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Downtime

Started by pirateslife4me, September 22, 2011, 08:43:28 PM

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pirateslife4me

To all of you performers out there.....Since Faire's are on the weekends, what do you guys do during the week? That's a lot of free time to kill, so I'm just interested in knowing what kind of things you guys do. I'm assuming some of that time is spent on work-related stuff.

stonebiscuit

I find laundry takes way longer than it should. That may just be me; maybe I'm repeatedly mistaking a rip in the time-space continuum for a laundromat? 

Lady Rosalind

A lot of performers actually have day jobs, so yeah, laundry and work, and quietly going crazy trying to juggle all of it and still sleep and have fun...

aerial angels

I don't do as many renfaires as I used to, but I am on tour 40-50 weeks a year, doing gigs that tend to be weekend-based. Usually, we take a day off (Monday), and then there's gym time and rehearsal time. We learn new routines and new moves (for a musician, this would be new music and practicing) and teach new cast members the show.

Booking takes a lot of time - in a typical day, there's a ton of email to return and phone calls to make. Lots of office stuff - updating the website, preparing press releases, entering receipts into spreadsheets.

And travel is huge!

So last week -
Friday, drive 17 hours
Saturday, perform all day
Sunday, perform all day
Monday, drive 10 hours (and also take it as a partial day off by stopping and looking at things)
Tuesday, practice in the daytime, perform at night
Wednesday, perform in the daytime and practice at night
Thursday, drive 10 hours
Friday, day off
Saturday, clean props and costumes storage (200 sq foot garage)
Sunday, answer 150 emails and file receipts and unpack

And during the travel, I'm also on the phone and emailing when I'm not driving. I used to track my time, and I typically work an 80-hour week in the tour season and a 40 hour week in the off-season.

There's also a lot of things that blur the line between work and play - when I go on Facebook, it's half keeping up with my friends and half reminding my colleagues that I exist and we all want to work together again. Even a social phone call isn't 100% social when it's someone who hires you or whom you hire.

stonebiscuit

Repairing things, whether they be costumes or props or cars or living spaces (or relationships with the pets who would like to know just where I have been all weekend).

It also turns out when you're traveling a lot, errands take more time. If you're going grocery shopping you first have to find the store you want, and then you have to find the things inside it, because no two grocery stores are set up the same way. The same is true of every store you'll visit. There's also an increased potential for getting lost (if you're me, anyway).