The Life of a New York Artist

Every year tons of actors, writers, dancers, singers, musicians, painters, and those in-between move to New York City in the hopes of making their dreams come true.

What I’ve re-confirmed through conversations with fellow New York theatre artists is that this profession is unstable, it will betray you at any chance it gets, and it will stab you in the back when you least expect it. It also takes patience, a willingness to market yourself (without looking desperate), and knowing the right people hasn't hurt anyone. “This profession is life on the edge,” described to me by one of my co-workers who’s been in the profession for over thirty years.

I’ve noticed a pattern among most aspiring artists that move to New York; they are forced to work in crummy jobs (which they swore they would never do) just to pay for their uber expensive apartment in the city. If you’re an actor you begin to audition and get rejection after rejection, because out of the 50 auditions you go, a couple of them will turn into a callback and maybe one or two will become a job. Then when the 6-month contract ends, you have to do it all over again.

The same goes for playwrights, although we deal with rejection much different than actors do; our plays are the ones who get rejected, not so much us. In the past three years, I’ve submitted to over twenty festivals/developmental workshops and out of those twenty, three of them have selected my plays and in one festival I was an alternate. The ones that really mattered, the festivals/developmental workshops that I’ve wanted to get into rejected my plays. It’s tough to deal with that rejection, but I've slowly gotten use to it.

Why do I keep at this unstable profession that one day will give me a steady income, you may ask? Because there are moments of absolute blissfulness. Like when a stranger, two years ago approached me at the Kennedy Center American College Theatre Festival, after witnessing the reading of my one-act Chloe’s Autumn and praised me for, “capturing the essence of what it’s like to be in an unstable and miserable marriage.” It was a huge compliment, considering that I’ve never been married.

Moments like that are a constant reminder as to why I love what I do. And why I could never do anything else; I create art. That’s my job. I'm a story teller. I take you on a journey for an hour an a half and make you reflect on situations, people, places that normally wouldn't cross your mind on a regular basis.

I didn’t get into theatre to make money; I’ve always know that. And I have to remind myself of that every day when I answer the phone at work, or send a fax, or design a flier for my overly demanding boss, that this is only temporary. And that soon rather than later I’m going to have my agent (when I get one) call me to inform me that Playwright’s Horizon wants to commission me to write a play for their next season.

But until that day comes and it will come, I have to work the crummy job to pay for my apartment in Astoria and my upcoming student loans. I made a promise to myself right when I got to the city which was to never lose sight of why I moved here. As one of my mentors told me in grad school, “Oscar, you’re a writer, so write…” and that’s what I’m going to do…