The Secret Of Theatrical Space

Networking: Actor, Agents & Casting Director Meet-and-Greets

2008-09-06T15:36:36Z

A few weeks ago, Christopher Stadulis wrote a post about why actors need be meeting agents and casting directors at network houses, commonly called "meet-and-greets."

I thought it was a great example about why actors should be doing this, but then it led the question about how does actor go about doing "meet-and-greets?" What's a good strategy or plan? I asked Christopher the follow questions based on his experience as an actor who is just starting to break into the business at a professional level:

How much $$ can one expect to pay for meet and greets? (This is an important question because it has to do with ROI, something all actors with professional ambitions should be doing (because producers calculate ROI) -- even though when you're just starting out, it can be painful calculation because numerator is probably low if not zero. Yet tracking costs is a great habit to get into -- and an essential habit if you are or want to be a professional actor. In fact, a simple way to do this with mailings and meet-and-greet is to use this Marketing ROI Calculator. For meet-and-greets, just enter the number of meetings you've been having instead of the number of pieces of mailings you've been doing).

It all depends on a persons budget, but I would recommend to do a package deal since you will see a good amount of industry professionals and will save money by going that route.[At Breakthrough Studios] it usually costs $32 per meet with a CD, Agent or Manager of your choice. I recently signed up for the $599 special at Breakthrough Studios, which I love, to meet with as many industry professionals as I can within 1 month. I met with 35 total. A combination of CD's, Agents and Managers. If I were to see each other and pay individually, it would have cost me $2,000. So I saved $1,400 which is huge! (Christopher Stadulis).

]]> (An aside: I've been using The Actor's Alliance Studios in New York, which is a little less than Breakthrough Studios, but you can only attend The Actor's Alliance Studios by first auditioning. Both places often specific workshops, intensives, and classes, which I also recommend because the goal of these classes is to make you more successful when meeting industry professionals).

How does one choose how often to meet industry pros and how does one choose who to meet? (This is an important question because to answer it you should know, as best you can, your 1) type, 2) your strengths and interests, and 3) the relative opportunities with the specific areas of the industry, i.e., there may be more casting opportunities in the summers for commercials rather than the episodics -- that's just a guess, but you get the idea).

I look at the monthly calendar, which can be viewed on their web site, and I see who will be attending for that month. I then choose to see industry pros based on if I had recently seen them already (within 1 yr) or what types of projects they mostly cast for or are currently casting. (Christopher Stadulis).

How many monologues should one have prepared for meet and greets, and how to pick which monologues to use? (This question too gets at the whole issue of one's type. The more closely aligned your monologue is with your "type," the more successful you'll be. Also -- you should have a great coach and mentor in your corner to help you not only polish your monologues but to help you choose them. If you're looking a terrific acting and audition coach, I recommend Deborah Carlson who's approach is based on the work of Patsy Rodenburg. Also, if need expert help looking for a monologue for your type, check out Prudence Holmes -- she has a collection of over 5000 rarely-done monologues).

I picked monologues that are very much like my own personality/type. If an actor picks something that is his/her type, it will be very organic. Also, picking something that you can relate to is a big plus. It also helps you to connect. I have 2 monologues. One Dramatic and one comedy. I always go with the dramatic because that is more towards my type. If they ask for the comedic, then I give it to them. (Christopher Stadulis).

Does one get feedback from meet and greets and how helpful is it?

Yes. Everyone gets feedback. But you have to take everything with a grain of salt. Not everything a person says is true. It's all about their perception of you and where they see you in this industry. But I have received honest feedback and that's what you want. Not feedback just because you are paying them. (Christopher Stadulis).

What about cold readings -- how does one prepare for those?

For cold readings there is usually not much prep time. Sometimes a CD will ask you to look over a scene for 10-15 mins and then you will do it. Other times, you may go in to audition for a role and after you finish your scene, you may be asked to read for another role right there on the spot.

What I do is make a strong choice in my opening line. If I don't get the CD's attention at the very beginning of my scene, there's a very good chance I will lose him/her. (This is actually terrific advice -- it's always harder to get someone's attention than it is to keep their attention, so -- be sure to have a "moment before" any monologue and your first line if you're starting a scene).

Remember, they do not expect you to memorize lines for a cold read. Focus on telling the story and bringing yourself to the character. I used to get caught up in trying to memorize and would also try to figure out what they are looking for. That's a big NO-NO! When you try to give them what you think they are looking for, it comes across as bad acting. And that's exactly what it is, ACTING. You don't want to act, you simply want to be DOING and speaking TRUTH. (Christopher Stadulis).

I finally asked Christopher what had he learned from the work he's booked and what he has learned about how to handle himself on a professional set.

I learned that this is a business and where I see myself best in this industry. And the jobs that I have booked were for roles where I walk in the door, I already am that character. They call it typecast, I call it putting your dues in. An actor usually doesn't get an opportunity to take on other roles that will stretch themselves until they have clout in the BIG leagues. Until then, take what comes your way and ride that wave.

I would love to get roles that Philip Seymour Hoffman or Daniel Day Lewis play but that is not being realistic. They are not my type. You have to ask yourself, if you were to audition for roles in the BIG leagues, what types of roles could you be cast for. Not what roles you'd like to be cast for. You have to be realistic and logical in this business. And understanding where you fit in best will help your career dramatically.

On a professional set, always be professional, polite to EVERYONE, friendly and listen. Listen more than speak. Try to learn as much as you can. Even when I'm not in a scene, I observe and pick up as much as I can. An actor should learn the technical side as well. (Christopher Stadulis).

Acting is Breathing, Connecting and Presence

2008-08-29T19:33:38Z

Jim True Frost on the value of theater work:

The deep process and craft that you employ in the rehearsals and in the nightly repetition of a theatre job provide a way into acting that camera work never can have (Jim True Frost, Interview, ActorsLife.com).

. . . the deep process and craft, the value of a nightly theater job -- there's nothing like it for growing and learning.

I've been blessed with a fairly long run of the Cat and Moon -- about 6 weeks, and I can't remember working harder on a play after it's opened.

Breathing

Deborah Carlson's Word Of Mouth Studios hammers home, almost each week, the directive to speak no faster than you can breathe. Patsy Rodenburg calls this letting the breath drop.

I find this difficult to do partly because I'm not used to doing it, partly because I'm worried I'll drag a scene down pace wise, and partly because characters are often in an excited or heightened state, i.e., they're thinking and speaking rapidly.

However, if I go faster than I can breathe & think, I speak before my body and mind are naturally ready to speak -- what Ms. Rodenburg calls this getting ahead of the text.

]]> So, despite my fears, I'm been forcing myself to go no faster than I can speak.

I first noticed it's power in the Last Jew In Europe. There the first director, out of stylistics concerns, wanted us to speak as rapidly as we could -- which was fine -- but I, at least, found myself going faster than I could breath, i.e., my breath wasn't fully dropping in, so I was speaking more from my head and chest, never really tapping into the power that is at one's center.

By rushing to my lines, there was no time to take it in what the other actors were doing and to let it mix with my response. Without letting the breath drop, I was just spouting my line back with no real connection or power or truth behind what I was saying . . .

. . . until one night, I said the hell with my fears and resolved to not speak until my breath fully dropped. I found it hard to do this deliberately because it takes some attention away from my partner, away from what's going on (which is why I need to practice doing this until it becomes automatic), but nevertheless, it had some great effects, and the effects -- surprisingly enough -- were on my partner!

On just a few lines, on the few occasions when I could do this, it made me speak with "truth" and "power," and the person I was acting with was almost "captured" by what I said -- I could see it in their eyes: for just a moment, they were really paying attention to me because I had just really meant what I said, and they knew it.

They almost had to pay attention to me, and that automatically influenced their response.

I've been doing this more with the Cat and The Moon. During previews and rehearsals, the director's sharp eye was catching me pushing lines with my head (I play a man who can't walk, so I'm sitting on the stage most of the performance). I wasn't aware I was doing this -- but I was very aware of speaking before I was ready, i.e., rushing to my line, taking a quick gasp of air before I spoke.

Because the line had no real truth or power, I "pushed" or empathized with my head or hands. In short, the "intent" was mostly there, but I wasn't sending it to the other actor.

Deborah Carlson's Word Of Mouth Studios had me on the floor at home with a broomstick over my shoulders and my arms draped over the broomstick. I'm sitting as I would in the play, and I'm running lines by myself. This is to keep my head and hands still.

Her idea -- and it works! -- is that it'll keep my head and hands and body still and make it easier for me to speak from my center, i.e., let my breath drop down to my diaphragm and to speak from there. It's a great technique (for me) because unlike in rehearsal or performance, there's no pressure, and I can simply let myself do this to get used to doing this, to develop the habit.

I've also noticed something else -- I hold my stomach in (vanity). It's not like I have a significant tire around my middle, but I do have a slight tummy, and I hold that in.

I can't do that when I'm working -- it makes it harder for me to breathe freely, and it introduces extra tension in my body.

Judy Dench said (said apparently, because I can't find an online source) that she realized she was a serious and committed actor when during rehearsals one day, she realized she was holding her tummy in (for normal vanity reasons), but -- she found she couldn't act if she did that, so she just let it all hang out for the world to see.

During the last couple of nights, I've been taking all this into performance, and again -- the biggest effect I've noticed as been on the other actors.

At one point, I tell one character he never should have been born, and rather than push or "bark" that with a lot of tension in my throat and neck and face, I instead let my breath fully drop -- and I suddenly felt what I wanted to say to him really drop in me. Right from my center, with almost no tension anywhere but a lot of "dark" power, I said this to him, and I didn't (as I usually do) have to try to mean it -- I meant it: it just filled me and came out, and I swear there was almost a beat and his eyes opened a tiny bit wider, as if it I had taken him, the person, the actor himself, by surprise. HE, the person he is, responded to me, just for an instant, and in that instant, he looked hurt. He wasn't trying to act hurt, it just happened.

He really, for that instant, connected with me, eye to eye, and (to me) he looked taken aback, just for a moment.

The other night, in another scene with an actor, again, I didn't rush to my lines but really listened and let my breath drop, and I was aware of how different the my lines sounded that night. I wasn't tying to make them sound different, and I wasn't trying to listen to myself, but I was aware of more specificy, more color, more power or truth in my lines, and -- as a testament to how badly I must usually act -- this seemed to take the actor by surprise, so much much so, he went off his lines in a couple of places.

Again, I could see in his eyes him really connecting and listening to me, and -- that seem to throw him.

So, next time you complain that someone isn't listening or paying attention to you -- make sure first that you're giving them something to really listen and pay attention to: yourself, your presence.

Beliefs, Success, and Happy Birthday to Me!

2008-08-27T21:42:14Z

We have time to grow old.
~ Vladimir, Waiting For Godot

Today is my birthday.

I was worried about how I would feel -- often I don't acknowledge my birthday (because I don't want to be reminded that time is a thing and the growing older as we go through it), but this is a significant birthday.

Long long ago, I wanted to be an actor. It was all I ever wanted to be, and I'm more convinced of that now than ever before.

So, why did I wait so long?

]]> I had been acting and painting and writing extensively in a city high school, so much so, I forgot to go to my other classes and almost didn't graduate, and -- I didn't care. I was happy, Happy, HAPPY.

In addition to being in everything, i.e., leads in the musicals (I couldn't sing a note, but I auditioned well, so they cast me), Saturday Night Live-esque revues, the senior play, I was also designing all the program covers and designing and painting huge joyous scenery flats. In Love with everything, and dreaming -- of going to New York City . . .

I remember clearly the day, the time of day, I decided that I wasn't good enough to become an actor.

It was a warm spring evening, a month or so after graduation, and a few months before my 18th birthday. It was time to decide what I wanted to do. Decide what I wanted to do. I knew what I wanted to do -- what I was deciding was whether or not I could do it.

That was my first mistake. Self-doubt.

And then I couldn't see myself doing it, going to New York -- I could see N.Y.C so clearly, I could see what I wanted to do, but . . . I couldn't see myself doing it (I wasn't in that picture. Better people were). And then I decided, no, I felt I couldn't do it, I decided that I wasn't good enough, and I let it all go.

Two months earlier at the graduation party when they handed out "most likely to ..." and "best whatever," I was awarded the titles: Class Actor and Class Clown (class clown because I was always on stage, the city high school was a bit rough, and -- everybody loves, or at least doesn't beat up, a clown). I didn't get Class Artist -- but I wanted that too, so it wasn't a clean sweep. I acknowledged these honors, these things I was really proud of, by falling down, on purpose, to get a laugh. But -- I fell down. I was becoming what I thought.

I never went to New York City.

Years and years later, in school, I fell deeply in love, for the first (& only) time, with a talented & beautiful dancer, but -- only later I realized, I fell in love with more than a beautiful dancer. I fell in love with what she was doing, her world, her dreams. After a year, she broke up with me, and I was beyond devastated -- I was annihilated. I was completely broken down (deliberately using the passive voice here). Everything, everything in this life for me was gone. I had nowhere to go. There was no place or time anywhere on this earth for me.

But then -- I don't know, a miracle? I landed a research scholarship at Rutgers University (and I was lousy at research!), 30 miles or so south-east of N.Y.C. (Before she broke up with me, she was talking about going to N.Y.C, the dance capital of the world, so in anticipation, I applied to this program, and I was accepted).

So with nowhere else to go, I went out east to New Jersey, and in the midst of nothingness, at the end of the world for me, I remembered what I had always wanted to be. The great love that I was in separated: my love for her and my love for who I really wanted to be, who I always wanted to be.

That very day, I resigned my fellowship, and I moved to N.Y.C. The rest is a new history.

A Lesson, and A Word about Belief

So, today I say to a God I don't know if I really believe in -- thank you, Thank You, THANK YOU for my health, for letting be in N.Y.C., for my apartment, for Deborah Carlson (my great teacher, coach and mentor), for all that I have, and for letting me do all this now. I don't have regrets, for some reason, about all the time gone because I'm doing it now. I'm doing it right now.

In The Magic of Thinking Big, there is a quote:

The size of your success is determined by the size of your belief.

In You'll See It When You Believe It, there is advice:

Work each day on your thoughts rather than concentrating on your behavior. It is your thinking that creates the feelings that you have and ultimately your actions as well.

And it all struck me this morning: am I learning about acting -- or life? When I read this advice, I immediately turned the book over to double check its title because I thought for second, am I reading a book about acting because this! is what acting is:

We are what we speak . . . [it all starts with the character's words, their thoughts] . . . make each thought sound as if it is the first and only time it has lived in you . . . [then] see and experience every image as you speak . . . [and then] allow these words [and thoughts] to transform you . . . Shakespeare understood that as enormous feelings pass through us, our world fragments and reorders itself. (Pasty Rodenburg, Speaking Shakespeare).

Thoughts lead to feelings, which leads to transformation, which leads to action! (behavior). It's how we create a character -- it's how we create ourselves; it is how we act -- it is who we are.

This morning, the morning of my birthday:

(Thomas Tallis (ca. 1505 - 1585), Tallis: Spem in Alium)

'The Dramatic Imagination' by Robert Edmond Jones

2008-08-26T21:36:19Z

Written for stage designers, this beautiful little book, The Dramatic Imagination: Reflections and Speculations on the Art of the Theatre, is one of the first theater books I read. It is one of the great speculations and reflections on the Theater.

While “The Dramatic Imagination” won’t teach you how to design for the Theatre, it will teach you (or remind you) WHY you design for the Theatre -- you design to keep it alive. And while the copyright is c. 1940, the goal of the book for the Theatre Design and Performance Arts today is as it originally was – to create a theater for OUR time. The goal of this book will always be relevant – it will always be a guide.]]> Robert Edmond Jones was not only crafting stage designs, he was crafting a vision of the human soul in flight in ways that had yet to be embodied on the stage, and this book is a testament to that goal. What’s beautiful, amazing, about what REJ has put down here, is a ‘vision eternal’ of the Theatre. He does not write of a ‘Theatre of the future,’ he writes of an ‘ideal Theater,’ a theatre ‘not yet made with hands’ . . . ‘not yet made with hands’ because it is a Theatre and a vision born of the heart. And it is from the heart that true Theatre springs.

I don’t know if Robert Edmond Jones would agree, but it does not matter whether those of use working in Theatre today achieve that vision of the heart – what’s important is that we always have, that we never forget, that vision of the heart: the things of the senses, the “real” fades into memory and crystallizes into truth, beauty, wonder & . . . astonishment.

Read this wonderful, beautifully written book.

Courtney Love! It's Great ARt!sts Friday!

2008-08-22T15:41:51Z

Each Friday (more or less -- mostly less), I like to post what I call either "Fired! Up Fridays" or "Great ARt!sts Friday." Today it's -- "Great ARt!sts Friday!"

Today, Courtney Love and I became myspace friends -- yes, she does have 53,000 other friends, and counting, but I know our's is special.

]]> From Kinderwhore, to Live Through This, to her critically acclaimed role of Althea in Miloš Forman’s 1996 film The People vs. Larry Flynt, I give you my favs: Violet and Doll Parts from the Live Through This LP and Malibu from The Celebrity Skin LP:

Voilet from the Live Through This LP:

A few months after Kurt's suicide and bassist Kristen Pfaff's overdose, Hole promoted Live Through This at the at the Reading Festival in England. The legendary John Peel was there as witness:

Courtney’s first appearance backstage certainly caught the attention. Swaying wildly and with lipstick smeared on her face, hands and, I think, her back, as well as on the collar of her dress, the singer would have drawn whistles of astonishment in Bedlam. After a brief word with supporters at the foot of the stage, she reeled away, knocking over a wastebin, and disappeared. Minutes later she was onstage giving a performance which verged on the heroic...Love steered her band through a set which dared you to pity either her recent history or that of the band...the band teetered on the edge of chaos, generating a tension which I cannot remember having felt before from any stage (John Peel, London Guardian, August 30, 1994).

and Doll Parts:

and finally, the shinning Malibu:

Other Great Brooklyn & New York City-based artists to check out:

DJ Charlotte Balibar, From Paris to Brooklyn

Tight Chocolate

The Dead Betties

Agent & Casting Director Meet-and-Greets: Why Actors Need To Network

2008-08-13T06:01:07Z

Lately I have been asked by many actor friends and acquaintances if they should pay to meet CD's, Agents and Managers.

My answer is simple- YES, ABSOLUTLEY. Actors should attend what are called MEET & GREETS. This is where you pay to meet a CD, Agent or Manager of your choice to show them your work and personality.

]]> So far I have met with 50 industry professionals ranging from CD's, Agents and Managers and have kept all of them updated with my career via postcards.

Yesterday, I met with Legit Agent Judy Boals @ Breakthroughstudios. The audition/meeting went very very well. I did a monologue and then we spoke for about 6 minutes about things ranging from the business to our children. She is very real, down to earth and easy to speak to.

While waiting to see her, I ran into Paul Davis (who is a CD at Calleri Casting- they cast "Lipstick Jungle") and I refreshed his memory as to who I am and that we met several months ago. I also told him I have been sending him career updates and also sent my new headshot/resume, which he requested when we first met.

He then said, "If you happen to have another headshot/resume on you, I'd love to take it". I said, "Here you go" and handed it to him. He then asked if I know Nadia, who happen to be standing next to him. I stated, "No" and reached my hand out and introduced myself to her.

She is a casting director at Bowling/Miscia/Lubbe casting. Her name is Nadi Lubbe.

I didn't ask her if I could give her my resume/headshot because I guess I didn't want to look like an actor who's whoring himself, lol. But what I did do was go home, look Bowling/Miscia/Lubbe up on IMDBpro and after finding the address, I sent a headshot/resume with cover letter stating that we were introduced by Paul Davis at Breakthrough Studios.

(She has worked on "New Amsterdam", "The Black Donnelly's", "Mad Men", "Kidnapped", "The Bedford Diaries", "Third Watch" and a host of major feature films)

My point to this story is to NETWORK, NETWORK, NETWORK and always have extra headshots/resumes on you as well as business cards. When I go out to dinner with my wife, I bring headshots/resumes and keep them in the car just in case.

Although business cards are great when you run into someone in the biz that does not want to carry an 8x10 around with them, lol.

So I paid to meet Judy Boals, ran into Paul Davis, which I was able to give my headshot/resume to directly and he introduced me to another casting director, Nadia Lubbe. It's a win-win situation. Once CD's get to know you, they are more likely to call you in to audition for a role that they think you'd be good for. And make sure when you submit for something, make it project and role specific. It makes their job much easier.

Best,
Christopher Stadulis

Acting: How to Think and Feel like the Character

2008-08-11T01:43:47Z

(More than in any other play, what follows is the basic technique I've been trying to use during Cat & The Moon rehearsals).

Shakespeare, through Claudius, gives us a great description of bad acting:

My words fly up, my thoughts remain below:
Words without thoughts never to heaven go.
~ Claudius, Hamlet, 3.3

Connecting Thought To Breath

Pasty Rodenburg makes essentially two points about a character's thoughts in her book: The Actor Speaks:

[1)] I think many members of an audience sit and listen without understanding a speech or even a whole play because the actor or actors have not understood the thought, the length of the thought, or one though's connection to another . . . [and 2)] . . . the [actor's] breath is linked to the length and quality of the [character's] thought and feeling . . .

(A full discussion of the relationship between thought and breath and voice is too broad to unpackaged here -- if you want to know more, start with one of these two resources: The Actor Speaks and/or A Voice of Your Own or try to find a good teacher than understands Rodenburg's approach. If you live in New York City, one of the best teachers that understands Rodenburg's approach is Deborah Carlson. She's also a terr!f!c coach with students currently on Broadway and in Broadway touring companies).

It's easier to hear what she's taking about rather than describe it, but I'll do my best:

]]> One symptom that an actor is having trouble communicating a character's thought to another character is when the actor, as Pasty describes it, "falls off the line" or "drops the end of the line." Basically, the actor is not supporting or holding the thought "up" as they speak and the line. Often what happens is pronouns, adverbs and adjectives are "pushed," i.e., either inflected up or down relative to the rest of the line. A clear symptom of trouble is when the last word or words in a line are inflected down- or upward relative to the words that have just come before.

Pasty Rodenburg, in Speaking Shakespeare explains it better than I can. Assume that a character needs 8 lines or sentences to communicate one thought -- that's unusual, but assume this just to follow the argument. If the actor "drops" any one of these lines, the audience (and the other actors) won't be able to really follow and understand what the character is saying:

The onward dynamic of the line becomes so interrupted that the audience loses it's essential energy and sense. And every time the audience hears the line fall, it assumes the thought is over -- which makes the eight-line thought (necessarily a long and complicated one) impossible to follow.

The actor might be feeling and experiencing something very deeply during those eight lines, but -- no one is going to know exactly why because they won't be able to follow the character. The actor might be experiencing a lot of passion -- but about what exactly? If this happens consistently, the play is lost on the audience (and the actors).

She gives another example: Isabella's verse speech from Measure for Measure:

To whom should I complain? Did I tell this,
Who would believe me? O perilous mouths . . .

The first complete thought run from "To" to me?" There are two lines here with the first and last words being:

First           Last
To              this
Who           mouths

First, speak the text but "drop" the last word "this," as if the thought ends there. While you're at it, drop "complain" too. Then drop "me." If an actors acts the lines like this, they will NOT be going though the experience that Isabella is having. They may be going through their own experience -- but not her's, and that's the actors job. The actor need to hold up those two lines and not drop "complain" and "this:"

If you launch yourself on the first word of a line and aim to hit the target on the last, you won't fall off the line . . . As long as you have spoken each word completely, touching each syllable and final consonant, you will have felt the kick of energy that starts the line and how it is harnessed on the last word . . . Thus, 'To' throws you forward, and the s on 'this' hisses you into the second line, completing the thought mid-way to 'me.' (Pasty Rodenburg, Speaking Shakespeare).

Next time you're in rehearsal or at a play, listen to how an actor speaks though a line -- are they speaking right though to the end, holding it "up" right to the last word, or are they dropping the end of the sentence? Actors who really understand what the character is trying to say will almost never "fall off" the end of the line or stress unimportant words over the words that carry most of the meaning.

Pasty suggests a terrific exercise to get a handle on this:

First, pick a line which is one complete thought to work though. This exercise can be particularly informative about a [character's] thought that troubles you or that you don't fully understand, e.g., "To be or not to be, that is the question."

* Build up the thought breath by breath and word by word: breath -> 'To'; breath -> 'To be'; breath -> 'To be or'; breath -> 'To be or not' etc.
* Gradually build up the complete thought. Never speak until you are ready. When the thought has been worked thought in this way, speak it straight through and see what you experience.
* Now move on to a longer thought and repeat the same pattern: breath -> 'Whether'; breath -> 'Whether 'tis'; breath -> 'Whether 'tis nobler', etc.

By building up the words on a deep, supported breath, you have to confront each word intellectually and emotionally. You have to stay in the moment with each word. You cannot dodge a word or slide over it. (Patsy Rodenburg, The Actor Speaks, Exercise 49: Building-up Support).

While I hate the director's directive "you need to pick up the pace," and I really REALLY hate speed thoughs (especially if the intention is to get the actors to go faster in performance), they can be a director's attempt to "fix" a problem they're hearing with an actor's reading, but -- if often creates more problems than it solves:

Many directors working with a young actor who cannot sustain a long thought will try and circumvent the problem by asking him or her to speak quickly. I understand the thinking behind this request: thoughts, spoken quickly, can help communicate a lengthy idea. But the piece of direction has drawbacks. Asked to quicken their pace, actors frequently are panicked into gasping and losing their breath connection to the words. Sense is soon garbled [i.e., the audience can't follow the dialogue, the play, can't understand, really, what the characters are talking about]. (Pasty Rodenburg, The Actor Speaks).

And in case you think this is just some weird acting technique that has nothing to do with language and how people (who speak well) really speak, check this out:

Gary Provost wrote a terrific book almost 40 years ago that is still a best seller (100 Ways to Improve Your Writing), and he has a neat section (that took me by surprise) called “Put Emphatic Words at the End,” and I’ll just quote the advice he gives to burgeoning and seasoned writers:

Emphatic words are those words you want the reader (or hearer) to pay special attention to. They contain the information you are most anxious to communicate. You can acquire that extra attention for those words by placing them at the end of the sentence.

He continues:

This is a lesson best learned by ear. Listen to how the impact of a sentence moves to whatever information happens to be at the end.

Shakespeare didn’t write: I come not to praise Caesar, but to bury him.
He wrote: I come to bury Caesar, not to praise him.

JFK didn’t write: Ask what you can do for America, not what America can do for you.
He wrote: Ask not what your country can do for you - ask what you can do for your country.

So, great writers know where to put the really important stuff – at the end!

I Am Not Alone: In the Top 50 of all Performing Arts Blogs on Blogged.com

2008-08-03T16:03:25Z

A while ago -- a long while ago, I think -- I submitted this blog to the Performing Arts Category in Blogged.com. Blogged.com offers ratings and reviews of the blogs in its directory based upon the quality of writing and how often a site is updated. Blogs are initially reviewed by the Blogged.com “team”, but if enough visitors rank and review the blog, then that takes precedence.

Well -- yesterday, out of the blue, I got this in my in-box from Ms. Liu & the Marketing Department of www.blogged.com:

]]>

Dear Christopher,

Our editors recently reviewed your blog and have given it an 8.3 score out of (10) in the Entertainment/Performing Arts category of Blogged.com.
This is quite an achievement!

http://www.blogged.com/directory/entertainment/performing-arts

We evaluated your blog based on the following criteria: Frequency of Updates, Relevance of Content, Site Design, and Writing Style.

After carefully reviewing each of these criteria, your site was given its 8.3 score.

We’ve also created Blogged.com score badges with your score prominently displayed. Simply visit your website’s summary page on Blogged.com:

Click on the "Show this rating on your blog!" link underneath the score and follow the instructions provided.

Please accept my congratulations on a blog well-done!!

Sincerely,

Amy Liu
Marketing Department
amy@blogged.com
www.blogged.com

Please visit the other blogs and websites in the Performance Arts Category, and those in the Performance Arts > Acting category where this blog is ranked number 3!

Cat & The Moon Opening. Part of THE BEST OF 13th St. Rep. Play Festival

2008-08-02T22:13:17Z

One of the largest and most physically and vocally demanding roles I've had to date, Tom O'Neal's The Cat And The Moon went into previews last week and opened this Thursday, 07 . 31 .2008.
]]> 13th Street Repertory Company general manager), Sandra:

Saw the last 2/3rds last night. You were very strong, very real. I'll be seeing it again tonight or tomorrow.

Congratulations!!

More important than your mom or the director -- always keep the producers happy! (just kidding mom & Kim! :)

Randy Rausch (October 23, 1960 – July 25, 2008)

2008-07-25T19:27:08Z

When a person seems so alive, so full, so present and here, it doesn't seem possible that such a person could really die -- but, of course, they can . . .

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:

Directors, Directing & Plays: What is Job of a Theater Director?

2008-07-23T14:00:33Z

*(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).

]]> How to read, discover, and understand what's going on a play, how to use rehearsals to discover what the playwright intends, is a huge topic. I'm not an expert, but I know one thing -- the text, the playwright's words, are not "just words" for communicating pre-conceived emotions, thoughts, or intentions. The thoughts and intentions are IN the line (see Patsy Rodenburg's Speaking Shakespeare for more about this).

When trying to understand a play, a director and actor are on the right path IF they stick to, adhere, and look nowhere else other than the playwright's words.

If a director goes "off the reservation," off the text, and -- worse -- if they choose to do it, then you've got an incompetent director, and you have to make a choice: 1) leave the show or 2) stay and do the best job you can, but understand (as Zoe Caldwell did) that the play will never be what it is meant to be, you'll be forced to work in ways that will slow your growth as an actor, and you won't be able to do your best work.

For example, I played the Husband in a show where the text was:

Wife: How many do you want me to slaughter for the wedding?
Husband: As many as the Lord said.
Wife: How many did He say?
Husband: I think I heard Him say ten. That is, if He spoke Polish. If He didn't, I don't know what He said.
Wife: Ten cows? How many people do you expect to come?!

During one rehearsal, this accidentally came out because the actress playing the Wife came in too soon:

Wife: How many do you want me to slaughter for the wedding?
Husband: As many as the Lord said.
Wife: How many did He say?
Husband: I think I heard Him say ten.
Wife: Ten cows? How many people do you expect to come?!
Husband: That is, if He spoke Polish. If He didn't, I don't know what He said.

After, the director intoned that if this, or anything else like it, happened during rehearsal or performance, then this is what should happen during rehearsal & performance.

The director explained that if an actor at any time feels an impulse to speak, they should do so, and the other actor should just keep talking over the other actor even if it means the line gets lost for the audience. Of course, the change became a permanent part of the show, and this changed the play (at least a small part of it).

Why is this bad (in case it's not obvious)? Hamlet, as usual, explains it all:

Speak the speech, I pray you, as I pronounced it to
you, trippingly on the tongue: but if you mouth it,
as many of your players do, I had as lief the
town-crier spoke my lines.
.
.
.
And let those that play
your clowns speak no more than is set down for them;
for there be of them that will themselves laugh, to
set on some quantity of barren spectators to laugh
too; though, in the mean time, some necessary
question of the play be then to be considered:
that's villanous, and shows a most pitiful ambition
in the fool that uses it. (Hamlet, 3,.3)

Patsy Rodenburg, in Speaking Shakespeare, explains why Hamlet is so insistent on his advice to the players, and why players and directors should consider EVERY play to have such high stakes:

Remember how important the play within the play is to Hamlet. He needs the performance to be strong and truthful to expose his uncle's guilt. It matters that the play is acted well. It is not a casual piece of entertainment: it is a carefully planned tool.

it is a carefully planned tool . . . speak no more than is set down for them . . .

While this isn't all there is to directing, Hamlet's advice is the critical starting point: understand the words, trust them, and then get out of the way:

Our job is not to get in the way of the playwright's words. We're in big trouble when you hear actors talk about themselves as 'artists.' We're more like priestesses and priests. We take the word from the playwright to the populace. If you don't get in the way too much, the audience will understand exactly what the playwright wants them to know. If you start bringing your own life into it -- saying, "Oh, my God, if I dug deeply enough, I can remember a time when I was so hurt...blah, blah, blah.' That's fine. Write your own play. (Zoë Caldwell, I Will Be Cleopatra: An Actress's Journey)

To see what can be accomplished by sticking with Zoë Caldwell's advice, I give you -- Medea:

Shout !t Out! Tell us what You Th!nk!

Shout !t Out! Results:

Acting: Attitude + Knowledge = Sucess and Winning

2008-07-07T16:10:05Z

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.

]]> Attitude and Knowledge

By asking the question How can I make it happen? your attention will be directed in the right direction, and -- you'll be ready to take action. Ah . . . but what actions, you're asking. That's another productive question.

If you haven't checked out Bob Fraser's myspace blog, do so now (or ASAP). He's currently writing a series of blog posts on the business side of acting and the required mindset you need to become a professional actor. Some titles:

And Another Terrific Resource

The business side of anything, e.g., from selling cookies to selling one's acting skills, is not a skill set that one can take for granted -- nor are these skills and the required assoicated mind-set obvious or second nature to most people. Everyone who sells anything has had to learn how to do it. The business side of acting is no different, in principle, from the business side of any other profession.

A great resource for actors, I think, is a publication called Sucess Magazine. It will help you 1) focus on the principle skills, the foundational skills you need to succeed. (For knowledge about the specific ins and outs of "show biz," you'll need to get that from somewhere else, e.g., check out these great "how to" books):

and 2) Sucess Magazine focuses on the critical mindset behind every successful person, behind every person who's faced significant challenges and obstacles and then overcame them to go where they needed to go.

Success Magazine is primarily a business magazine about and for real people -- and for ACTORS too!. Each issue of Success brings readers stories of real people who have achieved success in business and in life, and described, step-by-step, how they got there and how you can too! You can subscribe to it by clicking on the image below:

and least you start thinking: gosh -- is it always about making money, making more money? The answer is No.

Charles Kingsley (A British Anglican Clergyman, Teacher and Writer whose novels, widely read in the Victorian era, influenced social developments in Britain. 1819-1875) said it best:

We act as though comfort and luxury were the chief requirements in life, when all we need to make us really happy is something to be enthusiastic about.

Be in love with acting, be enthusiastic about what you have to offer, what you have to SHARE. That's really what you're doing when you're "selling" something you really believe in.

The Actor and the Play: What is your Job?

2008-07-02T15:28:10Z

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:

]]>

Now and then I would tell my friends that I might become a writer. And sometimes someone would reply: "What do you have to say?"

I had nothing to say; it was just something I could do sitting down [Mee contracted polio at the age of 14]. It wasn't until years later I realized that writing is not about saying something, it is about discovering something.
(Charles Mee, A Nearly Normal Life, brackets and italics mine)

Mee isn't alone in gaining such insight about the nature of his work. Consider another highly creative endeavor: science. What does a scientist do?

The significance and joy in my science comes in those occasional moments of discovering something new and saying to myself, 'So that's how God did it.' My goal is to understand a little corner of God's plan.
(Henry "Fritz" Schaefer, Graham Perdue Professor of Chemistry and director of the Center for Computational Quantum Chemistry at the University of Georgia).

and

The important thing in science is not so much to obtain new facts as to discover new ways of thinking about them.
(Sir William Bragg).

If you were to come to Dr. Schaefer, as a potential student, and say I'm interested in learning how to interpret data from the energetics and spectroscopy of condensed matter using wave-function-based methods, he would probably "get" what you meant by "interpret," but he would probably correct you by saying that what you really want to do is discover new patterns and relationship in the data, discover how they might help answer the major field questions of the day, because that's exactly and precisely what you would be doing.

Least you think science is just about discovering facts -- think about that second quote above. When you were a young child, you looked up, and saw, day after day, the sun and stars rise in the east and set in the west. That was an observable fact.

And you probably thought -- wow, the sun and stars are moving around us in a big circle! Later, you would learn to think about that observation, that "fact," in a different way -- in a way that is more in alignment with the true nature of, as Dr. Schaefer puts it, "God's Plan." That is the point of science. Formally, this is exactly what Copernicus did: combining mathematics, physics, and cosmology into a new discovery of how the heavens move as they do.

And the job of an actor is -- probably non-intuitively -- much like that of the scientist:

Polanyi was a well–known physical chemist in England who later became even better known as a philosopher. In The Way of Discovery, he makes the point that scientists are not robots, mechanically filling up notebooks with data and coming to inevitable conclusions. To put it another way, science is not just an exercise in advanced logical positivism.

Rather, Polanyi argues, there is much of the artist in the good scientist, and he or she approaches the laboratory with a wealth of presuppositions and intuitions about how things should be.

I can confirm Polanyi's thesis with an example from my own research. In 1978, one of the most distinguished organic chemists in the world suggested that it was just a matter of time before someone would make the cyclopropyne molecule. Since cyclopropyne would contain a carbon–carbon triple bond in a three–membered ring, my own chemical intuition was very skeptical about such a suggestion. Guided by this presupposition, we were able to demonstrate that cyclopropyne does not involve a triple bond.
(Henry "Fritz" Schaefer).

The scientists' job is to discover what is OUT THERE. And what is OUT THERE is independent and separate from us -- it isn't what we want it to be, hope it to be, wish it to be, "think" it to be. It is what it is.

A play is The Universe, and your JOB is to discover what IT is. It's NOT subjective. It's NOT arbitrary.

Our job is not to get in the way of the playwright's words. We're in big trouble when you hear actors talk about themselves as 'artists.' We're more like priestesses and priests. We take the word from the playwright to the populace. If you don't get in the way too much, the audience will understand exactly what the playwright wants them to know. If you start bringing your own life into it -- saying, "Oh, my God, if I dug deeply enough, I can remember a time when I was so hurt...blah, blah, blah.' That's fine. Write your own play. (Zoë Caldwell, I Will Be Cleopatra: An Actress's Journey)

I've posted a lot about how to go about discovering what IS there on the page: You can read one of this blogs most popular posts on the subject here:

If you're interested in more about this, check out:

and

My Day Job: The Matrix, Chaos, and Freedom

2008-06-18T14:56:27Z

Many actors and actor blogs, at some point, get around to talking about their "day job." I won't get into why this is, and or what a "day job" is to someone who's goal is to become a professional actor, but suffice to say that I've avoid the topic here since this blog's inception -- until now.

Now . . . I want to share.

]]> Since my “career” (acting) is based on pretend and doesn't pay a cent (so far), I thought – “why should my day job be any different?”

So -- I’m proud to announce that I'm now a human warrior in “The World of Warcraft” (level 36, so far) in Azeroth defending the Alliance against the Kalimordor horde. I also made my “character” a hot HOT babe so all the big guys (human and non-human) will come to my rescue when I get into trouble – and it works!

I wrote an article about my new day job here:

What is the World of Warcraft? It's The Matrix (v1.0) And a Great Metaphor for Freedom (It's a Brave, New, and Scary Scary World)

I obviously have no real life to speak of – and ya know, I kind of like it that way . . . And now -- between acting and my “day job” -- my life (or lack of it) is in blissful harmonic alignment.

Money would just throw everything out of balance.

Remembered Joy . . . and Legacy: Tim Russert (1950-2008)

2008-06-17T07:55:34Z

The outpouring of grief and love for Tim Russert has been, I think, to many people, a surprise -- but it shouldn't have been.

If you have time in the coming days and weeks and months and years, browse the tributes to Tim Russert on youTube, and you'll be struck with two questions:

What kind of person am I?

How will I be remembered?

Tim Russert's impact and influence went well beyond his journalistic excellence. His greatest excellence was the lasting and positive and uplifting impact he had on his friends and his family. Tim was showered in love because he gave so much to those he loved.

An old old Irish blessing and prayer: Remembered Joy

Don't grieve for me, for now I'm free!
I follow the plan God laid for me.
I saw His face, I heard His call,
I took His hand and left it all...
I could not stay another day,
To love, to laugh, to work or play;
Tasks left undone must stay that way.
And if my parting has left a void,
Then fill it with remembered joy.
A friendship shared, a laugh, a kiss...
Ah yes, these things I, too, shall miss.
My life's been full, I've savoured much:
Good times, good friends, a loved-one's touch.
Perhaps my time seemed all too brief—
Don't shorten yours with undue grief.
Be not burdened with tears of sorrow,
Enjoy the sunshine of the morrow.