No one is ever happy, no matter where they live or how rich or successful they are, until they can trade in the shiny fiction of their fantasies for the mundane but exquisite frictions of reality.
friction is romantic!!!! experienced a similar melancholy after moving to my current city almost 5 years ago now & felt v seen & held by this on the other side of it as im looking at next steps 🩷
i graduated college with a degree in theater and moved to new york to direct (i no longer do because the instability of the lifestyle wasn't for me!), and my partner is a theater producer (who still has a non-theater day job for now but has so much more of a path success than i ever had in this field). it is an industry and a city of YEARS, not months. here's what i'd say:
- meet everyone, shamelessly - you liked someone's work? email or dm them and tell them (they will not be weird about it i promise). importantly - you're not trying to "network" or "pick their brain," you're trying to make friends with other weirdos whose brain you like. it will take many times of getting an awkward coffee or pre-theater drink before you're actually in.
- get out of the coffee shop and take a job in a theater, even if it's ushering or marketing or something that seems unrelated to the artistic dept. you'll meet more people who are like you and start to build that community. (or, go the other way and get a day job doing something like SAT tutoring where you can make more an hour and therefore have to work less).
- move to somewhere cheaper (probably not manhattan), with roommates. it is possible to survive in the arts here, but not if you're trying to live the lifestyle your friends with corporate jobs have. that's ok - there are beautiful living arrangements with lovely people out there (try the listings project).
- i was lucky. i started to feel at home in new york immediately. i know people who never did, and some for whom it took years and are now lifers. it's not for everybody, and that's ok - but you don't know enough yet.
Lol the curse of New York. I've had so many visitors that want to immediately move after a successful visit that I helped curate because as a native New Yorker I want people to love the city. Everyone that isn't rich feels like that here lol. We are all searching for something, more money, opportunity, love, etc.
I believe the author should stay, move to a cheaper apartment, I can't imagine her paying a good price in NoHo. She should aggressively look for people that want to create either on TikTok, Instagram, Arts Programs, Non Profits, etc. She should take breaks from the city if she can, go hiking upstate, visit the beach, go back home to hang out with her family. New York changes you, you have to learn to hustle, to not over spend, to not compare yourself to others. If she truly hates it she can move back home, but I think she should give it at least five years, where she aggressively trying to create her home here.
native new yorker here. i can only imagine how difficult the last seven months have been for the letter writer; financial instability can be all-consuming. that being said, a few flags popped up for me.
assuming i am reading this letter correctly, i feel like at least 90% of her problems, both financial and creative/cultural, stem from the fact that she LIVES in noho. noho is BEYOND EXPENSIVE. it's (i imagine, relatively speaking) a fine place to earn income as a barista. it is NOT a fine place to be among the "weird artists and freaks with no money" !!
most everyone there is a finance bro or trust fund baby. they probably comprise most of the clientele that patronize her cafe and that she hates. of course she does! it would be much easier to compartmentalize all this, and not project it onto every person she passes on the street, if she were to live somewhere that fits her personality, interests, and budgets better, so that she could at least have a different experience during her non-working hours.
i'm wondering whether she talks to her nascent network about her living situation, whether they have any advice, or whether they (or their friends!) might know of anyone looking for a roommate. if she doesn't feel like she can lean on those folks in that way, i'd instead focus on just getting the hell out of manhattan. the cliche is to move to bushwick, but even that's getting expensive these days. i recommend she look into queens. typically much cheaper rents, and INCREDIBLE food.
i wish her the best and i have every confidence NYC will unfold around her in the ways she hopes once she gets her financial situation under control.
Attend to your living space in budget friendly ways. Tidy up just enough so that you can stay out of your own way. Depending on your natural lighting conditions, get a couple of low maintenance house plants. Pothos are my favourite, but you do you. Take pleasure in passively providing nurturance to another living thing; water them but not too often. Second hand stores always have a good selection of colourful pots. Remember that recent research reveals that, when their caregiver has been away, plants can sense when their person returns to being within a 2km radius of them.
When scouting friends or roommates, try to find an errand friend. Someone who will take regular, meandering or focused walks with you, talk about your lives while returning your library books, picking up their prescription, dropping off dry cleaning, whatever. It’s life giving. It’s a free hang, you get movement and sunlight, and you can painlessly administer your life at the same time.
In addition to eating green things, if you have access to a bathtub, taking a warm bath with one cup of baking soda is a good, cheap way to soothe a tired lonely body and soften skin. Great for muscle aches and hangovers too.
Taking the subway is a disgusting, great way to lean into the friction of daily life while witnessing the weird colourful people around you. Don’t give up on public transit, especially as a way of countering the insidious story of large cities as capitalist hellscapes. It’s the commons.
My advice? Talk to strangers, enjoy the friction, don’t expect so much so soon, and let things find you. Just make yourself available to be found by them!
GREAT column as always. It's so hard to live life in the friction of the moment as an artist who wants to storytell, but the only sustainable way to do it.
I'll add another voice to practical "how to break into a theater scene" advice (I'm in a midsize city; obviously new york has a much more diverse arts ecosystem and much taller ladders to climb, but I assume the principles are the same): yes, see everything, yes, reach out to people to connect and compliment their work, yes, take gigs to usher, work box office, etc., anything to get you in the space and to put your face in front of the other people who spend time in that space. And YES, your career trajectory is measured in years, not months.
But more specifically, what's worked for me, an ambitious bitch with pretty good judgement: eventually, zero in on which companies are "on your level". Look at the polish of their shows. Look at the backgrounds of other people they hire. Make conversation with the artistic director opening night and see if they give you the instant brush-off, or if they seem like someone interested in meeting new artists. The sweet spot is a place that is a) potentially realistically open to hiring you at your current experience and skill level, b) that is not SO bottom-rung community theater that you'd be embarrassed and/or exploited working for them, and c) a place where you sense your skills could move the needle, but not massively shake things up.
I know this sounds like a unicorn, but a robust theater ecosystem WILL HAVE THIS PLACE FOR YOU. Possibly multiple of these places! Once you identify 1-2, concentrate your efforts there: volunteer, do backstage run crew roles no one wants, try to make a real (not desperate) connection with a few decision-makers, start going to as many of their shows as possible. Ask if you can assistant direct on a project of theirs you have a unique perspective on. (Obviously, move on to a different prospect if you get stonewalled or the vibe starts to feel off, particularly if they take too much advantage of your unpaid efforts.)
In my experience, there is no breaking into the theater community in some general sense. there is only breaking into the theater community via a specific theater. Once you have a solid credit or two at a place that's a known entity, many, many other doors in that same town will crack open for you. (And this focus and trajectory will allow you to track small wins that will keep you from spiraling about the massive gap between you and the really fancy professional theaters that wouldn't look twice at you.)
Your situation is like so many other people's. NY vitybis vibrant but overwhelming in terms of daily living. There are sirens everywhere, horrid traffic, and living alone is difficult. But small towns can also be stifling. I like Washington as beautiful and easy but it lacks the vitality of ny. Its a struggle. Communicating feelings important. Having a friend is key.
Next month I'll have been in NYC 10 years :) Moved here when I was 22. Slow down, celebrate each little step, go out on a limb to be with people in small ways. Honestly, it probably took 6 years before I felt like my social life was starting to become what I'd hoped. (Covid didn't help.) But the real version is much better than the fantasy!
I spent almost every Saturday of my first 3 years in the city alone at the same touristy coffee shop working on a couple of novels that (I see now) were helping me work out everything that happened to me in my teens and college years. I was lonely, but listening to people coming in and out of that coffee shop, speaking all kinds of languages, planning their day in the city... my memories of that time are shiny now!
I do think that the first NYC dream that has to be revised is about apartment location. Tbh, I don't know a single person who lives in Manhattan who isn't way up in Washington Heights. It's just not sustainable if you aren't in a high-paying industry. (My social circle are all in bookish, artsy, or nonprofit work.) I've always lived in a far away neighborhood because of the cost, and while my distance def wouldn't work for everyone, you can definitely do better than NoHo. Taking the subway from the borough where you live will show you instantly that NYC is impossibly, wildly more vast than you can see right now.
NYC is humbling! It's the best! I would say just remember that a lot can change quickly when you keep making small steps.
If you can’t get a job in theatre, volunteer in theatre. Go to performances and get “standing room” at any & every theatrical/artistic/music/dance venue you can. Go to the museums and libraries. When you are lonely, ride the subway and be squished together with all of humanity. When you need to stretch your eyes, take the ferry to Staten Island look out at the horizon beneath the Verrazano Bridge, catch the next ferry back. I was so lonely and homesick in my first winter, I made friends with a little tree in Central Park that hadn’t shed its leaves. They were brown and rustled in the slightest breeze, reminding me of trees from my hometown. I often visited it during my lunch hour. Frequent a coffee house/deli/cafe. Become a relaxed regular who feels at home there. Like others here have suggested: move in with roommates in Brooklyn: N.Williamsburg/Greenpoint/BedStuy… or try Long Island City or Astoria. Try taking the train up the Hudson to nearby walkable Villages like Dobbs Ferry, Irvington, Tarrytown, Sleepy Hollow, Ossining, Peekskill, cold Spring, Beacon. Take the Circle Line boat around Manhattan to get a sense of place… Eat well, sleep well. Think good thoughts, stand up straight. Drink water. Be actively grateful for everything you can think of every day, and include your challenges in your gratefulness.
friction is romantic!!!! experienced a similar melancholy after moving to my current city almost 5 years ago now & felt v seen & held by this on the other side of it as im looking at next steps 🩷
i graduated college with a degree in theater and moved to new york to direct (i no longer do because the instability of the lifestyle wasn't for me!), and my partner is a theater producer (who still has a non-theater day job for now but has so much more of a path success than i ever had in this field). it is an industry and a city of YEARS, not months. here's what i'd say:
- see everything - the stuff at underground east village theaters, the stuff on and off-broadway (here's a guide to cheap tickets, please share it far and wide): https://docs.google.com/document/d/1HdW4ZbLC69M-PmNt63I7WnFXMeKshSzUDs8mm-5wFyo/edit?tab=t.0#heading=h.jsvvzyfro96y
- meet everyone, shamelessly - you liked someone's work? email or dm them and tell them (they will not be weird about it i promise). importantly - you're not trying to "network" or "pick their brain," you're trying to make friends with other weirdos whose brain you like. it will take many times of getting an awkward coffee or pre-theater drink before you're actually in.
- get out of the coffee shop and take a job in a theater, even if it's ushering or marketing or something that seems unrelated to the artistic dept. you'll meet more people who are like you and start to build that community. (or, go the other way and get a day job doing something like SAT tutoring where you can make more an hour and therefore have to work less).
- move to somewhere cheaper (probably not manhattan), with roommates. it is possible to survive in the arts here, but not if you're trying to live the lifestyle your friends with corporate jobs have. that's ok - there are beautiful living arrangements with lovely people out there (try the listings project).
- i was lucky. i started to feel at home in new york immediately. i know people who never did, and some for whom it took years and are now lifers. it's not for everybody, and that's ok - but you don't know enough yet.
Just wanted to emphasize your point here because it's SO true:
"it will take many times of getting an awkward coffee or pre-theater drink before you're actually in."
I've had so many somewhat awkward hangouts with acquaintances who sometimes move away before you can get to an actual friendship, lol!
Lol the curse of New York. I've had so many visitors that want to immediately move after a successful visit that I helped curate because as a native New Yorker I want people to love the city. Everyone that isn't rich feels like that here lol. We are all searching for something, more money, opportunity, love, etc.
I believe the author should stay, move to a cheaper apartment, I can't imagine her paying a good price in NoHo. She should aggressively look for people that want to create either on TikTok, Instagram, Arts Programs, Non Profits, etc. She should take breaks from the city if she can, go hiking upstate, visit the beach, go back home to hang out with her family. New York changes you, you have to learn to hustle, to not over spend, to not compare yourself to others. If she truly hates it she can move back home, but I think she should give it at least five years, where she aggressively trying to create her home here.
native new yorker here. i can only imagine how difficult the last seven months have been for the letter writer; financial instability can be all-consuming. that being said, a few flags popped up for me.
assuming i am reading this letter correctly, i feel like at least 90% of her problems, both financial and creative/cultural, stem from the fact that she LIVES in noho. noho is BEYOND EXPENSIVE. it's (i imagine, relatively speaking) a fine place to earn income as a barista. it is NOT a fine place to be among the "weird artists and freaks with no money" !!
most everyone there is a finance bro or trust fund baby. they probably comprise most of the clientele that patronize her cafe and that she hates. of course she does! it would be much easier to compartmentalize all this, and not project it onto every person she passes on the street, if she were to live somewhere that fits her personality, interests, and budgets better, so that she could at least have a different experience during her non-working hours.
i'm wondering whether she talks to her nascent network about her living situation, whether they have any advice, or whether they (or their friends!) might know of anyone looking for a roommate. if she doesn't feel like she can lean on those folks in that way, i'd instead focus on just getting the hell out of manhattan. the cliche is to move to bushwick, but even that's getting expensive these days. i recommend she look into queens. typically much cheaper rents, and INCREDIBLE food.
i wish her the best and i have every confidence NYC will unfold around her in the ways she hopes once she gets her financial situation under control.
Attend to your living space in budget friendly ways. Tidy up just enough so that you can stay out of your own way. Depending on your natural lighting conditions, get a couple of low maintenance house plants. Pothos are my favourite, but you do you. Take pleasure in passively providing nurturance to another living thing; water them but not too often. Second hand stores always have a good selection of colourful pots. Remember that recent research reveals that, when their caregiver has been away, plants can sense when their person returns to being within a 2km radius of them.
When scouting friends or roommates, try to find an errand friend. Someone who will take regular, meandering or focused walks with you, talk about your lives while returning your library books, picking up their prescription, dropping off dry cleaning, whatever. It’s life giving. It’s a free hang, you get movement and sunlight, and you can painlessly administer your life at the same time.
In addition to eating green things, if you have access to a bathtub, taking a warm bath with one cup of baking soda is a good, cheap way to soothe a tired lonely body and soften skin. Great for muscle aches and hangovers too.
Taking the subway is a disgusting, great way to lean into the friction of daily life while witnessing the weird colourful people around you. Don’t give up on public transit, especially as a way of countering the insidious story of large cities as capitalist hellscapes. It’s the commons.
+1000000000 for the MTA. New Yorkers don’t know how good they’ve got it. Seriously.
My advice? Talk to strangers, enjoy the friction, don’t expect so much so soon, and let things find you. Just make yourself available to be found by them!
GREAT column as always. It's so hard to live life in the friction of the moment as an artist who wants to storytell, but the only sustainable way to do it.
I'll add another voice to practical "how to break into a theater scene" advice (I'm in a midsize city; obviously new york has a much more diverse arts ecosystem and much taller ladders to climb, but I assume the principles are the same): yes, see everything, yes, reach out to people to connect and compliment their work, yes, take gigs to usher, work box office, etc., anything to get you in the space and to put your face in front of the other people who spend time in that space. And YES, your career trajectory is measured in years, not months.
But more specifically, what's worked for me, an ambitious bitch with pretty good judgement: eventually, zero in on which companies are "on your level". Look at the polish of their shows. Look at the backgrounds of other people they hire. Make conversation with the artistic director opening night and see if they give you the instant brush-off, or if they seem like someone interested in meeting new artists. The sweet spot is a place that is a) potentially realistically open to hiring you at your current experience and skill level, b) that is not SO bottom-rung community theater that you'd be embarrassed and/or exploited working for them, and c) a place where you sense your skills could move the needle, but not massively shake things up.
I know this sounds like a unicorn, but a robust theater ecosystem WILL HAVE THIS PLACE FOR YOU. Possibly multiple of these places! Once you identify 1-2, concentrate your efforts there: volunteer, do backstage run crew roles no one wants, try to make a real (not desperate) connection with a few decision-makers, start going to as many of their shows as possible. Ask if you can assistant direct on a project of theirs you have a unique perspective on. (Obviously, move on to a different prospect if you get stonewalled or the vibe starts to feel off, particularly if they take too much advantage of your unpaid efforts.)
In my experience, there is no breaking into the theater community in some general sense. there is only breaking into the theater community via a specific theater. Once you have a solid credit or two at a place that's a known entity, many, many other doors in that same town will crack open for you. (And this focus and trajectory will allow you to track small wins that will keep you from spiraling about the massive gap between you and the really fancy professional theaters that wouldn't look twice at you.)
Your situation is like so many other people's. NY vitybis vibrant but overwhelming in terms of daily living. There are sirens everywhere, horrid traffic, and living alone is difficult. But small towns can also be stifling. I like Washington as beautiful and easy but it lacks the vitality of ny. Its a struggle. Communicating feelings important. Having a friend is key.
Next month I'll have been in NYC 10 years :) Moved here when I was 22. Slow down, celebrate each little step, go out on a limb to be with people in small ways. Honestly, it probably took 6 years before I felt like my social life was starting to become what I'd hoped. (Covid didn't help.) But the real version is much better than the fantasy!
I spent almost every Saturday of my first 3 years in the city alone at the same touristy coffee shop working on a couple of novels that (I see now) were helping me work out everything that happened to me in my teens and college years. I was lonely, but listening to people coming in and out of that coffee shop, speaking all kinds of languages, planning their day in the city... my memories of that time are shiny now!
I do think that the first NYC dream that has to be revised is about apartment location. Tbh, I don't know a single person who lives in Manhattan who isn't way up in Washington Heights. It's just not sustainable if you aren't in a high-paying industry. (My social circle are all in bookish, artsy, or nonprofit work.) I've always lived in a far away neighborhood because of the cost, and while my distance def wouldn't work for everyone, you can definitely do better than NoHo. Taking the subway from the borough where you live will show you instantly that NYC is impossibly, wildly more vast than you can see right now.
NYC is humbling! It's the best! I would say just remember that a lot can change quickly when you keep making small steps.
If you can’t get a job in theatre, volunteer in theatre. Go to performances and get “standing room” at any & every theatrical/artistic/music/dance venue you can. Go to the museums and libraries. When you are lonely, ride the subway and be squished together with all of humanity. When you need to stretch your eyes, take the ferry to Staten Island look out at the horizon beneath the Verrazano Bridge, catch the next ferry back. I was so lonely and homesick in my first winter, I made friends with a little tree in Central Park that hadn’t shed its leaves. They were brown and rustled in the slightest breeze, reminding me of trees from my hometown. I often visited it during my lunch hour. Frequent a coffee house/deli/cafe. Become a relaxed regular who feels at home there. Like others here have suggested: move in with roommates in Brooklyn: N.Williamsburg/Greenpoint/BedStuy… or try Long Island City or Astoria. Try taking the train up the Hudson to nearby walkable Villages like Dobbs Ferry, Irvington, Tarrytown, Sleepy Hollow, Ossining, Peekskill, cold Spring, Beacon. Take the Circle Line boat around Manhattan to get a sense of place… Eat well, sleep well. Think good thoughts, stand up straight. Drink water. Be actively grateful for everything you can think of every day, and include your challenges in your gratefulness.
Beautifully written.