It’s a narrative familiar to most art majors: it can be hard to make a living coming out of college. Yet theater professionals Lesley Delmenico and Rachel Harvith attest to the reality of a successful, if not always obvious, post-graduate career path in the arts.
“I did a lot of other things before I finally found that I needed to do theater and that wasn’t until I was in my thirties … I did all the practical stuff [first],” said theater and dance professor and artist Lesley Delmenico.
Delmenico explained that when she began to actively pursue a career in theater she was already married and raising two children. “The thing you need to do kind of sneaks up on you,” she said.
Contrary to her experience, and perhaps because of it, Delmenico advises students to pursue their interests directly after college.
“It’s harder and at that point sometimes people kind of lose, not the passion, but the sense that ‘okay, I can do this, at [this] point, I can make that kind of big change,’” Delmenico said.
She stressed that pursuing an artistic passion does not mean sacrificing your financial wellbeing; the trick is balancing your day job with your artistic work.
“Always to give yourself the freedom and the flexibility within that job to be able to go out and to do that audition,” Delmenico said.
Rachel Harvith, theater director and the head of the College’s career community for arts, media, and communication, faced this challenge when working at a theater company after college. She loved the experience, but “they were paying us practically nothing,” said Harvith. “So actually, honestly, I ended up … moving home and doing retail.”
Yet Harvith nourished her theatrical passion by volunteering at a theater company in her area, which turned into a paid position at the company. She explained that it is important not to discount experiences from other fields that may aid in one’s true goals.
Harvith asserted that the myth of being “pigeonholed” in an entry-level day job actually helps artists gain experience that sets them apart from other artistic professionals: “Any time that you can connect the dots in unusual ways, that’s where you can really show your work as an employee as a thought leader.”
Both Harvith and Delmenico spoke to the idea that no experience is to be discounted, and that each experience is just another piece of the artistic journey.
“You don’t have to feel like you ever are pinning yourself in a corner, your life is so much more nuanced than that,” Harvith said.
Delmenico also emphasized the multi-faceted nature of any post-graduate career: “Keep creating that patchwork which is always a moving target that you’re working with or a patchwork that you’re always putting new pieces in until that comes through or until you have so many things lined up … that you know that you can support yourself,” she said.
