Depends on a couple of things.
Was this a one off? If this was the first and only time you were doing this? Did you do it for the money?
If the answer to those questions is Yes, Yes and no then you have a one time payment that you can enter as miscellaneous income and pay no self-employment tax on and skip the 1099-NEC entry form.
If the answer to any of those questions is different - and because you wrote 'community theater' I suspect it is - then you have a side gig as a performer/technician and it is classified as self-employment income.
The bad news about self-employment is that it is taxed as income but you also have to pay a 15% tax on it to cover the social security and medicare. It can be pretty steep.
The good news is that any money that you spent in order to earn that theater stipend is deductible. It's like running a small business.
In order to work at that theater you had to drive over there. A lot. Rehearsals, auditions, costume fittings, etc. Every round trip to the theater is deductible. Add up that mileage and you get a lot of credit for that.
Anything that you had to buy in order to do the job is a deduction. Paid for your own costume? Paid for your own makeup? All deductible. You can also deduct 50% of the cost of any food that you bought running between work and the theater.
@ncsmart
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