Before moving to New York, Millard Darden was a "medium-sized fish in a medium-sized pond" in Raleigh, N.C., he says. He had been acting in theatre, film, and television for five years and had an agent and SAG eligibility. But last October, when the company he worked for offered him the opportunity to practice law in New York, he was thrilled.Having grown up in Long Island City, Queens, Darden was no stranger to New York. After graduating from Stuyvesant High School, he left for Harvard, followed by work as a journeyman for the U.S. State Department in Atlanta. After a divorce, he moved in with family in North Carolina and for a while drove trucks for his brother's metal recycling company. Throughout the tumult, he found success as an actor, including a role in the independent film The Marc Pease Experience. Still, he was "itching" to get back to New York.
- 8/7/2008
- by Ronni Reich
- backstage.com
If the key to getting settled in New York had to be boiled down to a single word, it would be networking. All the actors interviewed for this story found apartments and jobs through family, friends, or friends of friends. Even in the age of the Internet, word of mouth is still the coin of the realm — particularly for people in the performing arts."The first thing to do when moving to the city is to figure out what your network is," advises Kathy Schrier of the Actors Fund (www.actorsfund.org), a nonprofit organization that helps performing artists with employment, health insurance, housing, and other needs. It may take a bit of brainstorming and legwork to reconnect with the people you went to school with, performed with, or even grew up with. But as Joshua Edwards, Erin Nelson, and Stephen Ehrlich will attest, it can be well worth the effort.
- 8/7/2008
- by Ronni Reich
- backstage.com
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