We recently connected with Jake Minter and have shared our conversation below.

Jake, appreciate you joining us today. What’s been the most meaningful project you’ve worked on?

I’m currently working on directing the off-broadway show Dream On, Baransky! , written by Richard Baron & Dale Baron. The show is a comedy, a new play, and a quasi-musical : which is really all you need to say to know it takes a lot of effort, discipline and love to put together. Right on the heels of performing as Hamlet in the same Off-broadway venue (The John Collum – American Theatre of Actors), this time, I found myself on the other side of the casting table. After being captured by the lively magic of the play, I accepted the journey of directing the show, casting, assembling a creative team and all of the other bells and whistles that come along with bringing the story to life. We are in the final two weeks before Previews March 22-24 and then a full open on March 25. I’ve had the honor to work alongside great friends and talented professionals, see the trial and error of making a new comedy, and hear the beauty of new songs hitting the great space at the John Collum. Years ago, it was the birthday of Urinetown before it flew to Broadway, and I have a special feeling about this show especially as it deals with anxiety, mental health, and finding out what you truly want in life.

Jake, 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?

My main area of discipline is acting. Over the past 6 or 7 years I’ve had the fortune of getting a wide array of roles from a deranged servant in an immersive experience (held in Guggenheim’s castle estate) to being Hamlet in Shakespeare’s Hamlet. A lot of my professional work has been Shakespeare, which I’m glad for, as the language in Shakespeare is rich with action and emotion already embedded in the text. The words, when spoken, feel like music to me – and in a way, it feels like you can access the history of every actor that has attempted it before as well. That being said, I typically get cast in dramas or tragedies. At the end of the day, I want to give a voice to someone that hasn’t had their story heard. I want others to hear the raw experiences of people different to themselves and listen even if for only a moment. I think the goal of a lot of art is to start the conversation, to get people to reflect or think about the world around us.

Can you tell us about a time you’ve had to pivot?

I think there is something to be said about creatives that are trying to live and thrive in our current economy. Let’s be real, everything costs twice as much as it did last year – which makes maintaining a very flexible job and all of our finances very difficult. I’ve had all different types of day jobs : vintage motorcycle repair (I learned a lot), restaurant work (a lot of it), catering, a 3d printing shop, computer programming, running a storage facility… And that’s not including the tangentially related to the arts jobs like directing educational workshops or working at a theme park that you give monologues at. I’ve had to pivot so many times when it comes to income, and I think our career path can be a bit of a winding and mystified one when it comes to monetization. In other careers, you work entry level and get paid, in ours, we get paid and non paid, we get building a rapport with other professionals and networking sometimes for little in return. A part of my ‘pivot’ was finding a flexible job like catering that actually gave enough work, combined with directing and acting to support myself. I’m still investigating other avenues like voice-overs, commerical work, and writing my own work.

Let’s talk about resilience next – do you have a story you can share with us?

A great flaw I had to overcome was striving to live off of my art right off the bat. I only had passion for acting, and it was easy to lose focus of my day job because I was so comfortable with struggling as long as I was still performing. I’ve faced so many challenges in trying to stay in New York – as I was graduating, my apartment flooded from the ceiling and the floor. I then got a crash course on the big city, learning the basement apartment I was living in was illegal, I had no recourse, and having no place to live took a toll on me for at least a year or two after that incident. In the six years since moving to New York, I’ve moved over 20 times and I’ve lived in every borough but the Bronx (just didnt’t get to it!). I’ve struggled through only having pocket change to get food for weeks at a time. It’s a little less brutal currently, but sometimes when finances don’t add up, I have a little hearkening of old feelings. It took a lot of discipline and dedication to not want to just plunge myself into whatever project I’m currently in.

Contact Info:

• Website: www.jakeminter.com
• Instagram: @thejakeminter

Image Credits
Photos by Luana Seu Poster of Dream on Baransky – Amber Brookes