Start Your Own Company On the Side While Acting

I’m actually writing this post to let you all know that I’ve started a new company! I’m really excited to share with you all. Not to worry, I’ll always write for The Acting Room, and I’ll always

You can’t wait for your life to get started while you’re trying to get your other creative careers going!

teach acting and work on films. Those passions are my heart and soul. So keep coming back and keep acting!…

But I also hope this story about what I’m doing inspires you to think about ways you can support yourself while you’re getting your acting career up and running. I’m also writing this to let everyone know that being an artist can be hard, and that you can’t wait for your life to get started while you’re trying to get your other creative careers going!

As many of you know by now, I’ve been an actress AND an independent filmmaker. When not acting or making movies, I’ve also been an acting and film making professor and private coach. And of course, I write this blog.

Well, I’ve also decided to add another title to my very long, Gemini list, of things I call myself. And the new endeavor I’m thrilled to tell you about is this! — I’ve just started a travel business with my amazing mother, Kathy Tretbar, called Shakespeare’s Daughters. What we do is take small groups to England on Literary Tours! Our website is up and we think it looks great. Check it out! shakespearesdaughters.com And please tell your friends and family about it. I think our tours will be totally incredible. (Read on.)

I’m 44 years old as of this year (2010) and I’ve been doing so much with my life, so far.

No matter what our age, we want to be busy, have projects and a life that inspires us!

Many of you who come to this blog for advice about acting are still in your teens and early twenties, but I’ve been getting more and more questions and comments from older actors as well (not that being in your 30s or 40s is old, I of all people know THAT!) No matter what our age, we want to be busy, have projects and a life that inspires us, and to be creative. I think we’re all just trying to live more fulfilled lives, and of course, find enriching ways to pay our bills, right?

As many of you know too, I’m always working on a new film idea, or a writing idea. I spent the last couple of years writing a memoir which I’ve been trying to get published, based on my life in the acting and film worlds. After having lots of interest from the publishing worlds in NY, it kind of fizzled out. Instead of getting frustrated, I’m eventually going to self-publish that book.

Like my film, ZENITH, which I made back in 1999-2003, which aired on NBC, my book has been hard to get people behind. With that film, I spent years trying to get the established film world to fund it, and I eventually made it myself. Once it was made, that’s when people realized what I was trying to do. I’m hoping my book will be the same. So like those other two ventures, my film and now my book, I’ve decided to bite the old proverbial bullet once again, and do something unique, all my own, and to do it my way: that is, to start this new travel business with my mother, whom I’ve traveled with for years. She taught me all I know about English literature and culture.

We’re living in a difficult time, aren’t we? It seems like there are absolutely no jobs out there. Even I, with my BA and my Masters, and my experience producing TV and indie films, and also some great experience teaching (at Grinnell College and other schools) can NOT seem, for the life of me,

God, I’m so smart, and I’m a good person, and I really do try so hard! Why can’t I find a job!?

to find a full time job. It’s pretty heartbreaking! I moved to Chicago but couldn’t find a job here for a year, and now I’m moving back to Kansas City where I’m from originally.

I know many of you, whether you’re acting or not, are feeling the same way. Sick of it all. Sick of trying so hard, and feeling stuck. You may wake up in the middle of the night, or just lie awake in bed all night long (if you’re like me) and say to yourself, “God, I’m so smart, and I’m a good person, and I really do try so hard! Why can’t I find a job!? — and what is this all about if I’m just going to have to go work retail one more lousy week, or one more lousy job?”

You see, yes, even I have had to work retail off and on in the middle of what may seem to others as a brilliant career (I say this joking of course with a twinkle in my eye — UG!) and yes, I do NOT want to work retail EVER AGAIN! As working creative types, we actors, filmmakers, writers, poets, musicians, designers, often have years between major projects, and most of us are not independently wealthy.

How about starting your own company?

So what we do is we spend our whole lives helping other business owners get rich, while we, with all our brilliance in PR, marketing, and creativity, end up folding sweaters at the GAP or waiting tables at P.F. Changs. It’s got to stop!

So, what I’m getting to, in a rather round about, long way here, is — what is it that you really love to do, can do better than other people, may not exactly be in the acting world, but may also combine all of your talents and skills? And what is a niche market that would fit your skills and dreams, an idea that no one else can do quite like you, or a product that no one else can provide?

How’s that for a long way of saying, “How about starting your own company?”

What I love about the company I’m starting called Shakespeare’s Daughters, is that it’s totally all of those things that I do well. As an actor and filmmaker, I’ve run production companies and I know how to raise money and run a business. I know web-based marketing, and understand how to get my “brand” out there. I know how to organize travel with large groups (I did that with film crews for years) and how to book flights, hotels, etc… My academic training taught me to love books and theatre, and I know lots about English Literature. I also lived and worked in TV in England, and know the UK well. My mom was an English professor and a member of many long-running book clubs in Kansas City, and she’s been leading literary tours all around the United States and to England, off and on, for years with friends and book club members.

The idea for our company happened one day when my mother called me to tell me her book club wanted her to take them to the Hay-on-Wye Literary Festival next spring. We started talking and thought, “Why don’t we offer such tours to the general public?” She’d been doing this, like I said, many times anyway, and here I was, in between jobs and creative projects — and when we started really thinking about it, we thought, “There’s a REAL business idea here!”

So the reason you haven’t seen many new blogs on my Acting Room site the last few months is because I’ve been putting this new business together.

I hope my story can inspire those of you who feel like you’re in a rut, either financially, emotionally, creatively, or all three. There are so many talents that actors have besides acting. We’re usually really well educated, are often fantastic with sales and marketing, most of us can write, and we know we’re all persuasive and great with people.

It’s fun to write a list of all of your talents and start thinking out of the box. Not to dissuade you from acting, because once you’re an actor, you’re always an actor, and you must have acting in your life.

I’ve had other acting friends who have become professional wedding and baby photographers, make-up artists, ESL teachers, florists, internet marketing experts…

But I think it’s also so important to have some other way of fulfilling your need to be busy, and also to find other ways of making a living that don’t have to do with your getting up every day, putting on that nice outfit, all to go out and make money for some OTHER business owner.

Why not make that business owner YOURSELF? I’ve had other acting friends who have become professional wedding and baby photographers, make-up artists, ESL teachers, florists, internet marketing experts, you name it — all done by starting their own businesses. And you don’t need a lot of money to start doing it. It helps to get a website up and running, but most of all, it’s word of mouth, a great idea or product, and sales skills!

Thanks for all the time you’ve given me reading my posts on this site. And I promise to continue writing for it, and answering all of your questions. I won’t be giving up my work in the acting or film making world, just adding to it.

I encourage all of you to think more deeply about how to take the control back in your life. As actors, we are often the last one to learn if we’ve gotten a part, or if it’s even going to shoot. And in the mean time, we MUST learn to think of all of our talents and dreams as coming from the same part of ourselves, our souls. Not to get too preachy here, but I truly believe that God has so many rich and marvelous things in store for us in our lives. If we could learn to stop for one second and really listen to that voice inside our head, and learn from the things that aren’t happening for us, as much as we do from the things that do happen, then maybe we’d find more peace. It’s a constant struggle I deal with myself on a daily basis, and one about which I hope I’m starting to learn.

Here’s to your creativity and spirit, and keep believing in yourself and your dreams. Keep listening to that voice that speaks to you on your darkest nights. Pray, meditate, take time out, have faith in yourself and your purpose in this world, and above all — keep on acting!