This is the first of a series of articles collectively entitled Act Up, for theatre students, performers, and directors. Articles in this series will be added weekly. To find other articles in this series, simply click Theatre on the right sidebar or enter “Act Up” in the search bar to the right.
First off, let me start with an open apology to your theatre teacher, wherever he or she may be — you have one of the toughest jobs of all — taking (often disrespectful) kids on every different level, slamming them through a relatively short program with the aim of delivering graduates with (a) a healthy respect for the theatre, (b) a demonstration of the fundamentals of the craft, and (c) a lifelong love of the performing arts, whilst producing X shows per year in your program. You have my instant respect!
Am I really accusing your teacher of being a failure?
No way! Teachers have a thankless job. Crowded classrooms and a curriculum that is cranked out in 45-60 minute doses. You just can’t learn it all in high school. Your teacher (hopefully) did a great job of engaging you on the boards and in instilling a passion for bringing the playwright’s text to life.
See that lady above? That’s MY high school theatre teacher, Judy Leavell. How many students get the benefit of a having a teacher who is an active member of Actor’s Equity? I definitely learned more than most. But even the almighty Judy Leavell didn’t have the TIME to teach the lessons that follow. It’s not her fault, she was busy inspiring generations of kids to greatness!
So think back fondly on what you learned or are learning from your teacher and pretend that they themselves are delivering the following 10 lessons to you. After all, they would LIKE to teach you this. I hereby grant them claim to these lessons as their very own. There, that’s settled.
1. Acting is Work. Hard Work.
Lots of actors dream of moving to NYC or LA and becoming rich and famous – hey, why not?! After all, lots of people have become overnight sensations by simply being in the right place at the right time.
The reality, however, is that most of the actors you recognize as household names got their through the same path — they worked their butts off and were constantly creating!
Time for a little perspective:
- Mozart created over 600 pieces of music including 41 symphonies and over 40 operas and masses. Mozart died at age 35.
- Rembrandt created around 650 painting and 2,000 drawings.
- Picasso is believed to have created over 20,000 works in his lifetime.
- Shakespeare wrote 37 plays, 154 sonnets and 6 poems. At least those are the ones that were published.
What do these famous successes have in common? They all worked hard, focused on CREATING and eventually their hard work paid off. How does your work compare?
How many shows will you need to do before you are truly a great actor? A LOT.
2. Your Acting Muscle Requires Excercise.
If you wanted to be an artist, you’d have to draw or paint, right? And not just once or twice, here or there — you’d have to create something almost every day, and even then it would be months or years before people would consider you an artist.
So why is it that “actors” perform in one or two plays or read a scene in a class and they suddenly believe they have all of acting’s secrets?
If you really want to act, you’ve got to get out and ACT! Analyze that text, break it down, take it in, let it fester inside of you until you slowly let it out in the form of a highly complex character. And you have to do it often, not just here or there.
And that leads us to:
3. Failure and Rejection Will Eat Your Heart Out.
Teachers try to teach this, but they usually deliver this message cautiously because they don’t want to scare you away. But maybe they should. Maybe you need to know that it’s not all sunshine and kittens out there.
Too much coddling by your teacher and you’ll never develop the thick skin and the work ethic that you’re going to need to succeed in this business — and trust me, it IS a business.
My teacher taught me a great lesson. I showed up late for ONE rehearsal of the second show I ever worked on (You Can’t Take It With You). She sent me home and kicked me off the show! You want reality?! THAT’S reality! Eat it and love it, baby. That is the real world, and you have to be able to handle it. With a little hard work and perseverance, I recovered, but the lesson has definitely never left me.
In this business of show, we don’t tolerate whiners. We don’t put up with divas unless we’re paying them to be divas. If you don’t work hard, you’ll go home. If you don’t care every day at every rehearsal about your personal performance, you’ll be free to care about it when you’re unemployed and eating ramen noodles again.
Do you know why it’s so tough?
Simple. Because there are 100 actors for every open role, most of which complain about the same people being cast, completely unaware that those same people are being cast because they are reliable, hard-working actors with a personal accountability for their performances.
As Morgan Freeman said, “If you’re an actor, you’re an actor. Doing it is not the hard part. The hard part is getting to do it.”
4. There is No One Right Answer.
If there’s one thing that young actors have not quite figured out, it’s this: Reality is an ambiguous beast.
Aristotle taught a form of logic — that everything was black or white. You are either for us or against us. He is either good or bad. The sky is blue or it is not blue. But Aristotle was wrong! That way of thinking doesn’t represent reality at all. The world is gray, not black and white.
Young actors have teachers who help them find realistic choices. After muddling through a variety of unfeeling reads or fake emotions, the teacher will see a spark of something real and yell “YES! THAT’S IT!” Don’t make the mistake of believing that this was the only way to portray it. Heck, half the time your teacher may STILL not like the choice, but you’ve made progress, so let’s settle, shall we?
On stage as in life, there are no right answers, only right answers for the character as you have developed it.
And on that note:
5. Never Stop at the First Good Idea.
It can be comforting to gain the approval of your teacher or your director or your peers. All too often, we make a choice that gets a laugh or a gasp and we lock it in, quick to discard all of the many options that we haven’t even given the light of day.
What if one of those ideas is BETTER?!
When you have a great idea or choice, look for a better one until you have the one that is even better still. Thomas Edison’s best inventions were ones that were iterations of previous inventions, improved. Edison’s work on the telephone (transmission of audio) led to the phonograph (recording of audio) which led to motion pictures (recording of images). What great discovery is still waiting for you?
6. Act Outside The Box.
Nothing is more painful for me than working with actors who have learned acting “by rote.” They take their Stanislavski moment, and deliver a canned, generic and extremely predictable performance. Somewhere along the line, they never learned that acting isn’t necessarily predictable or logical.
Be sure to have a healthy dose of imagination in your work — include not only what the playwright declares that your character does, but also what you might imagine that he or she does. Be willing to step out of bounds and try a different approach, particularly in early rehearsals. Your discovery might just be the greatest ever.
7. See Things as You Are, Not as They Are.
By that I mean that you should choose to interpret your character’s experiences. Experiences by nature are neutral. The only meaning they have is the meaning you give to them. For example, a priest will see evidence of God at every turn. And an atheist? The absence of God in all the same places.
If Jimmy stands your character up at the altar, it can never seem real until you know what it MEANS to you. The event without the interpretation is of very little importance.
Your character’s reality is a collection of interpreted experiences. Start interpreting.
8. Strive for Critique.
Woe is the actor who receives no notes and is happy for it. I hope someone quotes me on that. Younger actors often play victim when they receive notes, quick to shut their ears and open their mouths, explaining why a certain choice was made. They’ve clearly missed the point.
Notes are something you should be begging for. After all, what is the value of an experienced director evaluating your performance and offering advice on how to improve it? Notes are often worth their weight in diamonds, yet actors seem ashamed to receive them.
Successful actors are always looking for feedback, because it allows them to grow as a performer. By the same rights, a well-balanced review can offer insights to a performer as food for thought. You can yell at the critic if you’d like, but why not try to understand their viewpoint first, even if you respectfully disagree.
9. Trust Your Instincts.
In school, you are just beginning to develop your instincts – that primordial gut feeling that guides you on how to deliver a line or how strong to come on in a heated scene. Whether for fear of making you over-confident or just lack of one-on-one time to discuss it, most of our teachers never said “Hey, you’re making great choices.”
As you grow on the stage, your instincts will get sharper and sharper. One day, you’ll realize you don’t really analyze things on a line by line basis any more. It just happens. Trust yourself. You’ve got this.
That being said, there often comes a time when a new director will broadside you by challenging those same instincts. Give someone else’s thoughts a try and see what happens. You’re never too old or too experienced to learn in the theatre.
You also need to trust your instincts about the choices you make in your career. Don’t listen to the naysayers just because they are experienced. Walt Disney was fired from his first job for “lacking imagination.” If someone says you can’t, you don’t HAVE to believe them. Listen to yourself. Decide for yourself.
10. Thank Those Who Help You Grow.
Along the course of your career, you’re bound to meet a select few who will truly mold and shape the actor or actress that you become. You don’t have to necessarily mention them in your Tony acceptance speech (although if I ever win one, I definitely will), but consider taking a moment to tell them how much you’ve gained from them and thank them for the time and commitment they showed to you along the way.
After all, they probably have a thankless job. But not any more.
[Thank you, Ms. Leavell. I could've been any other kid. You could've taught at some other school. We could've never met. You could've not taught me the many great lessons that you did. I have been very fortunate to live and work pursuing my passion for directing. And had our paths never crossed, I would never have come this far. Heck, I might have gone on to become an air traffic controller. I'm very happy with the life that I have lived, and very thankful to you for opening the door and letting me play in your world. Our world.]
Are there other things your theatre teacher didn’t teach you? Share them below!
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