Why I became an "actor" when I coudn't make it as a waiter

I couldn't get a job as a waiter so I became an actor!

Seriously, in December, when I found out that I wasn't getting any teaching work this semester, I went crazy, scrambling for any job that I could reasonably apply for. In one week, maybe even the same day, I applied for a job at a restaurant around the corner from me (owned and operated by U2's former personal chef but that's another story) and I responded to an ad placed by Philly/NYC theater company.

I never heard back from the restaurant but the theater company responded quickly. We had a series of e-mails, a couple of phone calls and, a few weeks ago, a face-to-face.

They are very much about blurring the lines between theater and real life in very high tech ways -- last year hiring actors to "play" people in facebook-oriented production online, in a theater and, to some degree on facebook and recently staging a similar production in NYC.

Their newest "production" is going to be the new website for the company where subscribers, fans and the culturally aware and excited 18-30 crowd will form a community, a back and forth with the members of the company --- who are all going to be fictional characters "created" and "played" by "actors" who will blog about the progress of work on various production but also art and cool culture in general --- and interact online with their fans, supporters, benefactors etc.

So, I have been “cast” and I am now "playing" a character online, on their blog, on facebook and, who knows where else? I have created a persona and I continue to cultivate the character, interacting with the other characters, posting links to sites, articles etc. of interest or concern to who we are and what we are doing. So, is this “Second Life: The Musical” or “Catfish: The Play”? I don’t know, I am just going with it and, why not, “All the world is just a stage” and so on. We all have our online persona anyway, I might as well have another one. By the time I post this blog, the gig could be over or it could just be heating up. And, yes, I am getting paid.