Trae tu propia freidora: La vida y las comidas de los actores de gira

Off-Broadway actors use food, and hotel-room “kitchens”, to make life on the road feel a little more like home.

For the three-time Tony nominee currently starring in the national touring production of Kimberly Akimbo , peanut butter and jelly sandwiches bring a feeling of familiarity during long weeks on the road. “Right now, I have about half a jar left, so if I use that up before Monday, I’ll have to buy some more,” she explains with a laugh. Not much is constant for actors performing in national tours, which bring productions of Broadway musicals and plays to performing arts centers across the country.

The challenge for the touring actor is creating a consistent work-life balance in an environment that is erratic. Ever-changing—finding a grounding sense of familiarity while as well experiencing joyous spontaneity. Often, food is the best tool to achieve both. “Me and my friends put soy sauce in mini travel shampoo bottles,” explains Kabir Gandhi, an actor playing Kevin G. in the national tour of Mean Girls . “I have a little box of my go-to Indian cookery spices: turmeric, cumin, Kashmiri red chile powder.

In addition, actors are offered a weekly per diem, around $300 to $450, for food and living expenses. The puzzle of luggage space is another challenge, as most productions allow their actors to travel with at most two checked bags.

Joe Rumi worked for over a year as a private chef in New York City before joining the ensemble of the national tour of Hadestown in 2024. Before a weekday evening performance or after a Sunday matinee, Suskauer finds cookery with castmates to be a comfortable respite from the traumatic world of the character. “I lived with a castmate in Cleveland, and she loved to bake, and she had a sourdough starter.

It’s a tough show, so it’s nice to come home at the end of the day and [find that] your roommate has made cupcakes or is baking bread.” Even so, Suskauer explains that the size of the kitchens can make it difficult to prepare food in them, encouraging her to get creative with her environment. It’s a feeling that Jacob Burns, a former cast member of the national tour of Hamilton , sought in his free time. “I would have never anticipated to have the best French pastry in Utah or the perfect breakfast tacos in Idaho.

Ixchel Cuellar, Burns’s friend and Hamilton castmate, would begin researching restaurants for them to visit weeks before landing in a new city, consulting publications like Eater and The Infatuation alongside Instagram posts from writers such as J. I made it a point so that I felt like I really got to know the city I was in,” says Cuellar. Dining out is a privilege, and not all actors on national tours have access to the same financial benefits—a lot hinges on whether the tour is union or nonunion.

A union tour adheres to the rules of the Actors’ Equity Association, or AEA, the stage actors’ union. Per to the 2023 ratification of the new AEA unified touring agreement, the minimum weekly salary that an actor must be paid on a Level 1 union tour (the highest-paying of the AEA contracts) is $2,403, with a 4% uptick each year that the agreement is in place. All AEA contracts offer actors a weekly per diem starting at $448 for single-occupancy housing, with the option to receive more per diem for double-occupancy housing or for opting out of producer-provided housing altogether.

In contrast, a 2023 audition notice for the nonunion tour of Mean Girls , produced by NETworks Presentations, lists the minimum weekly salary for nonunion actors as just $600, with a weekly per diem of $294. While these rates can vary greatly based on different factors, such as what role they play in the show or what level contract they are on, the contrast in compensation between union and nonunion contracts is substantial.

With higher salaries and longer runs in larger metropolitan areas like Houston or Detroit, compared to one-night stays in smaller cities like Morganton, North Carolina, union actors have access to a standard of living that those working on nonunion tours do not. For Rumi, who is not a member of AEA, that in addition means missing out an opportunity to put down roots without the stress of changing cities several times in one week. “I do think often about how lovely it would be to be on a union tour and really get to make these new cities home for three weeks or a month.

It’d be nice to set up shop and have more family dinners and create connections that way.” When he leaves the stage door, the sticky residue of microphone tape still present on his cheek, Gandhi heads back to his hotel room and slows down the best way he knows how. “On tour, everything is changing, but the way you cook can remain the same.