Expert: Peter Messaline - 11/17/2008

Question
Hi, Peter:

I'm 25 years old, but I look like I have 15 and I recently graduated from a bachelor in interdisciplinary studies from the university of puerto rico.I always loved dancing and acting. Five years ago I started taking piano lessons and I love it and I've been taking ballet and jazz lessons since little but not consecutively, so I have a tendencies stay at an intermediate level in everything. I also like acting but I have never take an acting lesson and I am very shy. The thing is that I feel a great passion for the performing arts, but I never think of making it a professional career and now I think I'm too late to start in the industry.
Right now I work in a law office as a office clerk and I hate it, but I have to keep working cause my parents can't help me and I have debts to pay. How can I start? I also though of pursuing a master degree in performing arts management because I think It might be more realistic to work as a manager, but I really like is to perform. Help me please!

Answer
Lots of people run away to join the circus, because it looks like the opposite of the life they now lead. Traditionally, they'd walk back home from the next town on the circuit, after cleaning out elephant cages and yelling "Try your luck, Sir" for six hours nonstop.
Read about the job of being an actor. Dewey 790 will steer you toward acting career books in your local library. Don't waste your time with star biographies: look for nuts and bolts advice from working actors and their teachers about what the problems are and how to handle them.

Try the experience of acting: get out and join a club, write to a community theatre, get onstage experience as soon as you can. If you find the sweat and anxiety are more than the enjoyment, then management is for you. Many successful people in and around theatre, TV and film wanted to be actors to begin with.

I'd suggest treating the acting possibility as an enjoyable hobby for a while. No need to get depressed by not getting work in a field where it might turn out you don't want to be anyway. Take some classes when you find out you actually like being up there in front of an audience (or a camera).

You are at an advantage looking so young. Most "kids" on TV are over twenty, for legal reasons and because the union contracts protect minors more strictly than they do adults.

When the time comes to think about adding professional acting to your office work, your acting teachers will be able to point you in the right direction for the city you are living in.

Be aware that even part-time acting will reduce your income. Being a full-time actor pays very poorly, if at all, and part-timers are often unable to take better than low-level jobs because of the freedom to audition (and perhaps perform!). If your office skills are good, you might find temp work but again, your unreliability will stop you getting the better-paid long-term jobs.