Hi there! I coach actors toward integrating this truth into their work:
you are enough.
What I mean when I say ‘you are enough’:
I mean that YOU, in your wholeness, with your voice, and your skin, and your accent, and your body, culture, energy, learning needs, (dis)abilities, boundaries, values, and so forth – YOU are adequate to the task of living a creative life that is fulfilling, nourishing, sustainable, and joyful.
Everything that you are, is everything that you need. Period.
Hi! I’m Caitlin, your Creative Resiliency Coach & Career Strategist.
My mission is to radically transform how we teach and build creative professions, and to help you find significant fulfillment, sustainability, and joy in your creative livelihood.
Whether you consider yourself to be a teacher or a creative (or both!), I want to help you de-thread the self-sacrificing, hustle-and-grind narrative perpetuated by our culture, and re-weave a creative life which centers your rest, your vitality, and your wholeness.
>> I help actors revitalize their craft.
>> I help educators re-imagine their curriculum.
>> I help creatives reinvigorate their careers.
Sound good? Okay! Let’s play.
How actors describe working with me:
“Working with Caitlin always has been and always will be a profound joy. It feels like a homecoming, a warm cup of tea.
Whereas many other facilitators or teachers preach being a safe space for those who learn from them, Caitlin leads by example, showing her students that it is not only safe but important to set boundaries, and to move at your own pace, in the way that feels most comfortable to you.
Aside from the technical work, which was tremendously beneficial to me, what helped me the most from my session with Caitlin was the conversation we had at the beginning where she helped me name and set goals for my audition. Acting is incredibly vulnerable, and as much as we lead with the objective of influencing others in our scenes, in the audition room, the only thing we have control over is ourselves, and how we present.
Caitlin helped me develop strategies not only for performing my best, but for feeling my best in the audition room. With these goals and strategies, I was able to go into (and leave!) my auditions feeling excited about what I had to share, as well as grounded within myself.
This has been hugely transformative to the way that I experience the nerves of auditions, and how I prepare myself beforehand. Caitlin has helped me to become not only a stronger and more confident actor, but a stronger and more confident me.”
– Amelia Hillery | Actor, Portland OR
Offerings:
1-on-1 sessions with actors and creatives.
Duo sessions with actors.
You + a friend work on your monologues in a 90-minute session.
1-on-1 sessions with arts educators.
Workshops, restshops & classes.
My work restores the connection between your soul and your creative spark and teaches you how to run electricity through that pattern again and again.
COACHING FOR ACTORS:
You are always at the center of our work together. I adapt exercises to be culturally competent and neurodivergent-friendly, and am continuously developing new approaches to meet the needs of the actor in front of me. As we work, you will hear me name the lineages of the work I’m drawing from.
Together, we will co-create your how: how do you approach auditions? How do you approach Shakespeare? How do you navigate creative burnout? The result is a sustainable, tailored creative process that works because YOU built it.
Audition Coaching
1+ Sessions
We can meet once for a quick polishing session, or several times to develop new audition pieces. From Shakespeare to self-tapes to contemporary monologues, let’s put together an audition that showcases who you are!
I work with adults as well as teens preparing high school or college auditions.
Skill Development
3+ Sessions
Let’s hone in on one particular skill that you’ve always wanted to grow. Here are a few examples of skills we can work on together over the course of 3 or more sessions:
- Shakespeare
- Audition grounding
- Text Analysis + Cold Reads
- Physicality and breath control
- Responsiveness + presence
Career vision + Goal setting
1 + Sessions
Being an actor can feel like you’re a tiny boat in a huge ocean and someone else is controlling your sail. It’s easy to feel like you don’t have any agency in this industry. Let’s change that. Meet with me for a single session where we can develop an artistic vision statement to use as your compass as you make career decisions. Or, meet with me for 3 or more sessions to name your career goals and develop a strategy for meeting them.
If goal-setting makes you cringe (I see you, my neuro-spicy lovelies!) let’s reframe it around nourishment and depletion. Let’s talk about how you can make career decisions that lead to sustained nourishment, and less depletion.
COACHING FOR ARTS LEADERS + EDUCATORS:
If you are in a leadership role in an arts space – as an educator, teacher, director, or facilitator – we can collaborate on:
1. The “content” of your practice: Let’s deepen the sense of artistic empowerment for the artists and/or students you serve. We can chat about your curriculum / your policies / your rehearsal plan and find ways to expand inclusivity, accessibility, and adaptability. Let’s unpack how you can cultivate a culture of consent and collaboration in your space.
2. Your career as a whole: Let’s zoom out and talk about the unique challenges of being an arts leader right now. As an advocate for student-centered learning and artist-oriented practices, I feel it’s more important than ever that arts leaders have the skills and resources they need to sustain their care-driven work. Teacher and leadership burnout is real. Let’s talk about it.
Want to see my work in action? Sign up for my email newsletter and you’ll get my free, 30-minute webinar, “Revitalized! A Guide to Burnout for the Visionary Educator”
You are a creative changemaker.
You want to create, or possibly facilitate, work that is bold and beautiful, authentic and arresting, but most of all: meaningful. You want your work to have impact, whether you’re acting, creating, or teaching (maybe all three, you saucy multi-hyphenate, you!).
And you’d also like to have a life, thank you very much. You want to be rested and resilient, communal and courageous, because you know that your wellbeing matters if you’re going to do this thing long-term.
It doesn’t seem like that much to ask: that you could have a satisfying creative career and receive enough reward for it (financial and otherwise) to sustain a wholesome livelihood. And yet. You know it’s not that simple.
Somewhere in the process of cultivating the creative changemaker path, we can get disconnected from ourselves. Burned out, lost, confused, directionless, hopeless, numb – the joy we used to reap from our work so readily is suddenly a lot harder to reach.
I know this because I’m a creative changemaker, like you, and I’ve been through this disconnection process over and over again. But I’m not here to teach you how I revitalize my creative work – after all, that’s what works for me, and what works for me won’t necessarily work for you.
Why not? Because I would never ask you to change who you are to try to fit a solution that works for me and my particular identities, but may not fit yours.
Instead, I’m here as your co-conspirator, offering you a variety of methods to choose from, and together we will unearth your unique process for bringing life back to your creative magic.
“I am immensely grateful for Caitlin’s mentorship, and for her seemingly endless patience, grace, presence, and space…They are incredibly attentive and resourceful, as well as a valuable source of not only support, but also authentic realism…As a fairly neurospicy, BIPOC, and Queer young performing and teaching artist, it has been very difficult to find a mentor who I can trust to prepare me to become the best possible version of an artist I could be.”
– Tiara Primus, Arts Educator & Actor
What if burnout isn’t actually the problem?
Creative changemakers can experience a lot of burnout. And when we do, it’s easy to blame ourselves and our busy schedules. We might point to perfectionist tendencies, or overworking, but that’s not the whole picture.
Burnout is a perfectly understandable reaction to a culture obsessed with productivity. In creative fields, this cultural message gets amplified by scarcity narratives like the show must go on, or there’s not enough jobs so work harder than everyone else, or there’s 20 people who would kill to have your job, so prove that you deserve to be here. Sound familiar?
While we can’t overturn the culture in a day (ohhh how I wish we could), we can choose how we respond to it. Together, we can reveal the cultural narratives that have embedded themselves in your creative process, or in your curriculum, and we can transform your craft into an intentional, values-driven practice designed to create the impact you want to make.
Coaching available online or in-person.
Payment plans available at no extra cost.
Cultivate a joyful, sustainable creative practice.
When you work with me you get someone who is:
- Actively working in the industry
- Has 11+ years of professional experience
- Teaches performance and leadership for social transformation at Pacific University
- Working with and creating contemporary methodologies
- Trained in intimacy/consent and Mental Health First Aid
- Holds an MFA in Actor Training & Coaching from the Royal Central School of Speech & Drama in London
Recent workshops & classes have included:
- Pacific University
- Portland State University
- Resound NW: A place to sing
- University of Portland
- Lewis & Clark University
- Oregon Thespians State Festival
- The Actors Conservatory
- Rose Bruford College (London, UK)
- The Royal Central School of Speech & Drama
Frequently Asked Questions
What’s a duo session? What does it cost?
How much do one-on-one sessions with you cost?
Your work sort of sounds like therapy. Is it therapy?
>> Anything I ask you to do is an invitation, and you can RSVP yes or RSVP no. I repeat this language frequently, and I create back-up plans in case of an RSVP ‘no’.
>> I acknowledge that in my role as your coach, I hold power in the space. I carry awareness of this and the ways in which that power can affect consent and decision-making.
>> My attention stays on the relationship between you and your creative practice or pedagogy; all of our work together is aimed toward you being able to do your best possible creative work.
>> I will always check in with you at the top of sessions before diving in.
If we reach a boundary where it feels like I have taken on the role of a therapist, I will pause our work and re-orient us. Please also feel free to do the same.
What do you offer that's free?
I also offer free webinars occasionally, like “Revitalized: A Guide to Burnout for the Visionary Educator.” Keep an eye on my emails and social media for those announcements.
Pricing
🌻 1.5 hr one-on-one sessions with me are $75.
🌻 1.5 hr duo sessions with me are $75.
✨ I offer payment plans at no additional cost. Contact me to set one up.
✨ Every month I offer 2 free coaching sessions on a first-come, first-served basis. Join my email list or follow me on social media for those announcements.
🌱 Contact me for workshop pricing.
A Bit About Me
Hi, I’m Caitlin, pronouns she/her and they/them. I’m a teacher and an artist, gathering wisdom on how we can build nourishing, sustainable creative lives in the midst of a white supremecist capitalist patriarchy.
I’m a white, queer, American theatre educator and practitioner, as well as the co-founder and Artistic Managing Director of Enso Theatre Ensemble based out of Portland, Oregon. I’ve taught, directed, and performed with a variety of companies in the U.S., including the Utah Shakespeare Festival, the Ashland New Plays Festival, Third Rail Mentorship Company, and Enso Theatre Ensemble.
I'm back in the U.S. after completing my MFA in Actor Training and Coaching at The Royal Central School of Speech and Drama in London. While there, I researched socio-cultural contributors to student burnout in actor training, focusing on scarcity mindset and the Human Giver Syndrome framework, as articulated by Kate Manne and Emily and Amelia Nagoski. I argued for the integration of a 'love ethic' in higher education actor training as one possible response to the pervasiveness of student burnout. I also taught devising and resiliency skills to B.A. acting students as part of a class called 'Performing the Self' at Rose Bruford College.
My work intentionally straddles the boundary between creativity as an art form, and creativity as a therapeutic practice. Supporting my ability to traverse this boundary with care and responsibility is my 10+ year mindfulness practice. This includes years of self-study, as well as a 6-month yoga teacher training at Yoga Refuge, and the Mindfulness for Youth-Serving Professionals course with Peace in Schools. I also hold a certificate in Mental Health First Aid.
Outside the theatre, I'm an avid lover of table-top role-playing games like Dungeons and Dragons, tea drinking, ritual, and history, and enjoy long walks through the forests of the Pacific Northwest.
CONTACT
I work and live on the unceded lands of the Clackamas people, the Confederated Tribes of Siletz Indians, the Confederated Tribes of Grand Ronde, and the Cayuse, Umatilla, and Walla Walla people, known by its colonial name of Portland, OR.
© 2022 Caitlin Lushington
Rest & Love in Creative Living
Let's chat! In this email "newsletter," I respond to your questions on finding sustainability and creative fulfillment in our wild and challenging industry. I'll also send along stories, musings, and other bits of inspiration. Submit your questions to caitlinlushington@gmail.com.