Two young actors were prepared to work hard to make it in New York theater. The rental market proved to be cutthroat.
It all started last June, with a trip to New York City to see an Off Broadway play, “The Comeuppance” by Branden Jacobs-Jenkins.
Jordyn Jenkins and Noah Whittiker were acting students at DePaul University in Chicago, a year from graduation, and they hadn’t started planning where they would go after finishing the program. But the weeklong trip changed that.
“Neither one of us had really ever considered New York before then,” Ms. Jenkins said. “But then when we came and visited the first time, we were like, ‘Hold on.’”
Another trip that September — to see Annie Baker’s Off Broadway play “Infinite Life” — made them determined to make the city their home. They “got a sense of something more,” as Mr. Whittiker put it: a vibrant arts scene, endless things to do, a diverse array of people and career opportunities.
“I actually felt inspired to be here to act and make theater,” Ms. Jenkins said. Back in Chicago, by contrast, “I was just going through the motions with it.”
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