Mentorship, or How to Make Someone Else's Problems Your Problems and Somehow Love It. 

Dominick LaRuffa Jr, founder (and famous essayist)

You know that famous saying, "Give a man a fish, and he'll eat for a day; teach a man to fish, and he'll immediately start a podcast about fishing and try to get verified on Instagram." Close enough. Anyway, that's mentorship in a nutshell. Except in my case, replace fish with dramatic monologues and whatever flavor of existential dread comes from auditioning for the role of "Guy Who Walks Past the Cop With Purpose."

At Blue Collar Artist Studio, mentorship isn't just some lofty concept we toss around because it sounds impressive, though admittedly, it does. It's the reason we roll out of bed in the morning, just behind caffeine-fueled determination, the sound of screaming toddlers, and the faint hope of a residual check. The truth is, I value mentorship so deeply because I had so painfully little of it myself coming up in showbusiness. I left drama school with a shiny BFA in "Being a Super Talented Actor," a lifetime of suffocating debt, and absolutely no idea how to actually make a living as a working artist. I often found myself in the wrong circles, listening to the wrong advice, making enough mistakes to fill several tragic one-act plays, and learning almost entirely from trial and mostly error.

Everyone at our studio shares a similar story. We have built our artistic lives through sheer determination, grit, and a stubborn refusal to quit, rather than easy access or family connections. That is exactly why we are so passionate about mentoring. We understand the brutal necessity of balancing your real life and responsibilities with the dream of becoming a full-time artist; a dream that is not just achievable, but sustainable.

Unlike traditional school structures, our coaching and mentorship happen primarily one on one. We believe in the power of personalized guidance tailored specifically to each individual's unique journey, goals, and challenges. This is not a one size fits all classroom. It is a deeply personal and customized experience designed to meet artists exactly where they are.

Our brand of mentorship involves helping artists discover talent they might not even know they possess, or gently breaking the news that their high school drama teacher lied about their "natural charisma." Both scenarios require equal parts honesty and compassion, traits I had to piece together myself, from watching the wrong examples and learning the hard way what not to do, because when it came to actual guidance in this business, I was mostly on my own.

When I was starting out, the family closest to me insisted if I wanted to "make it," I should avoid marriage and kids at all costs, as though happiness and artistic success were mutually exclusive. Yet ironically, my career only truly took off and became sustainable after getting married and having children. Not saying this has to be you. But I am saying most people have no idea what they’re talking about, most of the time. Mentorship here is deeply committed to helping you understand that your personal life is not a distraction. It is fuel. Our mission is to help you find meaningful work, whether creative side hustles or jobs outside of the industry, that will not crush your soul but rather inspire and support your true passion.

Here at the studio, we preach loudly and frequently that we are all in this together. Our clients are not just students. They are collaborators in a constantly evolving conversation about what it means to be a working artist today. Whenever I or my staff book a gig, whether it is a Broadway show, TV series, or even a particularly humiliating producing gig where you have to pretend the fourth rewrite of a scene set in a dry cleaner at gunpoint is still elevated material, we immediately turn it into a real-time lesson plan. This is not outdated advice from teachers who used to do it decades ago. It is live intel straight from the trenches of an ever-changing industry. We are active participants, not nostalgic observers.

Real mentorship is fundamentally about humility, accepting you might know more than someone else but having the patience not to rub it in… too much. It is the art of actively listening, even when your mentee insists their reinterpretation of Hamlet set in a Williamsburg bodega is groundbreaking.

Because ultimately, mentorship, and life really, is about the pursuit of excellence. Once more, THE PURSUIT. It is about recognizing that purpose does not solely reside in the destination, but in the messy, exhilarating, occasionally maddening pursuit itself. At Blue Collar Artist Studio, we teach that finding your purpose is not about achieving some mythical end goal. It is about continuously striving to become better, more thoughtful, and more impactful every single day.

And here is the other truth. None of this comes easy. Struggle and discomfort are not roadblocks to greatness. They are prerequisites. Getting uncomfortable, being bad at something, wrestling with doubt and effort and fatigue, that is the job. If you are not struggling, you are probably not growing. And if you are not practicing kindness through all of it—the grind, the hustle, the missteps—then you are missing the best part of the whole journey. The work ethic we teach here is not about ego or hustle culture. It is about being honest with yourself about how hard this life can be, and doing it anyway, because you believe in the life you are building on the other side of that discomfort.

Having struggled through the industry mostly alone, I have come to treasure what it means to be the mentor I never had. I popped in the business early, way before I had the tools to understand what was happening. One minute I was bartending across the street from the Neil Simon Theatre, and four months later I was winning a Tony for co-producing All The Way, starring Bryan Jesus Christ Cranston. I was 24 years old with zero wherewithal—truthfully, I should have kept the bartending job. Eventually, I did put those bar pants back on for a few years. But that’s the story you’ll have to pay for. Anyway, I was suddenly surrounded by people who probably had a lot to teach me, but they were leagues, and not just drama leagues, but like actually units of measure, ahead. Even if they tried, I could not yet understand. I might be big on not wasting time, but some steps just cannot be skipped. I made a lot of dumb choices trying to compete with people who had decades of experience and generations of wealth. I was never going to win that race. The only person I am, or should ever be, in competition with is me. I now pay that forward through Blue Collar Artist Studio, guiding military veterans, underprivileged artists, and passionate dreamers—though around here, we call them delusional doers with a fire in their ulcer ridden bellies, and a Google Doc titled 'Act One' they actually plan to finish.

Watching their faces when something clicks, when they finally nail that monologue, finish their first draft, book that debut gig, raise the money they need to make their dream film… is genuinely priceless. Actually, it is very much priced, but luckily ProducerHub.org helps us with funding, so I can keep pretending money does not matter.

Here is the magic of mentorship. It always goes both ways. Sure, I am teaching artists about acting techniques, navigating an unforgiving industry, and the critical life skill of surviving on three hours of sleep, tequila, and carelessly irresponsible hope. But my students constantly teach me resilience, creativity, and fresh slang terms I immediately misuse in front of my kids.

Mentorship at Blue Collar Artist Studio is not about creating little Dominick clones. Trust me, the world does not need more of those psychos. It is about empowering artists to craft their own narratives. We are here to mentor you into the best version of yourself, ideally one who occasionally remembers to thank us in your future Oscar speeches.

So yes, mentorship is worth it. Not because of any grand sense of selflessness or legacy, though that sounds nice, but because it transforms lives, theirs and yours. And also because mentor looks pretty impressive on a LinkedIn profile. Just kidding. I clearly am not a "find me on LinkedIn" guy. I do not own a single Patagonia vest.