Alternate Careers

What alternative career paths have you considered or are interested in?

Let me begin by saying that I believe I chose precisely the correct career for myself. As a college professor, I had a great deal of autonomy in making my schedule and teaching what I wanted to teach. At a small campus, as an almost-one-person “department” in Theatre, I could choose the direction of the program without having to consult others, and choose the shows I wished to direct. Finally, as a professor, there were enough changes—always new students, occasionally different classes—that allowed me to do different things and not get bogged down in routine. My 31-year career as a professor of Theatre provided me with a decent salary and reasonable retirement funds also, so I am quite comfortable in this stage of my life.

But…

I do remember those evenings in my bedroom listening to music, with some makeshift pretend microphone in my hand, miming along to rock songs or songs from musicals. I could act out all of Jesus Christ Superstar and Sweeney Todd. Maybe if I could sing, or play an instrument, I could have been a musician. However, lack of talent did prevent me from going that route.

Side note: Here in my advanced age, I keep revealing secrets of my past since no one probably cares anymore, and likely the statute of limitations has run out. And this probably isn’t a crime anyway but, when I worked evenings at the Historical Society of York County babysitting groups having meetings, I really had nothing to do other than open up the meeting hall before and lock up after. So I would go up to the second floor where some musical instruments were kept, There was a piano (horribly out of tune), an organ that you had to pump with your feet, and: The Tannenburg Organ. This was a huge creation fit for a large church. Someone had shown me how to turn on the bellows, and so I would sit down and would become the Phantom of the Historical Society, at least for a little while.

Another tempting career was of course filmmaking. That was my first real career objective, after I got past high school freshman biology that discouraged me from any occupation in science. I almost attended a college for cinematography, but didn’t understand financial aid and couldn’t afford it. When I did start school as a Speech Comm major, I quickly became seduced by Theatre, and transferred to a Theatre program.

The only other time I considered a change came upon seeing early Pixar films. I thought it would be amazing to work for them and help create the kind of movies they were doing. Of course, I was on the academic path by then, and didn’t really give it a second thought. The again, a few years ago, I decided that making short films was fun and an excellent creative outlet, and have been doing these as side projects ever since.

It seems, though, that both of these alternative careers involve directing or performance and, had I chosen either, I would not have branched out far from the quite fulfilling main occupation of my life.