We caught up with the brilliant and insightful Hannah Todd a few weeks ago and have shared our conversation below.

Alright, Hannah thanks for taking the time to share your stories and insights with us today. Are you 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?

When I set out to pursue theater – and in particular directing – as a career, it was pretty apparent from pretty early on that very few people actually make a full-time living just doing theater. Everyone has some other job or career – sometimes a day job unrelated to theater, like a service industry job or office job – and often, especially as we become more established in our careers, jobs that are adjacent to or directly related to theater – teaching theater, working at a theater company, running a theater company, etc.

For a long time, I thought I would follow that path – teaching, maybe working toward becoming an artistic director someday. Then, twelve years ago, I accidentally fell into ghostwriting (through an actor friend, in fact). It turns out, writing is a marketable skill! Now, I find myself building a parallel but entirely disconnected creative career path, in entirely in an entirely unrelated industry, that pays a (more or less) living wage, and is very flexible and allows me to unrestrictedly pursue my theater career at the same time.

I didn’t (and still don’t, really) have a model for building a life from dual, parallel, unrelated creative career paths; it was never presented to me as an option, so I never considered it until I stumbled into it. I don’t know if I would have made it to where I am more quickly had I considered this as an option earlier, but I think it’s an option worth presenting to young artists – alongside, of course, the conversation about paying theater artists an actual living wage….

As always, we appreciate you sharing your insights and we’ve got a few more questions for you, but before we get to all of that can you take a minute to introduce yourself and give our readers some of your back background and context?

Though I’d loved theater from a very young age, I didn’t start participating until high school, when I began acting. I continued as an actor through my final year at Hampshire College, where I studied literature and theater. Then, in my final year, I directed my first full production – and thought, “Whoa, I like this way better than acting.”

I continued pursuing directing, through internships and starting a theater company – We Happy Few Productions – in DC, along with many freelance directing and assistant directing gigs. I eventually moved to Chicago to complete an MFA in Directing at Northwestern University, and have continued my freelance directing career in Chicago, along with occasional gigs elsewhere, since then.

In 2011, while I was still living in DC, I stumbled into ghostwriting through an actor friend who worked for a small, boutique ghostwriting company. I’ve always been a strong writer, and quickly discovered there are significant overlapping skills between ghostwriting and theater: constructing clear and compelling narrative structures and character arcs, getting inside another person’s mind and conveying their experience authentically and truthfully – in short, telling stories that matter, in ways that engage, connect with, and inspire an audience.

In fact, I believe my theater background and career improves and advances my work as a ghostwriter. My work as a director has honed my ability to craft powerful narratives across all genres and disciplines, from fiction to memoir to self-help to science to history to business, while staying true to the unique voice of the author. Meanwhile, my ghostwriting – clearly communicating ideas in a narratively compelling way – has also strengthened my directing skills.

While the content of my ghostwriting work and theater work tends to be very different, fundamentally, they both have the same goal: to connect with an audience and create change within that audience – whether that change is, for instance, inspiring them to pursue their entrepreneurial dreams through helping a client write a book about starting a business, or kindling an emotional catharsis in a shared space of common humanity through a story told onstage.

Is there something you think non-creatives will struggle to understand about your journey as a creative? Maybe you can provide some insight – you never know who might benefit from the enlightenment.

For one, how non-linear and ever-shifting this life path is! It is anything but a 9-5, go to work in the morning, come home in the evening lifestyle. I think it’s safe to say most creatives don’t operate by a “normal” schedule. It’s hard to even really have a consistent schedule, because we’re usually moving from gig to gig and each one has a different time commitment, span of day, etc. In the theater world, Monday is usually our day off, and we work all weekend, and often are in rehearsal until late in the evening on weekdays (especially if you are working in non-Equity theater) – so it doesn’t quite match up with the regular social life schedule of the rest of the world. I think often our friends or family members or partners who operate on a more “normal” schedule become frustrated or don’t understand that our work simply has different time requirements than a “normal” job, and that’s just part of our life and who we are.

Being a creative also often means there is much less separation between work life and personal/social life than there is in many professions. We bring so much of ourselves, our experiences, our emotions, our lives, into our work, that the two tend to bleed into each other (although having boundaries is vitally important!). This makes creative work incredibly rewarding, and it can also be incredibly exhausting, even if it seems like we’re just playing pretend or having fun making something beautiful and enjoyable.

What’s the most rewarding aspect of being a creative in your experience?

When an audience really connects with something I’ve created – and when the artists I’m collaborating with really connect with each other and what we are creating together (and the same goes for my ghostwriting clients!). I think shared, communal experience is vital – always has been, and is perhaps now more than ever. Whatever that experience is – joy, love, anger, laughter, grief, excitement, release, hope – when we can experience it together, it connects us to each other and to ourselves. The more connected we are, the better we – and the world – become.

Contact Info:

• Website: www.hannahtodddirector.com

Image Credits
Photo 1 (“Hannah Todd”): Photo (c) Laura Coover Photo 2 (“Hershel”): Photo (c) Jenn Udoni Photo 3 (“Macbeth”): Photo (c) Amy Leigh Horan Photo 4 (“Marys Seacole”): Photo (c) Jenn Udoni Photo 5 (“The Tempest”): Photo (c) Justin Barbin Photography Photo 6 (“True West”): Photo (c) Lauren Nigri