Stephen Spinella On Surviving As An Actor And Affording A Home In NYC

[Wanna Be A Foster]

Posted: 7/1/07 at 2:46pm

IT happens all the time: a creative kid arrives in New York with what feels like a lifetime supply of talent, luck and determination. Then he looks for a place to live. And before long, the city’s ravenous real estate prices have consumed his dreams.

Stephen Spinella might never have made it as an actor if he hadn’t lucked into a crazy-cheap rental. After moving to New York in 1979, he survived many long, unlucrative years, financed by restaurant jobs, while he acted in regional theater and Off Off Off Broadway. Then he was offered the role of Prior Walter in “Angels in America: Millennium Approaches,” for which he won his first Tony in 1993, followed by “Angels in America: Perestroika,” for which he won his second Tony, in 1994.

These days, he can be seen on Broadway in “Spring Awakening,” an odd, heartbreakingly beautiful little rock musical that just won eight Tonys. He plays all the adult men in the show, which is based on a late-19th-century play about teenagers and their sexual anxieties.

“If you want to be a theater actor, where do you live now?” said Mr. Spinella, 50, sitting in the bright, spacious Harlem apartment he bought last winter, after finally moving out of a rent-stabilized tenement that had been his home for 27 years.

Young actors “struggle on a Broadway salary,” he said. “A lot of them live in shoeboxes; some of them are literally three to a shoebox. New York has gotten prohibitively expensive.”

But back in 1979, when Mr. Spinella moved here from Arizona to attend graduate school in theater at New York University, it was still possible to find an apartment in Manhattan for next to nothing. A rent-stabilized two-bedroom in a tenement at the corner of 14th Street and Avenue B for $300 a month, to be exact.

Read on...
Stephen Spinella’s Real Estate Angels

[EugLoven]

Posted: 7/1/07 at 2:53pm

That was a sweet read. He's quite the smiley-guy in his home.

You've got me all nostalgic now to re-read "Angels" and I'm imdb-ing the cast.

Please let me be lucky enough to find something! sweet and comfortable and affordable when I pack-up and move to NY in August!

[Dancin Thru Life]

Posted: 7/1/07 at 3:12pm

OK....and I just dug up my VHS tape of "LOVE, VALOUR, COMPASSION!"

HAHA....

Oh...anyone else notice how he dusted AROUND his Tony Awards instead of lifting them up to clean under them??? That was funny.

Nice to hear from Stephen Spinella again!

:)

[Becoz_i_knew_you21]

Posted: 7/1/07 at 3:28pm

That was fabulous. Thanks for posting.

[Born To Reign]

Posted: 7/1/07 at 3:29pm

Anyone else jealous? $290k!!

[WickedGeek28]

Posted: 7/1/07 at 3:35pm

There are so many affordable houses in Harlem, just the stigma of danger that the name has keeps people away.

Ten years ago no one wanted to live in the East Village, now it's considered "chic."

[Ariella]

Posted: 7/1/07 at 4:29pm

I love Stephen Spinella. Thanks

[me2]

Posted: 7/1/07 at 5:04pm

One of my dreams has been to work my way up in the creative world then to build a new theatre where above, there would be apartments free for young actors for five years or something.

Reading MAKING IT ON BROADWAY (which if you haven't read, it is a FASCINATING read) really highlighted to me the need for people to step in and help artists to make living in NYC to make working on Broadway a valid lifelong career.
Broadway Blog: From the Mouth of Alan Jay Lerner

[Wanna Be A Foster]

Posted: 7/1/07 at 9:32pm

me2, the only problem is there would only be enough apartments to house a small handful of aspiring actors. But I do wish there were such housing options for performers available as well.