Are there any actual professionals here?

Nearly everything i have read seem related to amateur theatre, so just wondering.

We are mostly amateur, but there are a few pros hiding here amongst us. Depends where you draw the line between pro and am, I guess. www.meltheco.org.au

well training for one is a good delineator and and so is making a full living.

Most Techtalk threads are common to pro and amateur,there is no clear line between the two, why is this important to you?

...I know of many of us who are 'professionally trained' - WAAPA, NIDA, Curtin and many other schools. There are also many of us who have done/continue to do some paid work. However, in terms of actors, singers, dancers, comedians, entertainers - the 'on stage' contingency; only a tiny percentage of those in Australia make a "full living" on stage and those that do for the most part have to be Sydney or Melbourne based because that is where the work is. Technicians and stage management tend to fare better, although again, for the most part need to be east coast based. When you add that to the fact that the vast majority of members on this site are in WA and that only a really really tiny number of on stage performers make a "full living" out of that in Perth, and with virtually no television or film opportunities here, you are going find members of this site making a "full living" few and far between indeed. The people that are eeking out a living tend to have to be 'jack of all trades'. They are teaching, running/managing venues and frequently travelling all over the countryside to subsidise their income. And if I were a musician, technician of any kind or in stage or arts management, I sure as heck would be on the east coast. There's a reasonable living to be made. So I guess the short answer is....very few, if making a "full living" out of it is a criteria. But there are many more that are trained and derive some income from it.

Musicalmum said everything I would have. "Making a full living" is hardly a good criteria when referring to the arts. The number of full-time paying jobs available in any field of the arts is extremely small in Australia; the arts is entirely made up of seasonal and casual work and not something you can easily make a living from. Which is why so many of our artists live, work or travel to other countries. (Personally, I see 'professional' as being more of an attitude. If you take it professionally, pursue it professionally, but haven't managed to land a job yet, are you not a professional? Likewise, if you consider it a hobby, work at it as a hobby, but have been paid in some roles, does that make you 'more' professional?) Your source for handmade shadow puppets at Puppets in Melbourne

A few of us would like to think of ourselves as professionals. hahahaha It's not a Wolf, It's an Alaskan Malamute.

How do you keep your skills to a professional level if you are not doing it every day?

maybe we just have different standards

what exactly is the point of this discussion, from your perspective? What is that you are trying to say and/or ask?

I am firmly in the amateur camp. I'm an actor, director, lighting/sound operator/designer, stage manager etc, etc. I have no training in any of these disciplines, apart from what I've picked up on the job over the last 30ish years. I could probably work on a production every week of the year, without being paid, as I'm male, and can act a bit. I'm physically capable of getting up and down a ladder to hang lights. I'm a tradesman during the day, and am capable of knocking flats together to produce a set. As to standards, we are all here to learn from each other. Community theatres run on the smell of an oily rag, and use whatever materials they can scrape together. Most lighting and sound rigs have seen better days. I make do with 24 dimmer channels at my theatre. We'll use CB type walkie talkies for cans if we have to - and a lot do. Mostly, we welcome all who want to help out, either by turning up and pushing some buttons, or by offering advice in places such as this forum. If it's like minded professionals you are looking for TP, then ALIA or some such place is probably more to your liking. If you want to wade into the world of community theatre with people who do it because they love it, well, welcome. www.meltheco.org.au

What the hell kind of comment is that? So sending out CVs and researching agents is not professional? Learning how to do your taxes is not professional? Doing community theatre so your skills don't fall because you've not landed a pro role yet is not professional? Doing volunteer work with a local pro company so you can get to know the people running it is not professional? If we go by your standards of 'pro' = trained and earning enough money to live on, then every artist in the world is not professional. (I do recall that a lot of great artists, who also earn money from their work, are also not necessarily trained in the areas they are great at. Indeed many great artists in this country come from non-arts training backgrounds) Your source for handmade shadow puppets at Puppets in Melbourne

A couple of years ago someone in the UK did a study of how important formal training is for an actor as opposed to other things. They took as their sample all the Actors who had been knighted, and found that roughly half had been fomrally trained, the other half had learned "on-the-job". So, tell me... Why is the waiter who studied at RADA and hasn't had a paid gig since graduating more of a professional than the never formally trained actor who is rarely out of work?! I know fully trained people who don't know jack, and people who have never trained that know more about the craft than I will ever know!

This is an interesting point. Today was the close of submissions to the review over the closure of VCA. VCA had the only puppetry course (postgrad/masters) in existence in the entire Southern hemisphere. Up until then, the only way professional puppeteers in this country learned was on the job. I can think of entire generations of puppeteers who are now no longer 'professional' because they can't live up to the standards of Terminal Pharmacy's limited viewpoint. Care to tell the guys who produced Walking with Dinosaurs that they're not pros? How about half the people who worked on Where the Wild Things Are? Quite often in the arts, there aren't even formal training facilities available in the first place. Your source for handmade shadow puppets at Puppets in Melbourne

Yes.

Terminal Pharmacy, the very, very, very simple answer to the question of why everything seems to relate to amateur theatre on this site is......(drum roll) "TADAAH!", it's an amateur theatre website. Personally I don't give a fetid dingo's kindney about pro theatre or pro theatre attitudes. I have no interest in being a professional or pursuing acting as a career - I simply like entertaining people. That may well be why much of the conversation relates to amateur theatre - for many (most) of us, this is a hobby and not a job

As usual Muzz, beautifully and succintly stated. I bow to the Master. But I'm glad to say that I've never come across a 'fetid dingo's kidney'. Hope I never do. Sue.

And just to balance the picture out, I'm one of the regular contributors here who believes he could be called 'fully professional' by all the above definitions. I consider I've had good training, although not in any formal sense - I never graduated from any institution, but rather quit one when I was offered full time performing work, and have remained too busy to consider going back. (I've since been employed by several institutions, including the one I never graduated from. So hardly any point going back as a student, really!) I consider I make 'a full living' out of theatre arts, in the sense that that is the biggest income category on my tax returns, and I could eat and pay my mortgage from my earnings in the arts. (so I fit his definition of 'pro', Na). That's not to say I don't sometimes earn an income from other activities that interest me: teaching students, writing music, driving a tour bus...but in fact even these jobs often fall under the banner of being employed in the theatre. I sometimes do other stuff that is in no way related to arts...leading tourists on kayaking trips for instance...because it's fun and I enjoy it. I make less on all of these 'other jobs' put together than I do from any one arts job, so I'd say that counts as being an arts professional. And similarly, I will sometimes be found participating in 'amateur' work, not because I can't get other work but simply because I enjoy it and it seems worth doing. I do it all from Perth. Although I've worked around Australia, and many times overseas, I've always found enough work to sustain me in Perth and have no real intention of looking elsewhere. But I am a jack of all trades. Professionally I've acted on stage, on camera, and behind a microphone. I've composed, arranged, written lyrics, played live, sang, recorded. I've operated sound, lights, Stage Managed and ASM'd. I've been a Production Manager, Tour Manager, Director, assistant Director, and Musical Director. I've been a fight choreographer. A clown. I've been paid for improvising, I've been paid for creative development, I've contributed to writing. I've effectively been a dramaturg. I've driven the truck. I've painted the set. I've built props. I've climbed ladders, I've operated the follow spot. I've professionally reviewed. I've been a drama coach, a workshop facilitator, an M.C. I've worked in Front Of House. I've been the safety diver/water safety officer. I've been the guy inside the furry mascot..! (I once played a fetid dingo, Muzz!) All paid. I've developed many aptitudes, but I can't say I would've gotten this far without attitude, so I'm not sure I agree with JoeMc that it tends to be forgotten in professional theatre. Success due to attitude applies to any endeavor, professional or not. But doing it every day?? Stuff that! Any chance I can get, I'd rather be doing anything else that's NOT theatre related. Sure, I love it, and I tend to live it, but a heck of a lot of the important skills...technical and people-related...that I've brought to my work have been learnt through pursuits that weren't necessarily anything to do with acting or theatre. So I think, yes, Terminal Pharmacy, we do have different standards. I'm wondering if yours aren't mainly based on a conceptual ideal of what you think a professional 'should' be? Mine are perhaps rather specific, but at least based on accurate experience of what one IS. Cheers, Craig ~<8>-/====\---------

I consider myself professional. I do very little that doesn't have something to do with the arts. I started working in theatre at 14 on Saturdays sweeping up etc and trying to learn from the resident pro's. By 15 I was operating followspot professionally and working as pro crew. I diverted to music for a while a bass player in various bands reached my level of incompetence as a musician and turned to sound operation. Self taught. I worked in the public service for 15 years or so because of the neccesity to ensure regular pay for a young family but continued to work on evenings and weekends on crew and as followspotter or FOH sound operator in various venues. I returned to the theatre fulltime in my thirties and somewhere in there picked up a degree. I've worked as a professional production manager in a receiving house in the UK and I've worked as a lighting designer for shows in the UK up to and including number one tours. I don't operate live sound anymore, I don't have the hearing and I'm getting a bit old and fat to keep climbing ladders, but I keeo myself amused doing lighting designs and writing and directing plays as well as producing them. I don't make a great living but I make a living. Oh and by the way, I put on the big red suit every year in November/December and I have discovered a new talent as a puppeteer in my old age. I think I count as a pro. Oh and by the way, I taught on a Cert 3/4 Live production course for a while and was RPL/RCC'd into a Cert 4 in Live Production, Theatre and Events. So I guess I'm qualified. I do amateur theatre from time to time because the project is interesting or challenging or a mate has called in a favour. I don't see any problem with that and a great many of the most professional people I have worked with from a point of view of attitude and skills work in community theatre. Is that all there is? Well if that's all there is my friend, then let's keep dancing. www.tonymoore.id.au

Terminal Pharmacy, using your criteria, I would qualify as a 'professional' actor. I am trained and the majority of my taxable income is from working as an actor or teaching performance at a tertiary level. However, I wouldn't consider myself a professional and I perform in community theatre. Which is why trying to define a ‘professional’ when it comes to the theatre is pointless. The question has been asked by others, but I'll reiterate it. Why is this important to you? Do you consider yourself to be a professional and are seeking others to chat with? Alternatively, are you looking to become a professional and are seeking advice? Melissa

I work in a professional venue as a technician, get paid for what I do and work on professionally produced shows.. however I still don't consider myself a 'professional.' I varies from department to department in the theatre industry. I'll, personally, be learning for the rest of my life and hopefully continuing to earn money from it. There are people who do a lot of work in amateur theatre and are not getting paid whose work is above and beyond some of the standards I have seen in professional theatre. A big difference between amateur and pro theatre is the existence of open discussion. There are heaps of websites out there for am-theatre, heaps of forum discussions, resources etc. Whereas, pro theatre requires a lot of digging and probing, secret industry connections, shoulder rubbing and you almost get further in the industry by not saying much at all and just doing your job. My 2 cents.

Terminal Pharmacy, 'Amateur' if from the French 'for the love'. It's nice to get money but I can't help myself, I do it for the love. If money is your only reason..... 'professional' takes on a whole new meaning, don't it... You never know what's comin' for you.

What a subject this has opened up. What is a professional - someone who gets paid for delivering their skills? I think I qualify - even earning the odd 10 bob to a quid "lighting" the college hall for dances back in the UK in the late 50's. I have since earnt the odd A$ doing theatre lighting here in Oz but remain an enthusiast in the pro-am theatre world. I remember getting involved the Australian Association of Theatre Technicians in the 70's where a bunch of Melbourne pro techs would rub shoulders with us "amateurs". I realised then that whilst I could learn from these pros's they leant a lot about us.... It was great because we visited theatres such as Her Maj backstage whilst in season. Phil A'Vard was the entrepreneur of the AATT which regrettably fizzed - it was a good greet-and-meet - especially after at the theatre bar or nearby pub (in those days)...... In all of my odd 50 years I have learnt a thing or two which qualifies as experience - of which many pro's today wouldn’t have experienced. I remember going to the Strand showroom in Covent Garden and watch Fred Bentham play his infamous colour music....ah memories......... This was on a converted organ console driving thyristor dimmers etc……. Peter