by Enci
Rachel Allen is a SAG-AFTRA voiceover actress, who works full time as the Hunt Producer for Watson Adventures, where she is working the routes, materials, and oversees PR.
Many years ago, Rachel quit her job in marketing to work as a voiceover actor, in the theater (she is currently on withdrawal from AEA as she stopped auditioning), doing background work, and to work part time for a small company called Watson Adventures hosting scavenger hunts. As an actor, she was flexible and took on jobs that allowed her to audition when the calls came in at the same time ensuring that some checks came in to cover her daily and monthly expenses.
As time passed, Rachel decided to take on a full time position in the office, still with a healthy voiceover career running right alongside it. Watson Adventures provided her with health insurance, since she was working now full time, as well as a 401k investment.
Rachel has always put money aside from her past jobs and she invested in real estate but the money that she puts aside now has become less as she has now a family to invest in.
When asking Rachel on how she handles her career and her family, she answered: “Since my daughter was born almost five years ago, I’ve seen the voiceover business change from going out to auditions several times a week, to doing more and more auditions from home. This has made it a lot easier to fit my v/o career in with my day job. Occasionally I’ll run out to “lunch,” but most of the time I go home to record my auditions before dinner, then edit them after my daughter has gone to bed. When I get a gig, I either take a “long lunch,” half-day off, or whatever I need to go to the acting gig. My job may be “9 to 5” but with hunts all across the country and on weekends I often work from home at night or I’m on call, so the hours definitely get made up and the work gets done.”
And as to sustainability, Rachel put it so well: “I feel it is my duty as a human to do as much as I can in this regard. Luckily, living in New York makes this very easy. We can recycle practically everything and I take public transportation everywhere. I carry a water bottle and reusable grocery bag with me everywhere. Scrap paper is in the printer both at home and at work for practically everything.”
Rachel teaches her little one good practices as well. They use reusable snack and lunch bags and they use every scrap of paper for art projects. Rachel doesn’t think of herself as an environmental nut, she thinks that being sustainable has become a baseline behavior. Rachel says: “There’s so much we can accomplish in our everyday lives that can make a difference. If everyone does it, then we’ve got something! And while I’m not the type to get on a soap box, I think it’s important to pass along these practices to [our children] so that [they] will be part of a larger generation that works towards sustainability.”
If you are interested in applying for Watson Adventures, you can email them at info@watsonadventures.com. They are always looking for actor and comedian types to run their hunts as freelancers and they sometimes have job opening for Hunt Producer jobs. This seems like a perfect job for any entertainment professional, who pounds the pavement for auditions while needing extra income to pay the bills.
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If you have a second career, please email me and I will feature you in one of my upcoming articles. Please put in the subject line: “Actor/Actress with a Plan B”. Tell me your name, what you do, how long you have been doing it, and please include a photo of you (at your Plan B job) and a link to your acting and Plan B website.
Enci is a Mother, Actress, Artist and Activist (MAAA). Contact Enci with article suggestions or find her on Twitter, Facebook and other networking sites to connect. When contacting her, please introduce yourself and tell her you read her column in the Networker.
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