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Appendix C: Alumni Career Journeys
“A” left LAMDA with an agent and initially had “lots of auditions and a couple of jobs”. However, she described the material she was sent as unsatisfying; “you spend 3 years on great texts then get sent a Hollyoaks script”. The combination of this, together with her first agent dropping her after 18 months, resulted in her starting to make her own work. She had “got the bug” to do so while at LAMDA, but felt that there was an “undercurrent that if you were making your own work, creating something for yourself, it was seen as dirty or second-rate, not as exciting as getting something through your agent”. She described having to battle with this perception for a few years. She’s continued to have an agent throughout her career, but this hasn’t been the route that has brought about work. Her income from acting is “very small” and she combines this with her own theatre company, some private teaching work, some “IT stuff” and some directing. She’s now studying for a part-time master’s degree in a related area.
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Although he had no drive to start his own business, “B” applied for the Deutsche Bank Award, as a back-up plan when he saw his fellow students being “snapped up by top agents”. With a friend, he used this funding to run a theatre company for two years, resulting in two small productions. They took the decision to stop it afterwards, as running his own company and trying to launch his acting career was “like getting a dog and a baby at the same time”. Since then, he’s been a jobbing actor, combining this with some writing, some creative projects and working for an after-school company. About 60% of his time is spent on these other jobs. Although he said his initial ambition was to be a full-time actor at the National, he’s since realised the most important thing in an acting job is it being a good environment, working with people he likes and enjoying the work. He understands now what he values most and is less concerned with prestige.
“C” was a recipient of the Deutsche Bank Award and used it to create a pilot for a TV series. She was also working in a pub for a year, receiving scripts at 6pm for an audition the next day but because her shifts wouldn’t finish till 1am, she had little time to prepare, wasn’t able to learn the script in time, was turning up exhausted and wasted her opportunities. Though she did get some acting jobs, she also felt like she had ideas that were valuable and so started to co-create with a friend. She describes herself as a “jobbing actor”, but also still creates her own work and supplements her income with corporate work for two days each week (“high-end lead generation”). She also does voice work, despite saying that this opportunity wasn’t mentioned whilst she was at LAMDA. She said she feels it is frowned upon, but it is another useful way of finding income.
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“D” left LAMDA feeling “knackered” and with no money left to stay in London. So he returned to the parental home and used the Deutsche Bank Award to fund a programme of delivering theatre in prison settings. He reflects that this was a useful way to build up his skillset for further projects. Since then he’s focused on socially engaged work in youth centres, referral units and prisons. He has also worked for LAMDA, running workshops for the widening participation team, described as a “good source of income”.
Also a Deutsche Bank Award winner, “E” quickly realised her business plan wasn’t feasible. The potential costs were too high and there was little interest from the industry in the idea. But she thought that the software element of the plan could have other applications, so took this and started to work for small start-ups as a software developer. She’s been doing that ever since, building apps and websites that are “disruptive”. She had wanted to build a creative career in theatre and had hoped her technical skills were the route into this, but she discovered the theatre industry has clear delineations between creative and technical and “it is hard to move between”. As a technician at LAMDA, she said they were told “never say no to a director”, so the idea that even if you have expertise, you can’t use it was embedded. She reflected that this might be appropriate in the industry, but described it as an “unhelpful mindset” in the wider world.
F has been acting for a lmost 3 decades, and she’s still working. She’s had good roles in theatre, film, tv. She writes, and says she has a full life. She describes acting as “a forward thinking, hustling career - waiting for something to land so you can feel settled, but you never really settle - there’s always a new hustle”. In her early days she did plenty of waiting tables - it wasn’t something she relished but she also accepted it was part of the life she had chosen, and it gave her the flexibility to pursue acting. She is always learning more - especially as she has reached a new age range. Being able to market herself has been very important, and she notes that there is a business aspect that people don’t want to talk about - but it’s a “very real thing”. As a South Asian woman she has found that there are very few roles available. When she left LAMDA England was having a British Asian “boom” - but that wasn t the case in LA and she found herself working gig to gig. These days she is writing too, because it’s part of who she is as a creator. She commented that it s really important to dream big and believe that a break is going to happen when you are starting out - that is what gives you the drive. But she has learned in later life that it is wise to connect to something else that you also love as an anchor.
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