Just like baseball, it’s really hard to practice acting on your own. You can do a bunch of drills and such to stay sharp, but it’s just not the same as playing in a game or being in a play or film. Acting is, by far, the most collaborative of all the artforms. As such, you need a bunch of things to really be doing it. First and foremost, you need material and other people.
Just accept this as a reality of the path you chose. (And remember…”you chose this path, it didn’t choose you”…as my first acting mentor said to me way back when.)
Now, there are two things you can do about it.
Work your ass off at the business side of things so you get as many at bats (auditions) as possible. Which then hopefully leads to you getting to play actual games (booking work).
“Deliberate practice is characterized by several elements, each worth examining. It is activity designed specifically to improve performance, often with a teacher’s help; it can be repeated a lot; feedback on results is continuously available; it’s highly demanding mentally, whether the activity is purely intellectual, such as chess or business-related activities, or heavily physical, such as sports; and it isn’t much fun.” -Geoff Colvin, Talent Is Overrated
10,000 hours.
Doing the same thing over and over again? Mindlessly. Not trying to get better. Not seeking out honest, critical feedback. Not being open to new ideas. Not pushing yourself. Not growing. Not stretching. Not learning.
Make no mistake, when you hire a director, you are signing on for that person’s taste and spirit. Which will then inform everything about your project.
Have you done your due diligence? Are you absolutely certain their two elements are aligned with what you want for this production and this experience?
I love listening to plays. When they’re good, oh man, the imagination just runs wild. LA Theatre Works does a phenomenal job. Check them out if you’re not already familiar.
This got me thinking…
The next time you write a play or a screenplay, what if when you finished, no matter what, you also committed to turning it into a podcast?
This I think would accomplish several things.
ONE. Instead of just hoping someone reads your material and decides to produce it (the odds are heavily stacked against you), you’ll have made something yourself. The whole process of getting a director and a cast and tightening the script and rehearsing and then eventually recording it, will be its own reward. You’ll have learned so much and will have this cool, finished product to mark your efforts.
TWO. Should you decide to send out your script to potential producers, you can also send them the podcast. Your message to them: “Here I wrote this. And I know you’re really busy, so if you’d rather listen to it instead, check out this podcast version I also made.” Talk about signaling and showing someone you’re serious! You cared so much about the material that you took the time to make it into a podcast. That’s significant.
THREE. You can put the podcast out there for anyone to listen. Solicit feedback should you want it. Or just for their entertainment value. Or both.
FOUR. All the hard work and time and money you put into making the podcast might just inspire you to not wait around for someone else and instead, make the movie or produce the play yourself. Now we’re talking.
How to know if this is the play you want to produce? Assuming you found something you love, so much so that you’re even considering it for production, ask yourself two questions:
(1) “Do I think that with my passion and the resources and talent at my disposal, I can do a production that’s as good as anyone else can do?” Meaning that not more money, a bigger space, etc…would make this any better. That you can do a definitive production. If you can’t, find something else. You owe it to the play and the playwright to move on.
(2) “If this were the last play I ever did, would this be the one I was proud to go out on?”
Even if the answer to these questions is not a resounding yes, but more of a meek “it might be”, that’s enough to proceed. Hey, it’s art. You never really know. You just need to feel like you have a chance at doing something great.
So much of this blog and The Vs. Studio is about doing things for nothing other than pure love of the art. Circumstances and outcomes be damned. That’s why Rodney Mullen devoted his life to skateboarding. Check out the short doc “Rodney Mullen: From The Ground Up“. It’s inspiring.
Warning: After watching, you might just wanna buy a board and start freestyling. Be careful out there!
And Happy Memorial Day. If you know a Veteran, please thank them for their service today.
I have several friends and colleagues who’ve studied with the late great actor, comedian, director and drama teacher, Charles Nelson Reilly. They’re all very talented artists in their own right, which coupled with how fondly they speak of Mr. Reilly, makes me wish I had the chance to study with him. Their stories are so colorful and memorable. Here’s one told by my close friend and phenomenal actor, Gareth Williams…
I was thinking recently, for reasons I won’t go into, about what I consider to be the single greatest acting lesson I ever received. I was fairly new to the whole acting thing, though I’d been working in the scene shop and backstage for a bit. I was apprenticing at the Burt Reynolds Theatre and Charles Nelson Reilly was the “Eminent Scholar” and one of my more significant influences.
I had done a scene from Michael Cristofer’s “The Shadow Box,” after which we, my scene partner and I, sat in our chairs for our criticism. Charles, in his inimitable voice, asked ‘what we wanted in the scene?’ Being quite green, I literally reached in my ass and somehow pulled out the word “Love,” which was an accidentally perfect answer. Everything we do, always boils down to ‘Love,’ the absence of it, the need for it, the abuse of it, etc. So… perfect, I lucked out and answered correctly… vague and broad sweeping, but correctly.
The young woman I had done the scene with answered; “I wanted to leave!” At which point Charles rocketed up, literally exploded out of his chair and started yelling at us; “Start the scene again… don’t worry about the props or the furniture… just start the scene and DON’T stop until you’re at the end of the scene, go… go… GO….!!!”
We stumbled back into the scene and got a couple of lines in when Charles pulled this young woman toward the door of the rehearsal hall, then out the door… guided her down two flights of stairs, then out another metal door and into the parking lot… all the while screaming at her; “YOU SAID YOU WANTED TO LEAVE… LEAVE… GO… GO… GET OUT… LEAVE, YOU SAID YOU WANNA GO… GO!!!”
I found myself at the huge plate glass window, looking down at her in the parking lot, gesticulating wildly and yelling my lines in the blind hope she might understand where I was in the scene, and from all I could gather she was doing the same from down below. We muddled through the scene til we had each exhausted our own individual lines and she came back upstairs.
We sat back in our chairs for our criticism and Charles simply said; “Ya can’t make that choice, can ya?”
Greatest acting lesson I ever got. It came at such an early phase, so it had even greater impact than it might have were I to have received it much later, after studying for a few years. Not only was it a great acting lesson but also directing, writing, producing, storytelling of any strain, and actually a true life lesson. ‘No one ever stays where they don’t want to be!’ Ever! Our first job is to answer the question why we remain IN that relationship, that job, that location, that situation… It’s true in life! No one ever stays where they truly do not want to be. Until they don’t. Then they leave.
Have a great Memorial Day Weekend!
P.S. – This topic came up in a recent Vs. Tuesday Night Reading of Edward Albee’s “Zoo Story.” Why does Peter stay on the bench when this seemingly insane stranger, Jerry, accosts and interrogates him? The actor playing Peter must figure this out.
P.P.S. – For more on Charles Nelson Reilly, check out his one person show, “The Life Of Reilly.” It’s superb.
“To make a great film you need three things – the script, the script and the script”. -Alfred Hitchcock
The legendary sound and film editor Walter Murch (talk about a filmography!) revealed on a recent podcast the elements he looks for in a project before signing on. It needs to have (paraphrasing) “a great script, great people, and the resources to make it happen.” He goes on to say that you rarely, if ever, have all three lined up at the outset. But you need to feel confident about at least two, to then commit. (Apologies to Hitchcock who per the quote above, says you just need one element…the script.)
If you’re contemplating saying yes to a project or making your own, can you line up at least two of these elements beforehand? That will give you the confidence to move forward and/or attract the talented artists you definitely will need to collaborate with.
In the sea rocks, in the stone pockets under the tide’s lip, in water dense as blindness
they slid like sponges, like too many thumbs. I knew this, and what I wanted
was to draw my hands back from the water – what I wanted was to be willing to be afraid.
But I stayed there, I crouched on the stone wall while the sea poured its harsh song through the sluices,
while I waited for the gritty lightning of their touch, while I stared down through the tide’s leaving where sometimes I could see them –
their stubborn flesh lounging on my knuckles. What good does it do to lie all day in the sun
loving what is easy? it never grew easy, but at last I grew peaceful: all summer
my fear diminished as they bloomed through the water like flowers, like flecks of an uncertain dream,
while I lay on the rocks, reaching into the darkness, learning little by little to love our only world.
With so many seemingly intractable problems in the world, it’s fair to ask if one person can really make a difference? Are you asking that of yourself? Is that holding you back from making the change you want to make?
Consider “The Starfish Story” (adapted from the original by Loren Eiseley below)…
“Once upon a time, there was a wise man who used to go to the ocean to do his writing. He had a habit of walking on the beach before he began his work.
One day, as he was walking along the shore, he looked down the beach and saw a human figure moving like a dancer. He smiled to himself at the thought of someone who would dance to the day, and so, he walked faster to catch up.
As he got closer, he noticed that the figure was that of a young woman, and that what she was doing was not dancing at all. The young woman was reaching down to the shore, picking up small objects, and throwing them into the ocean.
He came closer still and called out “Good morning! May I ask what it is that you are doing?”
The young woman paused, looked up, and replied “Throwing starfish into the ocean.”
“I must ask, then, why are you throwing starfish into the ocean?” asked the somewhat startled wise man.
To this, the young woman replied, “The sun is up and the tide is going out. If I don’t throw them in, they’ll die.”
Upon hearing this, the wise man commented, “But do you not realize that there are miles and miles of beach and there are starfish all along every mile? You can’t possibly make a difference!”
At this, the young woman bent down, picked up yet another starfish, and threw it into the ocean. As it met the water, she said, “It made a difference for that one.”
“The arc of the moral universe is long, but it bends toward justice.” -Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.
Perhaps the project you’re trying to manifest, the change you’re trying to make, doesn’t have an endpoint in sight. You’re worried about the long slog ahead. “Is this worth it?”
Just begin. Trust that if you’re intentions are pure, the endpoint will eventually reveal itself. And even if you’re not around to see it, others will be inspired by your actions. They’ll step up and carry your work forward.
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