July 2008 Archives

Randay Pausch passed away today from pancreatic cancer in his family's home in Chesapeake, Virginia.

The Apostle Paul counsels us in the 13th Corinthians, verse 11: When I was a child, I spake as a child, I felt as a child, I thought as a child: now that I am become a man, I have put away childish things.

Yet there are some childish things that should not be put away, and they are -- our Hopes and our Dreams. As Randay Pausch shared with the world in his last lecture, they are what we begin with, and they will be with us in the end -- if we keep, hold, and cherish them always.

And in living, and in dying, he showed us something else:

It is not in the stars to hold our destiny but in ourselves.
~ William Shakespeare

Thank you Randay Rausch, for sharing with us, and for giving us so very very much . . .

Time is All That Matters:

*(Be sure to give your opinion at the end of this post!)

Zoe Caldwell on her first Tony Award:

Alan Schneider [Director of Tennessee Williams' Slapstick Tragedy, Broadway, Longacre Theatre, (2/22/1966 - 2/26/1966)] insisted that Molly and Polly run all around the house.

"But, Alan, it says in the script we remain in our chairs."

"It will be funnier if you run around."

"Look, Alan, we are only ten days into rehearsal," I said. "I will never leave my chair so I suggest you get some actress who will. I am not cross, I am very grateful and I am out of here."

It was no use appealing to Tennessee. His truth was in the words, not in the slightly confused man who dropped in on rehearsals every day.

Alan rang to ask what would make me come back. "The assurance that I will do only what Williams has written." And a very big Alan Schneider said okay.

The play lasted two weeks and yet I won my first Tony -- not because I was brilliant but because Tennessee was.
(Zoë Caldwell, 1966 Tony Award® Best Featured Actress in a Play and the 1966 Theatre World Award, I Will Be Cleopatra: An Actress's Journey).

You're an "actor." It's Monday morning, the start of a new work week, and maybe you're off to your day job (or, like me, you're trying to figure out how to avoid getting one), and you're thinking:

. . . When is it all going to happen? How?! is it going to happen?

These are understandable questions and concerns, but -- they're not great questions.

They're not great questions because they cause you to focus on the wrong thing. Ask instead, How can I make it happen? What do I need to do to make it happen? And then believe -- know -- that a way exist.

The author's need is to write the play. The actor's most important need is to interpret the play.
(The Great Stella Adler, from the chapter "The Actor's First Approach To The Author" in her The Technique of Acting. Also author of the seminal acting book: The Art Of Acting)

I don't want to split hairs over terminology, but the word interpret shades too close to subjectivity for my taste, and whether Ms. Adler meant that or not -- probably not -- the reader could easily take that away from her dictum.

So, if you're an actor, to more clearly understand your First Approach To The Author, let's hear what Charles L. Mee has to say about his job: