Justin Tyler Lewis, Carrie Lewis and their daughter, Charlie
Justin Tyler Lewis is a resident acting company member and former Barter Player. He met his wife, Carrie Smith Lewis, as a Barter Player the first day he arrived in 2010. They have been together since that time and married for six years. They have a daughter named Charlie who just turned 3 years old. They own a home in Abingdon, Virginia. Carrie is also an actor, director, acting and text coach who has worked in several capacities at the theater. She most recently directed Justin in Barter’s production of “Macbeth.” He shares his thoughts on parenting as an actor and during restrictions brought on by coronavirus pandemic
A! Magazine for the Arts: How does a person balance an acting career with parenting? What are the challenges and the rewards? How are you coping with the restrictions imposed by the coronavirus?
Justin Tyler Lewis: At some point I heard the adage, “Theater has lost more great professionals to family than anything else.” Whether it’s true or not, that adage speaks to the real and literal challenge of working in theater while also building and maintaining a strong and loving family. The hardest part is the schedule. Theater is by nature an after-hours activity. It’s nights and weekends. Theater is where people go when they are off from work. The childcare costs stack up when you are talking about multiple evenings a week and daytime on the weekends. Then there is the rigidity of a theater schedule. When is the show on Saturday afternoon? Two o’clock, every time. So, if my daughter falls and bumps her head 10 minutes before I have to go to a show, the show is still at two.
The sacrifices feel big sometimes. There are times when you wish it could be simpler or different. But the sacrifices aren’t in a vacuum. They aren’t for their own sake. They are made in service to something bigger. At every step our daughter is immersed in a world of passion, work ethic, creativity, humor and community. She is surrounded by role models. A lot of them look like her. She lives in a world of critical thinking and problem solving, ingenuity and discretion. At the end of the day, the thing I can’t replace all on my own is the spirit of investment, service and dedication. It’s the idea – the fact – that if I contribute my work and my strengths to a meaningful effort, it can make something that we only could have made together in service to something bigger. Collaboration.
The coronavirus restrictions have basically inverted the dynamics of our family. Our daughter is great at adapting to the needs imposed by our schedule. She knows that we have to say goodbye in the evenings and on the weekends. She values the time with extended family and babysitters. That’s the only paradigm she’s ever known. In the height of the quarantine we were at home with her 24/7. That much exposure is a new dynamic, and we all had to learn and adapt. On the one hand, I’m grateful for the luxury I’ve never had with her: Time. On the other, the world we are living in is so fundamentally different from our normal day to day — and all of the pleasure and strength it gives us — that we are learning a whole new set of skills like independence, healthy boundaries and resourcefulness. We strive tolive through the experience instead of trying toget through it because it’s a lot of special time with our kid that we’ll never get again.
A! Magazine: From your experience and knowledge of other theaters, is the supportive atmosphere for actors with children common in other theaters?
Lewis: I’ve only ever had a child at this theater. Sometimes the work at hand can feel so immediate and urgent that you get distracted from the contributions that family and children make. There is definitely a time when you have to get down to it, focus and put in the work. In my experience though, those things that feel like distractions are really reminders of the tools we will need to make something great: playfulness, creativity, welcome and presence.
A! Magazine: What does the environment of Barter and the Abingdon community contribute to the development of your children?
Lewis: This is the fundamental contribution that this community makes to my child and my family. (See more about that above).
A! Magazine: Give us a brief profile of your child — her age, interests and pursuits. Is she interested in acting? Do you encourage your child to pursue acting?
Lewis: Carrie and I have a 3-year-old daughter named Charlie. She is a little young for an explicit interest in acting. She doesn’t seem to exhibit much in the way of “look at me” either. I’m actually grateful that she seems to be so self-assured. (Unlike her dad. I’m desperate for people to notice me.) Where we see the impact of our world on her is her connection to story. She loves to read stories, watch stories, tell and listen to stories. Characters are concrete for her. Through-lines have meaning for her. She recognizes and connects to the emotions she sees. She’s not limited to feeling “happy” at every moment. She sees that characters experience frustration, pain, heartache, loneliness, and it gives her a richer well to draw from for herself. She is still 3 years old. She has tantrums. She can make you want to pull your hair out. She also has a wide range of emotions and experience to help her understand herself and what’s going on inside her.
We will encourage her to pursue her own version of success. If that’s in the arts, great. She has proof that it’s possible. If it’s in something else, great. It works for me and Carrie because it is the path we have chosen for our own strengths and preferences. For us, the self-reflection is the lesson more than any one industry.
A! Magazine: What else should we know?
Lewis: One of the greatest resources we have at the Barter for our daughter is the legacy and excellence of the Barter Player company. The fact that we are in town with sophisticated, professional, high-caliber theater that’s aimed at young people is a luxury not every 3 year old gets. We don’t have to wait to take her to the theater. It isn’t stuffy, “grown up” or remote. She can experience the power and language of theater right here, right now.
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