www.theatermania.com: Larry Kaye spent nearly two decades as an employment litigation attorney with his own very successful private practice. And then he gave it all up. What could possibly compel him to give up such professional success and strike out on a new and distinctly less-steady career path? It was the allure of the stage, naturally.
3 comments:
This article goes to show that it is possible to make a career change later in life and still achieve some level of success. I think, especially in a focused conservatory program, there is a lot of emphasis placed on needed to make large achievements when you are young. It's always about "Who got the best summer job" and, "Who has the most interesting projects/ideas." I also think we are often ridiculed by our peers for wanting to learn more about a field we are not already proficient in. For example, if I am dissatisfied as a manager and have a sudden strong pull toward lighting design, I would probably be ridiculed for switching my focus to lighting design unless I already have a certain level of experience in the area. It is expected that I am already decent in the field I am in, and that I came here to get better, not to learn something entirely new. I think this is one of the major downfalls of such a competitive program, and that it is good to gain perspective by reading about people who didn't need to be the next big thing at 20 in order to be fairly important in the industry at 45.
It is inspiring to read about an individual that was dissatisfied with his profession, and took the chance on changing his lifestyle in order to take on a profession in the theatre industry. I found it interesting to read about how this producer's background in litigation helped him and continues to help him pursue producing. This man's story proves that having a well-rounded background in many fields is beneficial. This does not only go for theatre. Someone who goes to law school may end up in the arts, and someone who goes to school for the arts may end up in law. I do agree with Kassondra that the students in a conservatory program can sometimes seem narrow-minded in respect to being exposed to many different subjects and fields.
This article supports the notion that you can teach theatre people to do anything. This guy had a passion that he couldn't outgrow, and that's awesome. What I found most interesting about this article is how profoundly he described how he defines the difference between good theatre and bad theatre. It's not always that formulaic, especially here in academia. But I really like how he was able to quantify it. Good command of language. I can see how he'd be a highly skilled litigator...
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