It’s Not a Hobby: Living Life as a Periodically Employed Actor

By Mary Em Burns

I spent my early years on a farm in Iowa, and even during elementary years was known for my playacting and singing. High school brought more opportunities to try out my theatrical abilities in theater, choir and by participating in speech and drama club contests. Despite all of this, I initially enrolled at the University of South Dakota in social work, but after a short time, came to my creative senses and officially switched to theater. After four years of practical performance and study, plus three experiential summers at the Black Hills Playhouse, I received my BFA and was ready — I thought — to conquer the theater world!

Not long afterward, I moved to Minneapolis, which — at the time — was a mecca for theater people, with fully professional theater companies like the Guthrie and Chanhassen Dinner Theater, as well as a multitude of non-professional theaters. While working full time as an office temp, I was still able to perform regularly at a variety of non-pro theaters, appearing in diverse plays like Kennedy’s Children, The Threepenny Opera and Pygmallion. Since the majority of Twin Cities metro theaters didn’t pay their actors at that time, and since I was discouraged about breaking into the union theater scene, I figured it was a good time to test my skills in New York City. So, in 1980, my husband (a non-theater person), our two cats and I traveled across country and moved into a fourth-floor walk-up in Manhattan. Over the next four years, I did achieve some success — landing parts in multiple productions (performed both in and out of New York City), becoming a regular cabaret performer and finally securing my AEA card during a run of The Music Man at an Ohio dinner theater. Despite the fact that things were starting to happen — I had not only secured an agent but also a call-back for a new Broadway musical — my hubby and I wanted to start a family and decided we’d rather do that in the Midwest. So, when he received a job offer he couldn’t refuse, we returned to Minneapolis to start our next chapter.

Mary Em Burns in Grease.

While working on our planned family, I stepped back from stage work, but stayed connected to my actor self by working with local commercial agencies, utilizing my talents during the booming 1980s-'90s commercial/industrials era in the Twin Cities. I secured my first union commercial shortly after beginning this adventure and — before and after the birth of my two children — managed to book many commercials and industrials, and occasional films and print ads, representing businesses like Target, Best Buy, 3M and KFC — receiving my AFTRA card in 1985 and SAG card in 2002. Although I continued to work a fulltime “regular” job, I always jumped at the chance to share my time and talents in front of a camera and was lucky enough to have employers who allowed me flexibility to do so.

In addition to my regular work, my commercials and film work, and my extra-curricular projects and work with my kids’ schools, I also served on the local AFTRA board in the 1990s and early 2000s, and have now taken on the editorial post for this newsletter. 

Over the last several years, my commercial, film, and print work and even auditions have diminished greatly and will probably decline more as I become yet another “over-55” union actress in a commercial world designed for 20 and 30-somethings. Still, I knew from an early age that performance in all of its forms is in my blood (my maternal grandfather played the vaudeville circuit when he was a young man) and sharing the talents I have been given, on stage or on screen, will always be a primary goal of mine, no matter how infrequently I get to meet that goal. So, when someone asks me about my theatrical “hobby” I get just a bit miffed and explain that just because I am not always getting paid to use my experience and talent does not mean that I am not a union professional. I’m proud of my SAG-AFTRA and AEA union cards, and know that although those cards do not guarantee steady work, they do guarantee that when I get it, the work will be high quality, with safe working conditions, and I will be respected and will know that all or most of the people working on the project will be knowledgeable professionals. And — last but not least — I will be paid fairly for my work. No, it is not a hobby; acting and singing is who I am. So I’ll keep trying to share that part of me as long as I can, and will remain a proud union professional while I’m doing it!

This item was originally featured in the November 2016 local newsletter.