He shared that Chicago has 250 theater companies, large to tiny storefronts, providing many opportunities for an actor. He works in plays, commercials, voice-overs and does print media. His career, with an agent, has been busy since 2010, with 12-13 bookings a year. He described the audition and call-back process, and noted there are 7 or 8 callbacks for each audition. One has to be prepared to be turned down.  

What makes people good actors? You can’t “pretend” to have emotions – they have to be real. Compelling actors have real emotions, channeling real emotions from within.  

High points in his career:  

• A storefront show that got 3 stars in the Tribune and got his photo in the paper.  

• An Onion video two years ago when he was portraying a “rich guy who didn’t care about the election”. The video has 1.5 million views…for this spot he got $300.  

• A 2-day video shoot for Rivers Casino, the ads are shown locally and his wife happened to spot him in one when they were walking downtown.  

• He shared that voiceovers are great  as it is a “tiny” time commitment, therefore a great hourly rate.  

• The collaboration, spending time with younger, diverse actors.  

Low points: 

• Live play called “Enron” – was in a scene with the lead character when he lost his focus and could not remember his lines. Fortunately she brought him back on track by asking him a question.  

• A small theater performance, with a very small audience of one – his wife.  

• He was prescribed steroids for an ACL injury, not realizing that a side affect was short term memory loss. His understudy was not ready, so after he admitted to the stage manager that he had no idea what his lines were, the show was cancelled.  

Jim acknowledged that this has been a wonderful post-career opportunity. Q&A followed.  

In our closing card draw – Mike Shelton pulled the Ace of Hearts and won the pot!  

The meeting was adjourned at 1:34.