Actress Leah Walsh was struggling with the question of how to continue to make art and a living—and maintain a balance between the two—when she was inspired to invite fellow artists to have this conversation with her publicly.
Last year Walsh launched The Compass, a podcast dedicated to the various struggles of actors, writers, directors, designers, dancers, musicians, composers and playwrights. It recently released its 39th episode and has exceeded 10,000 downloads. The podcast explores the idea of “the dark side” of making theatre and how to overcome the challenges associated with the industry.
“I started this podcast because I was dealing with these questions myself, and needed to talk about them instead of holding them inside, ” Walsh told Playbill. “It’s easy to feel like you are the only one who has had a hard time, when in reality, all artists struggle with these issues at one point or another.”
“I hope that having these conversations helps others as much as they have helped me,” she continued. “That if they are leaving an audition or stuck at a day job and feeling like they have little control in this business, they can listen to an episode and be inspired by someone else’s journey, advice, experiences, and tools which help them live a healthy life as a proactive artist.”
The Compass can be downloaded for free on iTunes here.
