What's a typical day like for a working Broadway Actor or Actress?
What's a typical day like for a working Broadway Actor or Actress?
#0What's a typical day like for a working Broadway Actor or Actress?
Posted: 6/17/06 at 5:10pm
People were discussing actors salaries in the other thread, do they get paid for rehersals, does their pay change once rehersals stop and they're just doing their shows.
It made me wonder if they stop rehearsing once go live. What's a typical schedule like for a theatre actor/actress in a broadway show? Do they only work nights?
FindingNamo
Broadway Legend Joined: 7/22/03
#1re: What's a typical day like for a working Broadway Actor or Actress?
Posted: 6/17/06 at 6:03pm
For me it's just exhausting. Gym and vocal/dance lessons in the morning and early afternoon. Replying to fan letters and email in the afternoon. Steamed spinach and rice for dinner. Purge. Dash to the theater. Warm ups. Places and HIT IT.
Matinee days are hell.
Twitter @NamoInExile
Instagram none
#2re: What's a typical day like for a working Broadway Actor or Actress?
Posted: 6/17/06 at 6:52pm
Yes, you get paid for rehearsals. Depending on the show, you will often have rehearsals during the day while the show is running - for understudies, new performers, brush ups, etc...
Otherwise, gym, classes - both taking and teaching - resting...
"High time we made a stand and shook up the views of the common man" - Tears for Fears
#3
Posted: 6/17/06 at 6:59pm
This is what was posted on Stephanie's fansite in response to this question when she was still on tour:
"I don't get to sleep until around 2 am so I sleep in pretty late. I usually have a pilates class or physical therapy for about an hour around 1pm. I'll get back to the hotel around 2:30-3pm. I'll check out my emails, answer fan mail, mail out photos, etc... any business stuff I have to attend to. Then I have a little something to eat.
Then it's off to the theatre. I'll give myself about 1 hour or more to prep for the show... start my humidifiers and tea kettle, vocal warm up, stretches, hellos around the theatre, more fan mail/business. Then I'm in "the Chair" a half hour before curtain for wig and make-up.
After the show, I'm still scrubbing the green off when most of the cast and crew has already gone. I'll greet those that are waiting at the stage door and straight off to the hotel. I'll check the email again, have more tea and watch bad, late-night TV.
Not a glamorous life, but the one I have to lead in order to stay strong and healthy. And even then...it's still sometimes not enough. Tour isn't the easiest life on a singer. There's so much beyond our control...climate changes, humidity levels, dust and mold in alot of these older theatres, the dry, stale air in hotel room vents...I know this all seems inconsequential but it's very important when it comes to the the health and the consistency of the voice." - Stephanie J. Block
Now my friend who was on the RAGTIME tour would give you a TOTALLY different answer but that's another story! I think there are a few basic things everyone does to stay in top form for the show, but other than that it's pretty much varied. I am not sure if there is a "typical" day.
Updated On: 6/17/06 at 06:59 PM
ashley0139
Broadway Legend Joined: 1/3/05
#4What's a typical day like for a working actor or actress?
Posted: 6/17/06 at 7:18pm
Thanks, Popular, that was so interesting.
Not a glamorous life
All right, now maybe it's because I haven't done it and I'm being naive, but that sounds amazing to me. That is exactly what I would love to be doing. And I'm sure it gets tiring, but it sounds great to me.
"This table, he is over one hundred years old. If I could, I would take an old gramophone needle and run it along the surface of the wood. To hear the music of the voices. All that was said." - Doug Wright, I Am My Own Wife
MOXIEINTHECITY
Broadway Star Joined: 5/11/06
#5What's a typical day like for a working actor or actress?
Posted: 6/17/06 at 7:49pmI was listening to Stephen Lynch in an interview yesterday and he was actually complaining about the schedule. He also said something about how they play a lot of poker in his dressing room and drink alot after the shows. Not sure if he was kidding or not.
Jon
Broadway Legend Joined: 2/20/04
#6What's a typical day like for a working actor or actress?
Posted: 6/18/06 at 12:44am
You are paid a weekly salary - the same during the rehearsal period and after the show has opened.
Once the show has opened, you might occasionally have to come in during the day to rehearse, especially if you have a small part and understudy one of the leads, or if a replacement is joining the show. Once the show has opened, a certain number of rehearsal hours per week are allowed. If you are needed for more hours, you get paid overtime.
There are automatic pay raises for performers who stay in long-running shows for a long time. For instance, someone in the chorus of Phantom of the Opera might have gotten Equity minimum when they started five years ago, but by now they would be getting at least $500 a week above minimum.
#7What's a typical day like for a working actor or actress?
Posted: 6/18/06 at 12:49amDrinking doesn't seem to be particularly out of the ordinary for preformers. It is a fairly decent way to wind down.
"We don't value the lily less for not being made of flint and built to last. Life's bounty is in it's flow, later is too late. Where is the song when it's been sung, the dance when it's been danced? It's only we humans who want to own the future too."
- Tom Stoppard, Shipwreck
#8What's a typical day like for a working actor or actress?
Posted: 6/18/06 at 1:53am
What a great question for a Broadway board! I hope the responses you get are serious.
A very valid thread in my opinion.
"He is your friend, your partner, your defender, your dog. You are his life, his love, his leader. He will be yours, faithful and true, to the last beat of his heart. You owe it to him to be worthy of such devotion."
-- Author Unknown
#9What's a typical day like for a working actor or actress?
Posted: 6/18/06 at 6:17am
re: stephen lynch
i think i read somewhere about the poker thing, that they played so much that they received a poker table as an opening night present. i dont know how much drinking they do, they seem to come out the stage door pretty quickly. (atleast at TWS)
Videos