An actor’s life is not an easy one. Days are long. Nights are even longer. The pay is small even when there is money to be made. But for a collection of South Sound thespians, life would be empty without it.

These are their stories:

John Munn

John Munn is sort of a known commodity around the South Sound, having several acting and theater credits to his name from Lakewood, Tacoma Little Theater and Tacoma Actor’s Guild. He presently spends his days at the Comic Book Inc. store he owns and operates and spends his nights at Lakewood Playhouse, where he is the director of that theater’s season opener, “Agatha Christie’s: The Hollow.” He also will be in Renton Civic Theatre’s “Deathtrap.” Suffice it to say that he stays busy between small business ownership, family life and the theater.



“My family is loving, patient and incredibly understanding of my work in the theater,” he says. “I simply could not be involved in the way that I am without them. But the big change has come in the last two years.  I am working more as a director, and that allows me to be in complete control of my time with family.  As an actor, it comes down to being lucky to work with directors who are equally conscious of family time versus rehearsal.”



Munn tries to do only shows that pay something — however small the stipend. His reasoning is not just for the boost in petty cash he gets but also because those shows tend to have fewer rehearsals to fill his calendar since the pay is based on the time commitment. That doesn’t mean he snubs his nose at community theater though, he says. Community theater often draws talent that is just as strong as the paying gigs.



“I’ve been lucky enough to work on both sides of it now — in equity productions (i.e. professional) and non-equity productions (i.e. community theater) — and I can say with great conviction that there are a number of artisans, designers, directors, actors and actresses that work in community theater that deserve to be showcasing their talents professionally,” he says. 



The South Sound is small enough of a region that pretty much every actor knows everyone in the niche, so there are a lot of referrals and networking that occurs in the local theater scene. In this way, it’s just like any arts activity.

“It’s a small community or ‘family,’“ Munn says. “Trust me when I say there are no secrets there. But the great thing about that family is that there is always room at the table.” 

Elizabeth Lord

Bouncing down to Olympia’s theater scene, Elizabeth Lord reigns. She is the go-to lady for all things independent theater in the capital city for her work with Prodigal Sun and Theater Arts Olympia. She spent part of the summer in Brazil, where she attended the International Playback Theater conference with some other members of the Olympia theater scene.



Her only regular paying gig is as a part-time bartender at Olympia’s Brotherhood Lounge, but she has done storytelling professionally for the last decade.

“Acting was my first love beginning in elementary school,” she says. “But live oral storytelling is my life passion. Nonetheless, I find myself continually going back to theater — just can’t get away.”



She agrees with Munn that the stipend-giving theaters are more professional — especially with start and stop times or rehearsals. And the actors generally have done their homework more often when pay is on the line, but those rehearsals are often less fun.

“Sometimes there is not enough play (fun) in these settings, which is silly because the stipend is small, and it’s not a professional wage by any means, so why people get all stuffy I have no idea,” she says. “No-stipend theaters are generally a lot more fun. No one is getting paid, so we are all obviously here — only here — because we love theater.”

Rehearsals are long and can be stressful as shows near, but the actors, directors and crew find themselves coming back for more time and again.



“South Sound theatergoers should know that each and every small theater outfit works extremely hard to produce what it produces — hours and hours of work from multiple people. And because of this, all companies should be patronized. Give each theater a chance; check it out. Don’t be afraid of the little companies. They can surprise you.”

Pug Bujeaud

While this tour of South Sound’s hardest working thespians is in town, it should stop by to talk with Pug Bujeaud.



She finished directing “The Taming of the Shrew” this summer for TAO.  The show was set in Hades and got a bit bawdy, even by Shakespeare’s standards. Some audiences loved it, some not so much. And that is considered a success since at least people came to see it and thought about the show as they left.



“People think that they know what to expect when they go and see Shakespeare, and I like to mix it up and surprise them,” Bujeaud says. “The poetry is very important, but it should support the show.  I have sat through too many productions that get bogged down in the language, and they lose the fun, the excitement, the life of the piece. It becomes academic and not visceral.  I try to push the envelope enough to catch the audience off guard, so they have to connect with what is going on onstage and see the show anew.”

The strippers, complete with a stripper pole onstage, would have been the first hint to audiences that this version of William Shakespeare’s masterpiece might be a bit different than the one they saw on the BBC.



Bujeaud is now working on TAO’s next production, the original work “Night of the Living Dead! The Musical!” The show is loosely based on the classic George Romero zombie flick.  It opens in late November.



Bujeaud’s theater work at night is a bit different than her theater work during the day. But it is still working in the theater. She directs the Shakespeare program for 5th-graders at St. Michael’s School. To make ends meet, she is also a postmistress at a small postal substation in a drug store, where they have been very supportive about her theater work. 

“I get to tweak my schedule to accommodate productions,” she says. “There have been other job opportunities (that would have been more lucrative) that I have not pursued, because I wouldn’t be able to be involved in theater, or I would have had to give up the St. Mike’s position, and that is not acceptable.”



She took her children to the various theaters she was working in when they were younger. They now come on their own. One is an actor. One is a special effects and makeup artist. The other is a budding stage manager. Her family knows all about the long hours it takes to run a theater company.



“I have spent many a day getting up a couple of hours early to work on advertising, then go off to the jobs,“ she says. “I will get off work at seven, go straight to rehearsal, finish at 10, then work at the theater doing props, set, costumes, sound until whenever … get three hours of sleep and start over. During the run of the last show, I also ended up running the sound board, and most nights also selling tickets at the door.”

Heading back up to T-Town, there are two more stops to go.

Tim Hoban

Tim Hoban is a native Tacoman and has acted throughout western Washington and as far away as Edinburgh, Scotland. He was a founding member of The Twilight Zone Players, a sketch comedy group, in 1982. He first appeared at Tacoma Little Theatre in 1985 and many times since. He is best known for his work as Edgar Allan Poe, a work written by Olympia’s own Bryan Willis, who also just happens to be a guy who makes his living writing plays.



Hoban has a bit of a cult following for his role as Chick Hunter in the cable television hit “The Spud Goodman Show.” He is sort of a crossover hit in the industry since he has some independent films as well as stage and directing credits on his resume.



“You have to diversify your work,” he says. “Some great local actors just can’t do video or film. It’s a totally different animal. Still acting but wears on the mind.”



His “struggling for the art” story involves driving to Yakima to do a show, staying in a Holiday Inn and then shuttling to Sunnyside for a show the next night before heading home only to learn White Pass was closed. He got home right after midnight only to have to wake up at about 5 a.m. to go back to work.

Kristy Worthey

And now the last stop on our tour of actors finds us at the abode of Kristy Worthey, founder of Tacoma’s Shakespeare in the Parking Lot, an all-volunteer effort for seven years that is now hoping to direct some of the donations it receives to help actors at least pay for gas for their cars so they can drive to the shows.



Worthey covers the theater expenses through grants and her own expenses by working as the gift shop manager at Tacoma Art Museum. Days are long, and times can get tough, but the work is rewarding.



“This is what it all boils down to: passion, perseverance and hard work and friends and family who accept that the work of theater comes first,” she says. “Luckily, I am a chronic insomniac so I get a lot of work done between 11 p.m. and 3 a.m. My vacation time is used for intense rehearsal periods. As my son recently said to me when I was bemoaning my lack of a social life, ‘Mom, Shakespeare In the Parking Lot is your social life.’ I work to keep the company alive. After all the basics of living are taken care of, then what is left is invested in the next production. Luckily, all of my sons are doing well financially so I don’t have to worry about leaving them an inheritance.”