Colby Peck is sure she won’t get a job when she graduates, but this has little to do with the current state of the economy. Peck is a theatre major at SMU, and she’s expected this all along.
“The whole concept of the starving artist has been around for hundreds of years, so it’s no shock to us,” she said.
Peck sat in her bedroom getting ready for her theatre combat class last week. As she gets all her things together, she describes what could potentially be her first years after graduation with a serene smile on her face.
“Five years of working part-time jobs that you don’t really like, while you’re auditioning and being rejected every day,” she sighs.
The fine arts industry has always been competitive. Most dance, theatre, art and music majors at SMU know they’ve chosen a career where the odds are against them. Today, though, opportunities are even harder to find. In light of the down economy, people have stopped investing in leisure activities. Broadway shows are closing, dance companies are shrinking, and artists, who make little to begin with, are making even less. The Actors Equity Association, the labor union for actors and stage managers in the United States, held a forum in January and predicted a “serious loss of employment for artists” this year.
Of 94 SMU seniors who graduated in 2008 in music, dance, theatre, and studio art, only 18 are working in their field.
Tina Parker is the co-artistic director and administrative director for Kitchen Dog Theater, a non-profit theatre company in Dallas. She said Kitchen Dog is facing significant budget cuts.
“Its hard to hire when you have to cut back, so the job market is looking to be tight for the next couple of years until we turn things around,” she said.
Finding a job in the arts has never been an easy task. Parker, an SMU graduate, remembers her struggle to find a job after college.
“I waited tables for ten years. Not until 1999 was I able to not do that anymore, and it was a change, because I made more money waiting tables.”
Ten years later, opportunities may be even more elusive.
“I heard somewhere that half of the Julliard music grads five years out are not doing music, that freaks some people out,” said Tommy Newton, director of student recruitment at Meadows School of the Arts.
“Artists have this mindset that this isn’t the easiest life, but this is the life that I want,” said Newton.
“I’m looking at a gloomy first couple of years, at least,” said Linda Huang, a senior dance major. After she graduates in May, she plans on continuing her dance training as she auditions for dance companies. Like many of her friends who graduate with dance degrees, she expects to work a side job to support herself until she gets her big break.
Michael Bird is a senior dance minor. She started auditioning over winter break, without luck.
“I’m going to face a lot of rejection,” she said. She plans on moving to New York in August and working a side job to stay afloat.
Newton stays in touch with many Meadows graduates after they leave SMU. He has heard stories of what life is like for young artists trying to find work. As he shuffles through the stacks of papers littering his office, he recounts the story of a few dance majors now living in New York. After one audition for a prestigious dance company, they found out that the company wasn’t even hiring.
Page Leahy is a junior and her majors are dance and marketing.
“I always thought that dance was ‘Plan A’ and marketing would be ‘Plan B’ but now that’s switched. I didn’t think that was going to happen, but this year I realized that,” she said.
Lindsey Frattare said many of her friends are also turning to back-up plans. Frattare graduated from SMU in 2007 with a degree in dance. She lives in Chicago doing freelance work with choreographers. She works with them on special projects only a few months at a time, and then continues searching for work.
“I knew it was going to be hard, but I’ve been out of school for about a year and a half now, and I thought by now I would have a full time job,” she said.
Life is difficult for Frattare. Jobs are temporary and unpredictable, companies are not hiring full-time dancers, and living in Chicago is not cheap.
“Keep a positive attitude because some days you’re going to want to throw it in, I’m telling you, you will and that’s okay,” she said.
Frattare said the key is to keep an open mind; one can still be involved in the arts without being on stage.
“I could be a really great seamstress or costume designer and I just don’t know it yet,” she said.
Liliana Bloch is the director of the McKinney Avenue Contemporary, a non-profit art gallery in Dallas. The MAC shares a space with Kitchen Dog Theater. She says thinking creatively is the best way for an artist to survive.
“Artists will always adjust,” she said. “It’s what we’re trained to do.”
