When the economy goes belly-up, you might expect college students to pick majors that will lead to secure jobs. So why do college students keep majoring in theater?
A 2012-2013 report from Equity, the stage actors’ union, says that in any given week, 85% of union actors are unemployed. And those numbers aren’t because of the recession. That’s been the usual weekly unemployment rate for at least the past decade.
When John Wagner graduated from high school in 2005, people warned him against theater. And that was before the economy tanked. By the time he got out of college, the recession was in full swing.
"When we struggle, we’re always like 'ugh, the economy’s so bad,'" said Wagner. "But when isn’t the economy bad? It’s always bad, it’s not getting better. We’re all struggling, we’re always going to struggle."
Wagner managed to snag a series of chorus jobs soon out of college. But many of his classmates never got out of their “survival” jobs waiting tables or doing catering jobs.
The president of the Actor’s Equity union, Nick Wyman, spins side jobs as “mosaic”-style income. In an interview for Standbys, a documentary about understudies, Wyman explained the jobs actors have to juggle.
"The vast majority of our members are scuffling to make a living any way they can," said Wyman. "We do a whole variety of small little jobs, sometimes larger jobs, sometimes smaller jobs, different sorts of jobs, and some of those jobs are acting jobs, some of those jobs are non-acting jobs."
Although more than half of Equity actors don’t find work in Equity productions in a given year, they still maintain their union membership in case an acting job comes along.
Even Dan Carter, the director of Penn State’s theater program, says he would never persuade someone to major in theater. Sometimes he even warns people away if they’re not dead-set on acting. But before you start to wonder how he keeps the theater department’s lights on, consider this: 520 musical theater students have auditioned for the Penn State BFA theater program from around the country. They'll accept 14.
That’s as many applicants as they were getting back when the economy was good. Carter says one reason is if you do want to act, college can make theater majors more likely to get and keep a job.
"To sustain any kind of career, you really need to be well-trained," said Carter. "You need to know your craft. Often, they’ve been out for a while and they realize to get where they want to go, that they need more training."
Even so, in a recession you might expect artsy students to buckle down and major in engineering, but Carter says that’s not happening.
"As traditional jobs dry up, people go 'what’s the point?,'" says Carter. "You might as well do what’s going to make you happy. The people who are doing this really just can’t do anything else. This is what they need to do to satisfy themselves, to make a life."
Alex Dorf originally spent a year at the University of Delaware studying pre-veterinary medicine. But then he realized it wasn’t really what he wanted to do.
Dorf is now a musical theater sophomore at Penn State. He knows he’s signing up for a hard lifestyle with a lot of traveling.
"But I think because I love to perform," said Dorf, "and I never want to lose that ability, and I want to continue to cultivate that, that’s what’s going to keep me going."
Of course, there are other reasons to study theater too…
"My dad told me that, 'you have to go to college,'” said Pitts. "And I said the only way I would go was if I could major in performance of some sort."
Christiani Pitts is majoring in musical theater at Florida State University. The question of whether to go to college or not is even tougher for young women. College years coincide with the years a woman is most employable in the acting world. Pitts says she’s heard that argument as a reason to skip college.
"You know, 'school’s a waste of money, school’s a waste of time, you’re going to get out there and you’re already 21,'" said Pitts. "I’ve kind of heard that before but I don’t necessarily agree with it.”
After 5 years in the acting world, John Wagner is considering a change. He’s thinking about going back to school again, for a master’s in Arts Administration.
"I love performing, but I’ve started to realize that I’d actually like to run my own performing arts venue," said Wagner. "And I think with what I’m going to graduate with, I’m going to be able to have a steadier job, with a stable income, hopefully."
Wagner says someday he’d like to have a house with a yard and a dog. He doesn’t think he can have those things if he keeps acting.