We were lucky to catch up with Gabra Zackman recently and have shared our conversation below.
Hi Gabra, thanks for joining us today. Have you been able to earn a full-time living from your creative work? If so, can you walk us through your journey and how you made it happen? Was it like that from day one? If not, what were some of the major steps and milestones and do you think you could have sped up the process somehow knowing what you know now?
My god it took a while! I’ve earned a full time living from creative work for nearly 20 years, but previous to that it was a lot of catering and waiting tables (and a stint doing makeup too) in between acting gigs. I so luckily had the door to audiobook work opened to me by the great narrator Jonathan Davis after we did a production of Taming of the Shrew together in Atlanta in the early 2000s. I have such a fateful memory of that time! I had gotten to the point waiting tables and catering that I just couldn’t do it anymore. I remember being in a tuxedo holding the silverware for French Service (what a nightmare that was), and it felt to me like the room stopped moving while I had a conversation with God. I’d been doing a lot of yoga and my great teacher and mentor Jonathan Fields had read this section from the Bhagavad Gita which basically said this: it is better to live your own path badly than another person’s well. And all I could think was how wonderfully I was living this life of a cater-waiter, and how much I was dying inside. So on this one day when the room froze and I talked to God, I said, “God. I’m ready for something else. Show me a different way or I’ll go back to school and do something else. This is not my path. I can’t do this anymore.” And shortly thereafter a contact Jonathan Davis had introduced me to opened a door, and my whole life changed.
I don’t know that I could have sped up the process. I think I could have just enjoyed all of it more. All of it. Being young and pounding the pavement, doing auditions and booking gigs and traveling around the country, reading audiobooks by day and catering at night, doing Shakespeare under the stars. I loved all of it. But I wanted to speed past the tough stuff to get to the good stuff. If I could go back I’d just enjoy all of it a whole lot more.
Gabra, before we move on to more of these sorts of questions, can you take some time to bring our readers up to speed on you and what you do?
I’m a multidisciplinary artist based in New York. I started in theater, did a lot of Shakespeare and classics and new plays all around the country, did a bit of TV and film. Was a member of a few theater companies, still do an occasional play and a lot of readings and workshops. I started to do audiobooks over 20 years ago, and now I also teach, coach, and direct. I wrote a romantic spy caper series (the Bodsquad series) which was published after I moonlighted for a couple of years in Denver, Colorado; I’ve continued to write and work with a company now that produces short form romance and erotica (Love Bytes Originals). I’m most proud of my authenticity, as well as my diversity of creative jobs. I’m known for being funny and kick ass, queens and clowns, and being the voice of powerful, vibrant, remarkable, compassionate, thoughtful, witchy and wonderful women. I have branded myself as being the channel of “witches and rage” which really says it all.
What’s the most rewarding aspect of being a creative in your experience?
The most rewarding aspect for me is living a life that no one else gets to experience. I think it’s tougher than many others, but also more beautiful. As creatives we get to dance under an azure sky, form chosen families, walk upon parti-colored paving stones. I love living a life entirely of my own design, that follows no particular path I’ve seen before, surrounded by remarkable human beings. We are passionate pioneers, we artists.
Can you tell us about a time you’ve had to pivot?
This was such a difficult pivot for me!! It was just at the moment when I was gaining real success as an actor, and that success meant more local jobs, but in some ways less money… especially in New York, the path to success is not exactly linear. So I was being offered Off-Broadway roles that were wonderful, but didn’t quite pay enough for me to live on, or I was offered out of town work that was lucrative but not what I wanted, and I realized that I’d have to pivot to make my life work, to invite in more of the life that I wanted. I built my own recording booth and transformed a part time income into a true foundation. It was so hard to pivot at the moment of success, but it was also the beginning of a whole new path! Only about 10 years later am I able to see how I built a foundation for more of all of the work I love (acting, writing, and narration), even though I had to re-route myself in order to do it.
Contact Info:
- Website: https://www.gabrazackman.com
- Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/gabracadabranyc/
- Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/GabraZackmanAuthor
- Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/gabrazackman/
- Twitter: https://x.com/GabraZackman
- Other: check out some of my other work:
instagram: https://www.instagram.com/lovebytesoriginals/
and our patreon: https://www.patreon.com/lovebytesoriginals
Image Credits
Mark Reay
Maren Searle
Luis Cortorreal (logo)
Daniel Parvis