Five things nobody tells you about acting.

5. Good local theater exists.

I’m in several community theaters, and at least 75 of my nearly 100 shows have been good. Don’t get me wrong, there’s plenty of crappy theater, local and professional. Sometimes it’s a bad cast, sometimes the show itself is faulty. But most theaters are good. A community theater will implode on itself if they can’t get butts in seats, so you’ll usually be safe.

Shameless plug is shameless. Yes, that is me as Morticia.

4. You will do shit and not even know.

I was in a small (indie) film a few years ago. Elder Growth. The best thing I can say about it is I tried hard. Three people, found footage, evil trees, and some of the most pretentious writing of all time.

But at the time, I thought it wasn’t bad. I knew it wasn’t shakespeare, but it wasn’t that bad. Then I watched it a month ago. It’s baaaaad. See it here, if you’re interested.

3. What goes around stays around.

Fiddler on the Roof. Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat. The Producers. The Wizard of Oz. Even people who have never seen a show will know at least a couple of these from the movie versions.

What you don’t know is that local theaters LOVE these shows. Why? They’re big names, and guarenteed to get butts in seats. Most of them have large kid choruses, which means grandparents, aunts, uncles, and everybody coming to see lil’ Suzie on stage.

I know people who are sick of these shows, they’ve done them so much. I like all of ‘em, but I’ve only done these at the most twice. I’ve played my favorite parts already in Joseph and Fiddler. Looks like it’s all downhill from here!

2. People get hurt.

You all know the stories of Hollywood stars dying because of a role (or at least the urban legends). What you don’t hear about is the small things. For instance: guess which one of these things happened to me on stage, during a show:

A. Thumb in the eye during a musical number.

B. Falling on my foot and breaking it.

C. Getting burned by embers from an explosion.

Maybe I'm exaggerating a little.

That’s right, ALL OF THEM. The burnination was just last Sunday. To be fair, the explosion was a planned effect, but it still hurt. I’ve had people burned on dry ice, fall and break their noses, fall down stairs, faint in the light booth, and a dozen other things. Theater is HARD CORE.

I’m not saying it’s a vast wasteland of injured and dying actors.

All I’m saying is that accidents can and do happen. But the show must go on. Even if you’re blind in one eye and limping. Ow.

1. There’s a LOT of illegality.

It’s common practice to tape a night or two of a show and sell it to cast members so they can have a keepsake. It’s also incredibly illegal. But most rights companies look the other way, as long as you don’t sell to the public. It’s not worth their time to come after literally EVERY theater in existence.

What about plagiarized shows? It does happen. I was in a production of Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory YEARS before the rights were issued. How? They literally took the script from the movie, and tossed in a few lines from the book. Voila. It was Standing Room Only. I still have no idea how we got away with it.