A Starving Artist and "The Card"

Thursday afternoon, I grabbed my bags and my checkbook and a pristine looking application, boarded a train to just north of Times Square, and marched my way into the Actors Equity-offices with the world's stupidest grin plastered across my face. 

There were people there paying dues.  Reluctantly.

There were people there just waiting, looking generally disgruntled and/or bored.

And then there was me.  Giddy me.  Strolling up to the woman behind the counter who looked at me bewildered like "What precisely could you be so happy about?"  when I shrieked:

I'm here to turn in my application to become Equity--I'm turning Equity!...Eeeeee!!!

She smiled.  And I knew that the world was about to become so so right. 

Actors Equity is a union--but to me, it's about 70 million different greater bigger more exciting wonderful things.

To me, this means bigger auditions.

To me, this means bigger pay (...if and/or when successful at said bigger auditions).

To me, this means (potential) health insurance.

To me, this equals a feeling of legitimacy and professionalism that I have been waiting oh so patiently for for the past five years.

It.  Feels.  GLORIOUS! 
I will shamelessly tell you that just simply holding this freaking card feels amazing.  To me.  It does.

To "turn" Equity, one needs to have accumulated 50 weeks of work between any number of Equity houses within (X) amount of time. I was racking up weeks at a pretty nice rate, considering that the bulk of it was done while I was in and immediately following grad school.  So I was getting excited, so excited--I was going to move to New York with my Equity-card in tow and hit the ground RUNNING!

And then I sat at 48 weeks for over a year and a half.

...So, that was frustrating. 
You're so close to being a Unionized actor, and yet you can't guarantee that you'll be seen at the Union-calls. 

You're so close to being a Unionized actor, and yet you can't walk into the Al Hirschfeld clinic and get seen.

You're so close to being a Unionized actor, and yet so many agents and casting directors still don't think you're legitimate enough because you have the letters "EMC" at the top of your resume.  (They're wrong, you know that, but still.)

You're so close to being a Unionized actor, and you're working just as hard as the Union actor sitting next to you--and getting paid half as much.

...I now have 57 weeks.
...

I got my card just too late to attend the auditions for Fat Pig on Broadway--Fat Pig, which is one of my favorite contemporary plays, and the audition specifically being to cast Julia Stiles' understudy.

Now.
I have nothing more in common with Julia Stiles other than the fact that we're both blonde, we both act, and we both have alabaster-borderline-translucent skin.  But, there's something really great about knowing that I could have walked into that audition, and would have gotten seen...and would have kicked ass.  And that feeling is just kind of amazing right now. 

I know that a Union and a "card" doesn't guarantee you a damn thing in this business, or anywhere, for that matter.  But I just.  Don't.  Care.

All I know right now right this second is that to me, it means the culmination of a really long hard journey, and the start of something really exciting and brand new and promising...and real.  This feels real for the first time, in a very very long time.

And it's kind of all I need.

So now, a year and half later than expected--I'm running.

...Try and keep up.