u/pest0pasta_

Hi all,

Looking for some advice from you amazing people. I’ve gotten some great notes in the past from this subreddit and I’m wondering if I could lean on some words of wisdom again.

I’m going to do my first ever chemistry read early next week for a play and I’d love some advice. First of all; does it matter what I wear? I know there’s always a “nod to the character” but what if your character is dressed in something you can’t really nod to? Can I wear whatever makes me feel confident?

It’s the same scenes from my initial audition though they have rewritten a lot of lines so it’s kind of like a completely new scene. What else would you recommend besides knowing my lines?

I’ve never worked with another actor in an audition situation, but I’m going to read opposite two different actors for the same character; do I need to change up anything? Maybe do it one way with one actor and another way for the other?

I guess I’d love to know aswell how do chemistry reads tend to work? Of course the chemistry is important but is there anything that surprised you initially before you started doing them?

So I can’t believe I’m making this post but I’d appreciate some guidance from people who also work in publishing or have left publishing for other avenues.

At the beginning of the year, I was lucky enough to get a job in the industry after being unemployed for 5 months. I mean on paper my job is amazing; I work at a big literary agency. Before this I got an amazing internship in publishing and interned at publishing houses and literary agencies it was great. I thought I had finally found the career for me. I had two job offers; one at a publishing house and my job that I have now. Before this, I worked at a book shop which was okay, you get to be around books but it’s still retail at the end of the day. I’m going on almost 5 months here and I… hate it. It’s horrible to admit because I know how competitive this industry is and how lucky I am, but I knew from a month in that this wasn’t for me. I don’t find the work exciting, I don’t care about the deals, I’m sick of just hearing about advances. Funnily enough I expected a much more creative workload but all I do is send emails, draft contracts and deal with the admin. My boss doesn’t even take writers on so looking through manuscripts is another part of my job and it kills reading through good material only to have to reject. It honestly just feels like I’m wasting my time. I know that’s expected until you work your way up and take on your own writers as an agent, but even when I think of that it’s not appealing to me. The workload is insane, the expectation is to work until night and somehow attend so many work events on top of it all. My colleague had a sit down with me and said I need to attend more networking as that’s how this industry works, but I’m drained by the end of each work day and don’t particularly want to go to these events that start at 9pm. I assist a team of 4 and having to do all of that I find myself slightly drowning everyday. I’m stressed from the minute I got on till I log off. They also did not train me properly so I’m this long in and still unsure of certain things (believe me I’ve brought it up and it’s slightly improved). I’ve reached the stage where I’m so burnt out already and dread going in. I think partly it’s also the corporate life. The act of sitting at a desk all day for 40 hours a week is so soul crushing. I don’t know what to do; I’m so tired and my weekends are spent trying to recover, i struggle to eat dinner most days because of how late i have to work and how late i get home. I think it’s just hit me because i just had surgery a few weeks ago and returned back to work this week and the workload that’s just expected of me, frankly i think it’s unbelievable. Anyways, if you read all that I appreciate it. I’m just wondering if anyone else has had this experience and how do I make steps to leave. At a time, I thought possibly it was because I chose an agency and maybe I’d be better suited to a publishing house but I fear this industry as a whole isn’t for me. The pay especially for the amount of work… I got paid the same at the bookshop and atleast when I locked up, my work was done for the day.