A friend just opened a play last week and he was very excited. Weeks of hard work had been distilled into a few hours on stage, the opening night was electric, friends were gushing and sending congratulatory notes… and then the reviews came in. Suddenly, all the excitement was gone with a few barbed words from one critic.

We act for audiences. Amongst the audience members are the tastemakers who tell the rest of the world what they thought. And quite often, we hang on their every word, to the point that they can dictate how we feel about our own work.

Fifty people can tell you they loved something, but if the one person who puts their thoughts in print didn’t, that good feeling can be erased that in a flash. For this reason, many actors avoid reviews at all costs. I’m one of them.

It’s true that reviews can matter. A good one can get you noticed, extend the life of a show, and make a tangible difference to a career. Bad ones, too, can be devastating.

But we performers have no control over them. None at all. The only thing we can do, is do our work to the best of our ability, and take satisfaction on the knowledge that we did all we could to give a good performance.

It’s not easy to ignore the critics, no more than we can ignore the response of an audience – why didn’t they laugh on that line?! – but the excitement we feel should not be at the mercy of others. Our work is meant to be enjoyed, of course, and shared, but it is also ours to be savored.

T.S. Eliot famously wrote of “the falling shadow.”

Between the desire
And the spasm
Between the potency
And the existence
Between the essence
And the descent
Falls the Shadow

In the acting life, there is also a falling shadow, and it comes between the gig and the screening. Between the filming and the airing… Theater is different, of course, but for now let’s stick to the world of screens. After you walk off set for the last day, there’s a good chance you won’t see your work for months, if not even years, or if ever.

As the performer, you feel the high of the role just completed, and expect that everybody should know what amazing work you’ve just done. They won’t. You may have been diligent in posting and tweeting about your work (always careful to clear these matters with production, of course), but nobody can possibly know if you’re just beating your chest or whether you did, in fact, do something special.

Assuming you are genuinely pleased with what you just did, there is a natural letdown. Your mind irrationally expects offers to come pouring in commensurate with your new standing. You can’t believe you’re still getting auditions now clearly beneath you.

This is one of those times when you have to balance ego and reality very, very carefully. You still need to keep busy, of course, but you don’t want to follow up something with lesser work. The quickest course of sanity and career well-being is to put the ego aside. Be careful what you do, of course, but don’t start acting like you just won an Oscar and can’t possibly accept anything less than a co-starring role with Meryl Streep.

It’s also a time to practice patience. That will serve you well in all aspects of life, so dig in and watch the wheels go ‘round and ‘round for a while if you have to. The shadow only falls if you’re staring at the ground.

It’s a good practice to have the next gig lined up, always, but that’s not necessarily the easiest thing to do. Still, when a show or a shoot ends, there’s a fallout of sorts, and, I believe, a critical moment in the actor’s life. How it’s handled can make a big difference in a career.

We are emotional creatures. After spending days, weeks, months working on a part, investing time and sweat and love into creating something, simply walking away is next to impossible. And if you’re anything like me, it can be downright painful.

Having the next job relieves a lot of the suffering, but only because you’re moving to fast to notice. More importantly, take the time to reflect on what you just did. If there were positives, remember how you created them. If there were negatives, see if you can determine how to avoid them next time.

But whatever you do, don’t go unconscious, tempting as it may be. It’s a fertile time to learn about yourself, your craft, your passion.

There’s a part two to working, though, and it lies in the opportunity to advance your career. In a fierce blow of irony, the very time that you are at your busiest – under the lights, memorizing lines, sleeping very little – is when you need to be even busier. Promotional material should be flying, meetings should be taking place, and networking should be at its most frenzied.

The life of an actors is a bit of a boom-and-bust affair. When the show ends, you’ll likely find yourself wandering the streets with nothing to do, or back at your other job, in a regular schedule. There is much work to be done then, too, of course. Taking classes, editing reels, auditioning  for parts begins anew.

But if you’re working, work even more. It won’t last too long, and you’ll be glad your wrung the cloth for every last drop. Besides, sleep is overrated…

In the span of two hours I was referred to as a “semi-celebrity,” and had a woman write me asking “Who are you?” (Why she bothered to write is entirely a mystery, but hey…) Still, it did illustrate the murky waters of notoriety actors can swim in. Somewhere circling amongst the “A-listers,” the “has beens,” and the “never should have beens” are the “aren’t you?… no, never minds.”

Most people go into acting either for (a) the art or (b) the celebrity. Neither type is necessarily prepared for what even a modest walk along the path will bring. As with anything of this nature, however, it’s entirely up to you how it plays out. More likely than not, you will set the tone for this very early on in your career.

You can be successful and low-key. You can be unsuccessful and splashed all over the papers. Your behavior, attitude and beliefs about the world will dictate this, not anything else. The measure of your success is predicated upon a thousand factors, but the quality of it is entirely yours.

Personally, I would suggest staying away from the tabloid-ish side of affairs. It’s a cheap world filled with double-crosses and lies. But however you end up playing it, just remember, it’s you. As the old saying goes, “By the age of 50, you get the face you deserve.”

Well, now I’ve done it. After all my preaching about actors having to take the reins and make things happen, a project of my own is about to start. It’s a low-budget affair, so of course after the initial funding came in we all looked at each other and thought, “Gee, wouldn’t it be nice to have a little more?”

Yes, it would.

So we launched a fundraising campaign, and I, the actor/producer, suddenly found myself being the guy who asks for money. It’s not a role I’m particularly adept at, though believing in the project helps a lot. But it did get me thinking: how different is this really from the rest of what I do?

Actors are always asking for something. We ask for parts, ask for attention, for praise, for reality to fade away if just for a little while. What’s the difference when it comes to money?

Bob Dylan wisely remarked that “money doesn’t talk, it swears.” Money matters. We are impressed by those that have it, we think less of those that don’t. We hesitate to ask for it, and we hesitate even more to give it. It is, quite literally, our measure of value.

But I’d like to think that my value, our value, is not measured in Treasury Notes. My value is in the project I’m working on, that I believe in, and that I’m looking forward to sharing with the world. And with this thought, I have no problem asking people to contribute a few dollars.

Neither should you.