Advice

Here is the issue.

One of the leading theatres in the San Diego area is having open auditions for their Christmas show, which is a musical version of How the Grinch Stole Christmas.

I would like to audition. However, as it is a professional theatre company, if I were to be cast, I would face two challenges.

1) I'm not sure if they rehearse during the day. If they do, it would become much more difficult to maintain my current day job. It may not be impossible to do both; I would have to inquire about that. I would be getting paid for the show comparably to what I'm getting paid at my job; however, I would face an immediate lowering of pay once the show closed. Plus, if I can stick it out at my day job through March, I will likely receive a fairly generous bonus.

2) Should I get cast in the show, I would have to join the Actor's Equity union. This would be both a blessing and a curse. On the plus side, it would likely raise my profile in the area among directors, and it is a necessary step should I want to have acting as a career. On the negative side, because it is a union, there are certain rules that I would need to follow, and one of the main ones is that I can only work for equity theatres, and there are not that many equity theatres in the San Diego area. While joining would be a definite step towards working for the more acclaimed theatres in the area, joining would also have the potential for making me be in fewer shows.

So, what do you all think? Should I just run into it head first, and let the chips fall where they may? Let me know so that I may mill over it some more.