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While the opportunities were greater in London then then they would be now, I still had few options, having no connections.
I didn't starve, but I didn't have much by way of dignity either. I ran errands, and did my best to find an apprenticeship. And Failed.
That is I suppose, how I found myself at the back door of a theatre the night one of their cast walked out.

He was a man of a small talent, and few wits. He actualy thought that his flouncing out would stall the performance at all. The director yelled out after him that any bum off the street could take his part. Then his eyes turned to me.

I had been sitting out back, because I'd made the aquatince of one of the chorus girls, and she had offered to share her sparse lodgings with me. There was nothing sexual in her offer- when chorus girls seek men, they seek men with money, not penniless ones, no matter how attractive.

"You ever been in the theatre?" demanded the burly man.
"No-" I thought he was asking if I was trespassing.
"You know 'Twelfth Night'?"
I was understandably confused. "Shakespeare?"
"Sebastiaan"
"I would not by my will have troubled you;
But, since you make your pleasure of your pains,
I will no further chide you." I drew away.
"Perfect!" And he grabbed me by the lapels and dragged me inside.

I confess that I was very confused, but glad. The night was very cold, and the theatre warm.
In short order, I was stripped, costumed and painted. The stage direction I was told was fairly traditional, and I could take my cues from the other actors.
After all, quipped one, I could hardly be worse.

I won't claim I took the stage by storm, but with dint of an abandoned script backstage and some nudging from the others, I made it through the performance, and quite well.

Well, I said all my lines and stood mostly in the right places.
And that was only the beginning. My friend in the chorus did take me home that night, laughing all the way, for the man whose roll I'd taken was obnoxious. And she brought me back the next afternoon, and I formally replaced him.

And the rest as they say is history...