Re-Enacting!: A Guide to the Rewarding and Lucrative Career of Becoming Instantly Famous

By Jeff Norman

"Re-enacting! A Guide to the Rewarding and Lucrative Career of Becoming Instantly Famous" is a highly readable, how-to guide that enables history lovers and actors to enjoy a rewarding career both financially and personally by educating and entertaining audiences about a character, subject, or era they love! There are plenty of opportunities out there for someone willing to put a little time and effort into developing their own independent business; performing for target markets, audiences, and venues of their choosing. You pick everything! Your character, your show, your fees, the amount of travel you'd like to do, the venues, the hours! This guide is the first step of an amazing journey!

• Language: English
• Publisher: BookBaby
• Release date: Dec 15, 2015
• ISBN: 9781682228753

Book preview

Agreement:

1) RE-ENACTING IN A NUTSHELL

Re-enacting is a blast. And it’s becoming increasingly relevant and in demand. Here in Colorado, I’ve had the pleasure meeting several other re-enactors, all having different motivations for pursuing re-enacting.

Most are hobbyists. Hobbies are indeed wonderful pastimes, but this guide is intended more for those who wish to do re-enacting either professionally, or at least semi-professionally and getting paid to do it. Playing dress up is fun, but not very lucrative. This is a guide for those who wish to get reimbursed for their effort and expenses, even if it’s just for the purpose of buying more cool historical stuff!

I really believe that the profession of re-enacting is a noble calling. Esteemed authors, academics and professors can pontificate and espouse from venerable podiums all day long, but someone has to get everyday people, especially kids, interested and motivated enough about history to open those authors’ books and seek out those professors’ classes.

Other than by the exceptional school teacher, who may be wildly enthused about history but handcuffed by limited time and mandated lesson plans, or perhaps by a trending blockbuster movie that may plant a seed, who, or what, else is there to create an initial spark of interest in the significance of specific people and events in our history? As a re-enactor you are a walking, talking, living, breathing, spark. It’s then up to the academics and authors to keep the fire going.

Do you still remember that certain special guest that came to your elementary school? I thought so.

By implementing the few steps outlined in this guide, you’ll be well on your way to becoming that memorable spark, and even make some money while you’re at it, if you choose to…and the performance opportunities are not merely for young minds, as you’ll read about in this guide a little later.

Be advised that this guide is not so much intended for the "stitch Nazis" that smirk about such minutia as the incorrect shade of thread that someone erroneously sewed their Revolutionary War uniform rank insignia with.

Nitti-gritty accuracy is indeed commendable and historically important, especially for re-enactment competitions and historical preservation, but as an entertaining, audience-focused re-enactor, at least initially you’ll be far more concerned with capturing the essence or vibe of your character than in recreating the exact specifications of their wardrobe. It makes for a less expensive pursuit, and allows for some show-enhancing liberties.

Visual exaggeration is always a good thing on stage, and besides, stitch Nazis and other re-enactors aren’t your intended audience unless you do wish to compete seriously in the future, so for now, don’t sweat the small stuff as you get started. I’ll discuss competitions later.

2) CHOOSING THE CHOSEN ONE

Well, this could be real easy, like picking the person everybody tells you that you look like, but it’s not always so simple…if you’re not exactly the spitting image of your intended character but you’re close, you can probably morph yourself into that character with a clever wardrobe selection, strategic props, and/or simple make-up…OR, you can simply opt for another character.

I’d personally avoid complicated make-up…a wig maybe, but once you get going, you won’t want to deal with time consuming make-up preparation or an unnecessarily complicated costume to accomplish a believable presentation unless you’re only targeting venues with dressing rooms that can accommodate all that preparation. A couple obvious considerations