I actually went to a prominent theater school for acting before switching careers to tech. My school, unlike many, emphasized that unless you want to treat act

I actually went to a prominent theater school for acting before switching careers to tech. My school, unlike many, emphasized that unless you want to treat acting like a lottery ticket you are responsible for your own success. Their general philosophy was: - take everything seriously. Be 15 minutes early for everything, learn your lines, be a professional no matter how trivial or vacuous the role. Directors and producers remember people like this and want to work with them again. - audition, audition, audition. Accept the odds are low and follow the above rules anyway. - if no one is hiring you, create your own work. Start a theater company, do improv, teach children’s theater. They took this to the degree that if you did a third year Of study there, your major project was to start your own theater company and mount two productions during the year - they had classes in marketing, business and legal issues, how to approach agents, etc. The overarching message throughout all this is that it takes the typical actor 10 years to support themselves on their craft. For both men and women there is a steep drop off in employability around 35-38, for men it rebounds in your late 40s, for women, it never really does. So you need to have your act together before then.