyway.  Like the one on the right.  Or anything else.  Except Fifty Shades of Gray.  Don't read that, because it's badly-written fanfic that promotes emotionally abusive relationships and I can tell you where to get better-written free smut on the internet anyway.

5. Write a book.
Scratched for the same reason as above.  That, and considering how many terrible self-published books I have read in the last year, maybe this isn't universal advice.  Though I've read some really good ones too. Let's just move on to another point before I dig to deep of a hole for myself here.

6. Hunt for a job.
I wasn't actually going to put this on the list, both because it's kind of a given and because it's incredibly boring.  But then I change my mind because you know what? it's actually important these days to remind people that they have to actively take part in making their lives happen.  I mean, I should have to say it, but I do.  Go look for an effing job.  I have to remind myself constantly to at least look, to make the effort to send in my resume (even if I don't think I'm qualified, because as my dad keeps telling me, it's still worth the effort if you can just get to the interview).  In the mean time, I'm also trying to...

7. Cultivate a productive hobby.
I'm trying to get better at photography.  I have a lot of friends who are photographers, and I actually have a lot of experience shooting live theater.  While I have no real desire to suddenly try to make a living from photography, being good enough that I could make a few bucks as an assistant or second-shooter would be an incredibly useful skill to have.  I also want to sew more, because I enjoy it, I want to make pretty clothes, and apparently it's a skill in high demand in the circles I run in (being the theater/film/generally-artsy-types).  Anything that keeps me busy so that I don't just revert to being a hermit like I was in high-school.

8. Go outside.
Despite the fact that sunshine and I are sworn mortal enemies, going outside is apparently a good thing.  You get fresh air, Vitamin D, and generally a chance to clear your head and look at some different scenery.  A little workout wouldn't be amiss either for helping you focus and feel productive (though please, love of all things, don't be an idiot like me and go jogging in your FiveFingers after a week of sitting on your arse unless you want your calves to burn like the fires of hell for days afterward).

Well, I was going to give you ten, but I've actually run out of productive things that I've actually done this week, unless you count having more Facebook activity in the last five days than I've had in the last five weeks.  So, with these...well, I can't really call them fun, can I?...tips in place, I'm now going to go edit photos or shovel out my closet or something.  This blog encourages audience participation, so feel free to add your own suggestions in the comments.  But remember, snark is required.  I don't do the whole 'taking-yourself-seriously' thing.

Quarter-Life Crises, Installment One

I hate the word "adultolescent."

I first came across this word a couple years ago.  I was on the selection committee for my university's theater club's annual production, and one of the prospective directors pitched a production of Shakespeare's Two Gentlemen of Verona.  One of the bases for his concept was a a fascinating article that I cannot now remember the title/author/publisher of (because this was two years ago and it's 2:30am right now and shut up), but anyway, the whole point of this article was discussing how our culture has become one of "adultolescents" - loosely defined: twenty-somethings who go off and graduate college with awesome degrees, only to end up moving back in with their parents while they struggle to find a job, or a usable skill set, or generally just learn how to function in the real world as grown ups.  It was an amazing article.  It made excellent points about how we as a society have bred a generation of incredibly book-intelligent but socially and practically inept kids, who are now faced with become the new grown-up and don't actually know how to do it.

I friggin' hate the word "adultolescent," probably because I am one.

Yes, this is one of those sarcastically disparaging posts written in the wee hours of the morning because I'm a borderline insomniac and tend to work myself into panic attacks, but hear me out, okay?  I'm not trying to bid for sympathy.  I don't think.  We'll find out shortly.

I've been contemplating this concept a lot lately because I (finally) graduated with my BA.  (Yay me, and all that jazz.  Whatever.)  Over the summer I took a stage management job that was basically an internship, because like most non-union SM jobs in the Bay Area it offers a small stipend, which is lovely, but would calculate out to a depressingly tiny hourly rate. I'm not complaining at all, because that's how theater works, and getting paid at all is awesome.  But now that job is wrapping up, and I have to put on my big-girl pants (which I finally have, although I'm lacking in the big-girl shirt department) and find a longer-term job, preferably that will pay me something at least resembling minimum hourly wage and not make me want to gouge out my eyeballs.  Unfortunately, and here's my actual point...I don't have any marketable skill sets.  At least, nothing that looks marketable on paper.  If I can get into an interview and explain that stage managing is basically data entry and HR for schizophrenics then I might be able to prove that I know how to do useful things.  But that's the catch-22, because I do have one incredibly useful skill that I've been banking all my extraneous XP into: I call it the skill of Bullshittery.  I can sell myself like a boss.  I can say all the right things at all the right time to make you think I'm way better at doing things than I actually am.

And I feel like that's my generation in a nutshell.  We are the "fake it 'til you make it" generation.  We can talk and dress and act like grown-ups, but a lot of us are still living with our parents, asking mom to do our laundry and dad to do our taxes, and pretending like we're way more qualified for things than we are.

And maybe I'm wrong.  Or maybe I'm biased because most of my social circle is artists who only work "real" jobs because they haven't hit the point where they can make living wage from their art.  Or because I live in a part of the country where the cost of living is so high that my friend who is an EA for the CEO of a Fortune 250 company is looking for a second job to make ends meet.  Or maybe it really truly is just me.  But I feel like I can't be the only one.

Anyway, I formatted a really pretty, if sparse, resume, and wrote a bullshitastic cover letter of sorts, and applied for a job that I suspect I'm only marginally qualified for.  (And by "applied" I mean "hit the submit button before I could wuss out again.")  I'm gonna go apply for a bookstore next, because I have a degree in English so I might be slightly more qualified for that.  Then I'm gonna ask my mom if I can borrow a sweater from her so I don't have to show up to job interviews in my Mountain Dew tee-shirt.

No pictures, because it's 3am and I don't feel like getting my Google-fu on.  (Though now that I think of it, I might add that to my resume under "skills.")