My Life is a Theatre

I always wanted to act but I never really got into it until one day I saw an advertisement of Drama School ( the only one in Slovenia) in the paper and decided to give it a go. People who attend the Drama School in Slovenia don’t really have much professional options after studying. In order to become a professional actor you have to attend The Academy of  Drama. So most of us-students from the non accredited Drama School went to audition for the only theatre that accepted such “non professionals” – Sentjakobsko gledalisce (Saint Jacob’s theatre).  The idea of this theatre is based on volunteering.  People who love to act or direct or anything else involving theatre and have at least a little amount of talent are allowed to experience real theatre in a professional environment. Actors are not paid for their work but the rest of the crew around them (director, costume set designers, technicians…) are mostly paid professionals so in a way actors even though they are amateurs are expected to act as professionals. This way most of actors become like real professionals over years they get professional jobs and work outside the theatre for money. I think this theatre is a world phenomenon. It has been here for more than 80 years and still has a hundred or more people every year who are willing to sacrifice practically all their free time and effort to make it work. Some of actors in there are world standard performers and it’s almost a sin that they have to have day jobs to be able to make their living. But then again if this was their living they might stop loving it so much and would never develop into such an amazing actors.

For me this theatre was a huge learning curve. I gained a lot of acting experience, learned about theatre, the way it all works, the amount of commitment and responsibility  it demands, I learned heaps and bounds more than in theDramaSchool. And the only thing I had to pay it with was my time. I gained confidence, I met a lot of people who think and feel the same way they became my family and best friends and this huge circle of theatre was created in my life. Theatre actually became my way of living I started managing my whole life around it. Everything was suddenly inferior to it. I sacrificed a lot. Meetings with friend outside theatre, being with my family, a lot of fun trips, holidays, even basic daily physical needs like eating and sleeping.  I had no free time at all I had to run every day after work to rehearsals and sometimes they would last until midnight or even longer of course we had rehearsals during weekends as well. But it was all worth it. Because I love doing theatre I think it’s me it’s the only thing I can identify with.  The only negative side of volunteering to many people would be the absence of money.  But  to be quite honest I don’t care if I get any money from it. As long as I can do it next to the job that provides a decent life for me I’m satisfied. It gives me the way of life that I love it gives me ME. So I think that’s enough. I had one really negative experience during promoting our theatre out in the streets ofLjubljana. We put on our costumes adopted characters and went out to distribute flyers. Most of people in the streets were entertained and cooperative but one guy yelled across the street: -Go to work you lazy brats!- It didn’t put me off it just made me think how some people are really clueless.

I moved out ofSloveniatoLondonand even here I continue my way of volunteering for theatre. Of course I would like to be paid for this one day because that would mean I wouldn’t have to put up with a regular job and be able to do the thing I love the whole day but so far I get enough of satisfaction just from volunteering.

I think volunteering  has a bright future.  Here inLondon, the city that’s a lot more developed thanLjubljana, the capital ofSlovenia,  I see there’s a lot more of these kind of ways of working. People here volunteer mostly because they need experience and because they love something so much they don’t care whether they’re paid for it or not. After my experience with it I certainly think it’s absolutely the best way of getting the insight of your dream job. It’s much easier  to find than a paid job it helps you maintain the love for it and it makes you think why you love it so much what are the positive and negative sides and the most important thing is it gives you enough of satisfaction.

Mateja Zelič