Hard for the Money

I've now been back in Nashville for two weeks and the second one was even busier than the first. I have returned to work at a local theatre, simultaneously stage managing two productions: the one in current nighttime performances and the one that will soon replace it, now in daytime rehearsal. On Saturday, I received my first paycheck in 8 months. After paying several hundred dollars to the IRS in April for last year's earnings, barely above the poverty level, I relish having so little income to claim in 2005. My clueless Uncle Sam won't be reaching deeply into my understuffed wallet this year, by criminy! On the other hand, neither will I.

Uncle be damned, it was nice to see my name printed next to a dollar sign again. So nice, I saw it thrice. Under two show contracts, I received rehearsal pay and performance pay, and was also paid for voicing the theatre's radio spots. When I last held the position as resident stage manager, these varied duties were the requirements of a salaried position. The salary was particularly humble, averaging little more than $3/hour as work weeks stretched toward 90 hours. As an interim stage manager now doubly contracted, I am ecstatic to be compensated more fairly. For the first time, the pay is worth the effort. Or, at least, for the first time the average does not fall below the federal minimum wage. Ultimately, however, Uncle Sam will have the last laugh. As a contract worker, I am effectively self-employed, and this April Sammy boy will look to me for the tax contributions of both the employer and the employee. In the last few years I have become, to the federal eye, my own business -- Me Inc., LLC -- and as such, I have been exceptionally lucky to find regular clients; particularly lucky to find one now as I am removing the dust from my long abandoned office. Tax or no tax, I prefer selling my temporary services to any more permanent position I've ever held.

Today I am enjoying a precious day off, my last until the 25th as the change-over will claim the theatre "weekend" (Sunday/Monday) between the Saturday closing of one show and the Tuesday opening of another. Explaining my work schedule during the transition has always been a difficult chore, but suffice it to say that there are very few holes in it during the coming week.

My contracts will keep me employed through the 15th of October. By that time, I hope to have accepted either a third stage managing contract or, better yet, an acting contract. Usually, in this theatre, my preferred contract is the unwritten one between a dinner patron and his server in the hours before a show begins (few payroll employers will compensate a good employee quite so well as the dining public will compensate a good server, but then few payroll employers are so constantly demanding), but while gas prices are dauntingly high, dinner theatre patrons are in short supply at remote establishments like ours. Waiters, however, are in endless supply and clamoring for work. Otherwise one of them, I count myself lucky to have found a management position open on my return; luckier still that the rest of the staff haven't been similarly cross-trained. Where I would have been underutilized on the wait schedule after a long absence, I am instead more gainfully employed than those who never left.

I'm sure to hear an earful soon.

In the meantime, as the 80-hour schedule resumes on Monday, I'm left with the familiar problem of having a paycheck in my possession but no time in my schedule to bank it. And banking it, since my return, has become more important than ever. In Nashville, during my absence, household bills mounted. In San Diego, I amassed impressive medical bills. In between, a girl's got to eat.

One way or another, I'll figure out the banking problem. I'm just happy to have something to bank.

Have I mentioned yet how lucky I am to have work?

If not, let me tell you. I am.