It's Show Business: Being Fired From A Success In Your 20's

What happens when you get fired from a successful production? In my case, it was a hit premiere play in Chicago. One of the play’s advisors was an Oscar-winning actor. One of the directors was/is a thought leader of the NYC media Intelligentsia. The executive producer was a Chicago theater legend.

There’s no axe to grind here – this was in the ‘90s and I’ve had lasting friendships and bonds with most from the play since. It’s a supportive story to share with creatives who go through an unexpected exit on a project, as it relates to popular content, and how to process it.  

I was 22, living and working in Chicago as an actor when what I’ll call the NYC Play was about to come in pre-production. Two months prior, I’d  finished a lead role in a comedy play that was in the running for pick of the season, meaning it would open that fall at its venue as long as it stayed the highest-grossing production of that year.  

The NYC Play, however, was with a different theater entirely. It was about race relations and how segregation became tragically institutionalized in American society over the centuries. The NYC theater company co-producing it was heralded - and notorious - for demanding performance art. The play had 2 directors attached, with well-received stage projects each, for a 6-week run.   

There were no script sides. The ‘script’ would be assembled by multimedia pieces in the public domain – a historical mixtape. The audition was to perform a public domain piece of your choosing.

I made callbacks and told the EP (executive producer) and co-directors then that I might have the comedy play I’d done prior return. If that show was picked up, I’d only be able to do the NYC Play for 4 weeks of its 6-week run. They said it wouldn’t be a problem, an understudy would perform the remaining 2 weeks.

Rehearsals were tough, mostly because of the ‘script’ being transcripts crafted into scenes, even musical numbers. Whenever one of the 8-member cast was hesitant – a nude scene or racially provocative dialogue – someone would bring up the Academy Award-winning advisor: “Are you kidding me? If *Robert* were here, he would drag his d*ck right across this stage, splinters and all!” It was only funny because it was utterly plausible.

The NYC Play opened well that summer and was reviewed on Page 1 of The Chicago Tribune. I got called into the office of my day job bosses, who held the review and my photo up to me and said: “Don’t think this is going to last. They’ll go back to New York and you’ll still be working here.”

Two cast members left the NYC Play weeks early, after it opened to success, without contractual repercussions.  I still didn’t have an understudy and brought in an actor peer as a suggestion. The EP’s and the co-directors liked him. He was an actor I’d worked with before, and a friend.

Meanwhile, my prior comedy play made pick of the season. As promised, I told the NYC Play’s EP and directors immediately. They said no problem, as before.

The next night, with minutes before curtain, the NYC Play team asked me into the theater for a Very Important Talk.  Smiling, they thanked me for my contributions and said that tonight’s show would be my last. I was asked to turn over my working script and all related notes to my replacement after curtain call.

I gave the actor-my peer and friend- the script and notes as asked. It was an awkward, numbing farewell, with no time to process months of work abruptly over. I said goodbyes to the cast and crew and walked home. Fired.

I knew one thing: my day-job employers would be (and were) elated that my fall from the front page of The Tribune had taken less than 3 weeks. “They’ll go back to New York City and you’ll still be working here.” – repeated with reverb, like a bad sitcom dream sequence. If there’s a way to feel washed-up at 22 years old, I felt it.  Much is made of “youth” as a shiny commodity, but even then, I knew that “youth” is also a completely expendable one. I still had agents and an Industry beyond this show, where reputation matters, to contend with.  

And so began the painful learning of a reality I’d never wanted to fully believe, the one I’d since I became a professional actor at 15: “It’s. Show. Business.”

There was no naivete there. The work, the collaboration was all-consuming. We were “creating art” - it was drilled into actors constantly. There had been no business beyond the immediacy of the set and helping create a successful enterprise.

On the other hand, sure, it was show business. The ‘show’ part had its limits and the ‘business’ part was just that. I met the real show business that summer, surrendering all of my artistic illusions in the process. It was a hard knock and a deep hurt. As a great man later told me, repeatedly: ‘A lesson bought is better than a lesson told.’

The new reality sank in, like water into soil. It’s a business, sometimes ice cold, someone is making money, but you can juggle the show and the business, or fold - and you cannot fold. Move on. Work smarter. Create something else. Start over. It can – and will be - better.

And that’s how peace was made, in very little time, with being publicly fired and privately mortified.  

After the firing, a day or so later, the NYC Play’s EP called to tell me that my understudy wasn’t doing the show. He’d gotten another gig. “Isn’t that great? Now you can come back!”

“I’m not coming back,” I said.

“You’d have an all-new contract!” he cooed.

“You didn’t honor the first one,” I replied with sitcom timing, glad to stress that salient point.

“What can we do? Otherwise our show may have to close.”

I declined to return. It wasn’t about money; it was about moving on to my next show while being free of a show I’d been publicly freed from. Instead of giving me my last paycheck, the EP pointed to a quarter in the palm of his hand, like a magic bean. He suggested I  take it, go to a pay phone and “call the directors.”  The cast were outside in a line facing me.  I wasn’t negotiating anything on the street, or in front of my peers. I wished them well with a wave and didn’t look back, painful as it was. As for the check? It was fine to mail. Exit sidewalk north.

The  NYC Play closed that next night, far earlier than expected, and quickly left Chicago with my pay somewhere in the wagon train. I later called the NYC production office and my former director said, “I mailed your last check  to a Karl Gibson we found in the White Pages.” Best practices! He replaced it after it bounced.

I looked up the other Karl Gibson in the White Pages and apologized for the check gaffe. He said he thought it was all pretty cool, adding: “I like being mistaken for you, you’re like my fun alter ego!” He called himself ‘Karl #2’ and we kept in touch for years, mostly so I could see what I was up to in the sideways world.

Being fired at a critical age taught me to continue to give my best and to not be overly cynical about creative passion or trajectories. You can find peace in your pursuits through your best efforts and integrity. No one career is the same and you deserve to look forward to future collaborations and successes. Being fired isn’t a smooth-edged ending in that moment, but it won’t be the end of your world. You will be alright. The world is at your fingertips. Forgiveness cannot be underestimated – and the sooner you can, the faster you’ll be freed from the emotional purgatory of the situation.

It is also crucial to keep your creative passion, regroup, and challenge yourself to learn even more about your chosen vocation. There are always great people to work for - and with - beyond painful experiences. And never, ever discount or forget your audiences because they absolutely will show up for you if you genuinely show up for them. Audiences will find you.

Today’s crushing professional disappointment or delay will eventually be a testament to your future successes. Your work won’t return to you void, thank God.  So, have faith, stick around and enjoy your career. Unexpected endings often give you a greater compassion for those you later can see your less-informed self in, where all they need is the same chance or consideration you were (or weren’t) given somewhere along the way. You can be great at what you do, be gracious, make money, and keep your soul.  

Don’t give up - great things await you, just keep going.

And that, too, is show business.

About the Author:

Karl Gibson currently works in the Los Angeles media market, most recently as a contractor for VOD content analysis, scheduling and metadata for Netflix, Warner Bros., and Vubiquity. He has also worked for The New York Times, The Hollywood Reporter, and was Editor of Studio System News. For any work inquiries: [email protected]

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