Today’s Quote:
“The greatest wisdom is to realize one's lack of it” - Constantin Stanislavski
This week’s dream:
I’m not sure if this is a ‘dream’ per-se, but I was thinking
a lot this week about that thing people say about how in the arts you need to
be fully committed to what your doing.
Committed in the sense of, “If you are willing to do something other
than your art for work, you won’t be as successful as you could be in that
art.” I’m not sure I buy that as
an actor. I think the more diverse
my life is, the more I can bring to the art. Look at Donald Glover!
That guy does so much! This
week, I dreamed about keeping my identity as a renaissance man.
What did I “DO” this week?
I say a show yesterday. I signed up for some auditions for shows in the late spring
and for some summer stock theatre.
I set up a game plan for getting an agent with in the month. On an ECO note, I got a bus pass! No commuting to work by car for the
month of March!
What a mean trick I pulled last week! I mentioned my future-not-yet-scheduled
skiing trip with Johnny Depp on my facebook post and I got more hits on that
blog post in a day than any of the other posts got ever! Maybe I should always mention
celebrities in this! But,
seriously, that trip’s gonna happen—I’ll let you know when we finally schedule
it. After all, Depp and I are both
busy men, he is terrible at picking up his phone, and I don’t like texting back
and forth.
I’ve been performing in a great kid’s show for about a month
now. I’m a supporting character in
the show—most of us are. Something
that I’ve started noticing about my performance and the dangers of kid’s
theatre and extended show runs is that I am tempted to cheat my audience out of
my best performance.
This comes in two forms: First, I am tempted to wait for my cue. Second, I am tempted to let outside
influences affect my show.
What do I mean by waiting for my cue? I’ll give an example. In the show’s script, one character is
listing all these things he does in his life as a kid. The pirates listen to this, and at the
end of the list the boy mentions that he plays soccer. The pirates all speak in unison,
“Arg…Soccer?” That’s what’s
written. But, is it all that is
happening on stage.
If I’m doing my job right, I should have an opinion about
absolutely everything that goes on within the world of the play while I’m on
stage. This doesn’t mean that I
have to make vocal ad-libs that are not in the script. I should at the very least have a
thought.
A supporting actor, if he/she is truly professional, will be
focused enough to give themselves wholly to the world of the play and to their
character’s opinions about that world.
It shouldn’t matter if the play is a Tony winner or the crappiest script
ever. I believe that doing this one
thing could bring an actor un-told success in this business because the
audience will look at that character and see the full story—and they will love
you for it. If done right, you
won’t have to worry about pulling focus either. (I think a blank face in an actor on stage pulls my focus as
an audience member more than anything)
About the second thing: I think one of the cruelest disservices I can do to the
audience is to bring my outside day onto the stage with me. We actors love to commiserate back
stage. We LOVE to share the things
that make our lives suck the most.
When one actor enters the dressing room and announces that they woke up
with some phlegm in their throat, the flock gathers to agree that there must
surely be some new illness floating around.
Imagine how good our shows would be if we refused to
commiserate: if we let go of our
fetish for sickness and instead we couldn’t shut up about how awesome our world
is. After all, our world IS
awesome. Our job is SO
COOL!!! So, stop whining!