500 a week is not enough money to go on tour in this economy. 500/week at 40 hours is on $12.50/hour which is lower than the minimum wage in most places. The fight for $15 is real folks and frankly $15/hour isn’t enough if you do a cost of living adjustment.

($500/week) I really loved this job. I've actually done 3 tours with Bright Star. Some days are super long and some you're totally free to do whatever you want. I really love to travel and I never would have been able to see so much of the east coast without doing something like this. You are LITERALLY a rock star to all of the kids you perform for. Watching their faces light up is truly one of the best feelings in the world. Is it a shit-ton of driving? Yes. I personally love to drive so it didn't bother me, but one of my partners absolutely hated it. Speaking of partners, some say it makes or breaks a tour. I think that's probably true, but I feel like I pretty much get along with most people so I didn't find this tough. As far as pay, I've never made this much performing anywhere else so I found the pay to be good. $500/week. Rehearsals were also paid which is nice. After 3 tours, this is what I know: if you have a bad attitude, you'll have a bad experience. If you have a great attitude, you'll have a great experience. Just like with anything in life. All in all, if you truly love to perform, you'll have a good time. If you hate to drive or hate being in a new place every night, stay far away. xx

Young hungry actor I see you, but let me be the first to tell you, no matter how long it’s been since you’ve worked, no matter if it’s your first contract, no matter how badly you want to tour, no one is deserving of the horrific way this place treats their actors. Starting with when you’re first offered a contract, they are very aggressive with how urgent it is to sign quickly, this is on purpose as if you have to drop it for any reason you owe them up to $1,500. You have to beg multiple times to receive your script in a timely manner, and often you won’t get one of them until a week before you start and/or open. They also do not give you your route ahead of time, so my tour partner and I almost packed for the completely wrong climate. Rehearsals are a joke. You have three half-days to block/perform three 45 minute shows. The whole company’s policy is “eh, good enough”: there’s no costume fittings, they just guess your weight/size from your photos, so none of my costumes fit. Speaking of costumes: they are some of the most egregious things I’ve put on my body. They are all party city quality, despite the website claiming they hand make everything (a total lie). The sets are (admittedly well) painted scrap canvases and duct-taped poles, and the scripts are filled to the brim with typos and banter that is relatively inappropriate for the age groups these shows are marketed towards. The whole thing feels like a scam, especially since you’re charging poor, rural communities over a grand for a 45 minute show that the students could do a better job writing and producing. I felt disgusting going in to work everyday as I aided in this company taking advantage of some wonderful small town arts councils and libraries. Once you’re on the road… the horrors persist. They do not book your housing until the day of, and it’s often rundown, sketchy, very far out of the way or all three. I’m talking blood stains on the carpet and spoiled food in the mini fridge. It’s not uncommon for you to drive to a new city with no hotel booked. They even attempted to get us to couch surf some nights. The car they give you is rundown, and the routes they make you take is unbelievably wasteful and unnecessary, the average day you are performing for like an hour, but driving upwards of 9 hours afterward. The pay on paper looks typical to other TYA gigs, but they do it in the worst way possible, you don’t see your first check until halfway through the contract, and the hold 20% of your pay until you’re done, so you’re living on $700 every two weeks. Management is also the booking team, and will often “punish” actors for doing things like asking for clarification by putting them in worse hotels or make them drive longer. I will never take another contract with them, and I would encourage every actor to run as far away as they can, as fast as they can. These places can’t keep getting away with treating actors like this.

My Bright Star theatre experience was amazing. The company recently underwent a restructuring while I was on the road—but they were very communicative to us and we only noticed positive changes in the transition. My partner and I had a great time together and the shows were big hits. The management is very communicative while on the road. Anytime I texted or called I was answered almost immediately. Yes! There are drives on this job, it’s a touring theatre, but we had a blast checking out all the new cities and there are places I never would have seen without taking a job like this. I have worked with other touring companies but this was my favorite. They would book the hotels for us which my last contract did not. The cons are a lot of time with just 1 other person, driving, lots of quality inns, early morning shows, we were in and out of schools a ton. LOTS of DRIVING.

Unless you don't have any other options to build your resume or REALLY REALLY love TYA avoid this company. I did a tour in 2018 and it was one of the hardest contracts I've ever done. Multiple times we were stranded in without a hotel because they would wait to book the hotel the day before each new city. There were money issues. You will be worked to the core, you will have days where you drive 7 plus hours with 3 to 4 shows, your tour partner does make or break your experience, you have 1 to 3, 20 to 45 minute plays that they waited until 2 weeks before rehearsals (which are 4 days total) to get us the scripts to start memorizing. You are responsible for dealing with the administration aspects of this tour (keeping recepts for everything, being the contact point for all the schools you go to) as well as being the crew, stage manager, props master, and performer. You likely will have a van that will need multiple oil changes because you drive likely over 10,000 plus miles. The heads of the company were very nice but that didn't make up for the fact that there were several times we were left with no idea where we were going in the middle of the country. There were also times were we had no idea that we were booked to lead after show educational talkbacks with several school audiences, which neither of us was qualified to lead or create. We made it work but it was not in our contract. I get it, I did it to build my resume and I'm grateful for it. But this is a very hard contract (I had a tour partner I got along with and it was still very rough) and honestly you do not get paid enough for all the work you are doing for this credit.

So the whole thing with this tour is that you’re partnered with one person. If you get along with that person and you like children’s theatre, it’s not a terrible job at all. It’s definitely a solid gig for performers just starting out/just graduating from college. It gives them the tour experience along with a pretty mediocre paycheck. (400 a week) I personally didn’t get along with my tour partner super well, so a lot of the tour was pretty hard and unenjoyable for me. But I do know that if I had been paired with someone I got along with, it would’ve been a much better job. Having said that, there are other downsides, as well. As is true of most educational/children’s theatre tours, you are the actor, crew, driver, and road manager all at once. So the days are really hard. Lots of driving. Lots of moving the sets in and out of the van. A fair amount of paperwork. However, they explain all this in the audition process. They’re very upfront about the difficulties of the job, which I can appreciate. The bosses Lucy and Josh are both very approachable and kind. They are always open to helping fix problems however they can. Some other positives: if you like seeing the wonder and magic in kids’ eyes, this is the job for you. They love these shows. (Even though they’re not amazingly written.) These kids are truly amazed and changed by what you do at this company. Bright Star is a lot. It’s a hard job. But they’re up front about the difficulties. The big thing you can’t plan for is if you’ll get along with your tour partner or not. And that makes or breaks most of the contract. All in all, I recommend it to those interested in TYA/Educational theatre and to those who are still resume building. But for others, you may be biting off more than you can chew.