A Fight for Focus
The artist who's trying to do everything winds up unable to express whatever it is that is of importance.
-Amanda Palmer
Greetings friends, family, collegues, and fellow creatives:
The idea for crowdsourcing a creative project has been on my radar since 2009 but many oppurtunities to do so have slipped through my fingers simply because I was afraid to ask. This attempt at a fundraising campaign is a fullfillment of a New Years Resolution to finally just do it; pull the trigger regardless of its success or failure.
Who I Am. What Have I Done.
Sean Dynan, 28, Baltimore, MD
Life chapters in a somewhat chronological progression:
-Bachelor of Music, Saxophone Performance, Duquesne University
-Master of Music, Saxophone Performance, Peabody Institute
-Private Woodwind Instructor, Clinician, Member of The QuadrATOMIC Saxophone Quartet who conducted three successful educational outreach tours of the East Coast
-Fine Dining Server
-Full-time elementary music teacher in a high-needs, high-risk, low income neighborhood in Washington, DC.
-Return to restaurant business, became a Certified Sommelier with the Court of Master Sommeliers, Work in a Relais & Chateaux, Forbes 4-Star Restaurant after 10 years of hustle in the hospitality industry.
-Actor on stage, film, TV
-Currently refining my life goals, figuring out my true artistic medium, mid-freefall from jumping off the cliff and having faith the parachute will open.
Where I Am Right Now
Mid-freefall. I took that leap of faith. Finally said "I want to live the life that I want to live."
Over the last 4 years I've fallen in love with acting. Theatre, TV, Film, you name it. I don't see it as a departure from anything I've worked on these 10 years out of high school. I have found that working in this field is a truer expression of where my top passions meet my best aptitudes. I have used all I've learned with my music background, continued a life-long pursuit of knowledge, honing, and supplement of what I don't know in the acting world, and figured out what experiences are best to sustain me as a full-time actor.
I've worked in many fields striving for excellence and attempting to perform at the highest level: Music, Hospitality, Wine, Teaching. I feel like I have distilled pieces of the formula for excellence but I'm still working on the proper syntax to reach a level that I would deem as success.
The last 4 years have been a test to that formula and to patience in playing the "long-game." To begin acting, I entered the theatre as an outsider, but never striving for anything less than consumate professional in my practice and rehearsal habits. In order to do so, I've taken a lot of roles that are of little or no pay, but never failed to have a strategy or justification for the large commitments of time and time away from earning income many roles have required.
The little bits have paid off. In the last 12 months, I have had more work as an actor than I could have ever dreamed in such little time: Work on three TV shows, two plays, one musical, commercials, U.S. Army training video, two shorts, and indie film, all of which has helped me get representation by my agent.
With this momentum, I cannot turn down roles that I know I need to get to the next level regardless of pay. I'm stuck in this purgatory of the acting world: that intermediate step bridging the ametuer actor to the professional.
Which brings me to my next role:
Spring Awakening
Spring Awakening: The Musical was my gateway drug to the world of acting. I have been singing the music for four years just waiting for a chance to do it. Now that everyone and their mothers have produced it in the Baltimore/Washington area and I'm leaving the threshold of being able to play 16, the clock has been ticking. However, I have the chance to play my dream role of Melchior Gabor at none other than the theatre where I had my start: Spotlighter's Theatre in Baltimore, MD.
This role means so much to me. Spotlighters means so much to me along with the people, the actors and crew that have been along-side me before. Although fun and enjoyment will surely be a by-product of the experience, the stragedic selection of taking this role is paramount: first chance as lead in a musical, the enormous duration and variety of vocal use solo, duet, and ensemble, the oportunity to push me to extremes as an actor and do things on stage I have yet to do, all with this role in Spring Awakening.
The Need:
I want this role to be good. No. I want this to be the best work I've ever done. I want a chance to devote as much of my physical and mental being to this role: A Fight for Focus. However, Spotlighter's is a community theatre and I will not be paid for the 200+ hours that I will devote to this production.
I need help through this period. I will be doing this role to my best ability regardless of the success of this campaign, but just think, your help with supplementing financial stability will up the ante, raise the stakes in the quality of work I can deliever you when the show opens in July. I want to make you proud of what you're supporting if you come see me on stage!
What I'm Trying to Fund:
1. In preparation for this role, I planned on having private coachings with my movement and physical theatre mentor Elena Day. Her guidance has helped shape the actor I am. But wait... I am so intensly excited to be a part of the cast of Spotlighter's Spring Awakening...why can't I enhance this process for all of us. These children that we will be playing are becoming aware of their bodies. They don't know what to do with them. They might not feel comfortable in their skin or how to move. That made me think how wonderful it would be to have my mentor Elena Day work with the entire cast.
The first portion of the funding will go to the costs of bringing Elena in for a 3-hour intensive for the entire cast and the cost of the space we will have to rent to house a movement class.
2. When I am working on a role, I tend to get lost in the character. I spent a lot of time thinking about them and it takes a lot of concentration and focus to do this right. I would like to allievate some of the stress that I know I will face in trying to generate income during this process. Already my earning hours at the restaurant or in my car driving Uber and Lyft will be decreased, but it would also be nice to be able to work on my role outside of rehearsals as well.
It would be such a mental relief to know that I have a roof over my head for the next three months of Spring Awakening and to be on good footing and prepared for a similar time commitment for when my next professional role comes up late Summer. I would be blessed if I could crowdsource 3 months of rent.
I thank you for your willingness to hear me out and hope to meet, greet, and hang after one of my performances in Spring Awakening each weekend in July.
-Sean