Jobs

Lately I have been getting pretty frustrated trying to find work. I applied to 4 or 5 theaters this spring that I thought would be pretty promising. However, there are a lot of other good stage managers out there and I did not get any of those jobs. Actually, one of the major theaters in Chicago interviewed me for an apprenticeship and managed to make me feel entirely too overqualified for the job which was kind of funny. I would have taken it anyways. One of my SM friends also was interviewed and got the same vibe. I guess we'll just have to go work for theaters who actually appreciate us being overqualified...

In any case, it has been hard for me to even apply for more jobs after those rejections because school got more insane and I've been really busy. Now that I have successfully finished both my majors (which means I don't have to finish the last paper for my last incomplete), it is still hard for me to apply for jobs because I'm completely tired of writing cover letters!!! Luckily I have a successful SM friend (CG) who has been encouraging me a lot in these past few weeks. She even gives my name to people who offer her jobs that she can't take. This sort of forces me to be more active in my applications because my name is already out there! Hooray! It's one thing to have a mentor from the theater department but it is another thing to have the support of a close friend who is actually competing for a lot of the same jobs, most of the time!

The other obstacle in finding a stage management job is the lack of good pay. There are dozens of reputable theaters in Chicago but not a lot of them have money. Stage managers get paid more often than actors in the smaller theaters but it is still not enough to live on. However, if you can't get a job in one of the larger theaters, you just have to work in the trenches for next to nothing until you can move up to better theaters with more pay. As a result, I am also trying to find a second job that will pay the rent, etc. So far I have applied at bookstores, temp agencies, non-profit offices, and many more, but I still don't have a job. I am probably just being impatient but it seems like everyone around me has at least something to do. I have no schedule other than my physical therapy appointments.

I went to the bookstore today and read some resources on resumes, cover letters, and jobs for people with college degrees. I got some good ideas about how to fix my resume and refine my letters but by the time I got home, I was too tired to actually apply that new knowledge. Somehow I can write a long blog post but have trouble facing cover letters. I think the pressure of writing the perfect letter is making it difficult to get moving because I really want to work for most of the places I'm applying! Hopefully something will come through soon and I can stop my seemingly endless search and writing of cover letters. Hopefully.

***Note: In case it sounds like I"m writing each letter from scratch, don't worry, I'm not. I just have so many different kind of jobs I'm applying for that I have to revise for each. For example, a stage manager cover letter is going to look very different from a cover letter for an office assistant job at an architecture firm. That is where the time-consuming part comes into play