A bit of this, that and the other.

This --  Aspiring actors of all ages still don't get it when it comes to choosing a monologue for auditions or classes. An aspiring actor has to have a vast background in plays that he or she has read, attended or performed. It is from these sources they are most likely to find a good monologue for their needs. That is numero uno.   Dos, they need to pick a monologue that is from a role that they could logically be cast in.  Ultimo, it is the performance of the monologue that makes it a good one.  There is no such thing as being overdone if done superbly. 
And well done monologues are filled with the dramatic qualities that the innocent keep requesting that their monologues have. They need to read other posts about monologue on this blog from a year or more ago.

That -- Inexperienced and uninformed aspirants keep wanting to know how to get an audition, how to get discovered, or how to get a big break.  Sad. Truly.  Those who get auditions are experienced, informed and in the case of youngsters, guided by their parents.  An agent is almost always needed.  These people are always looking for LUCK that will make them an instant star like someone of whom they have heard.  But,of course, they are not that someone. They need to read the previous post, "You have to have it!"

The other -- Heard on TV a couple of days ago about the futility of majoring in the arts or going to professional school unless you were truly in the top five percent. It is not cost efficient to go to college or professional school unless you are way ahead of most everyone else to start with. Forty grand a year is outrageous for an education, especially for a field in which it is so hard to get a job.  I remember a young fellow from a couple of years ago.  His parents borrowed to the hilt to send him to two years of Acting School.  He completed the course. He has done no acting since. Seems to have lost interest in it. Now there is putting your parents into poverty for a good purpose!  Fist of all acting school is no needed by the truly talented and second of all college is not needed by the high school honors grad who wants to be an actor. What these kids need is lots of experience and some career management by their parents. Worked well for the talented and handsome Brad Pitt whose mother yanked him out of college to take a professional job.  Aspirants have to be realistic.  As I said at the end of the first paragraph, you have to have it or you ain't gonna do nothin' in this business.  I love all of you, but it is the truth.

What are they thinking?

It happened several times in the past few days.  People of all ages, teens, twenty-somethings, thirty somethings, forty somethings and fifty somethings. have written to me saying that they a just dying to become an actor but they have never done anything.  They saw one particular film that made them thing that they have to do that,too.  They are trapped in boring circumstances, a good job that pays well,but is not exciting, or they are bullied and know if they were an actor they would be admired instead.

Only problem is that it ain't gonna happen.  How do I know?  After all the young girl in the Chocolate Factory film with Johnny Depp had never done anything before!   And now she's a star.  I know an actor who was a sculptor until he read for his first film.  He had no previous acting training nor experience.  He got the second lead in his first film and the lead role in his second film.  Such stories and the magic that is film, the illusion it creates of greatness and consequential events and great loves and romances seem to erase any sense of reality and logic from peoples' minds.

These starry-eyed dreamers have no concept of what acting and being an actor is all about.  They just know that the images on the screen are wonderful and that they want to be wonderful as well.

Now, I have to separate two things.  The dream and the  purpose of plays and films. Okay?
First the dream is an un realistic fantasy set off by the purpose of the drama.  The purpose of the drama is to remind ordinary people that they are extraordinary. Theatre and film's purpose is to show mankind how wonderful he can be, how wonderful he is, and as Shakespeare put it, "how like a god."   When the audience member does not understand that the purpose of the drama is to make him or her feel wonderful and important and extraordinary for a few moments and that after the film or play, they are returned to being wonderful only in their dreams. They still have to go to work in the morning and live their seemingly hum drum lives.

But if they would take it to heart, what the theatre and film are telling them, that all of us are extraordinary in some way, and do something about it. Get involved in a charity or even a political movement, being careful, of course, of not choosing some leftist wacko group. But to get involved and start being something more than just a hum drum person.  If they want to be actors, then they have to get involved with the drama somewhere. Community theatre,  acting classes, acting schools, etc.  Being an actor is how to get started being an actor.

You know, I get many questions telling me that the writer has done all this acting and studying, but what should they do next?  I have to tell you that I really believe that the people who become actors do not have to be told how to get started or what to do next.  They just know what to do and do it.  If they are actors, they keep acting in every and all opportunities. They know now to move forward in their career and get agents.   Perhaps they learned this form others they worked with, and perhaps they read how to do it in a book just as "Acting As A Business" by O'Neil.  

I am afraid, you see, that those who have not on their own found out how to get started and how to become an actor are never going to make it.  The ones that make it are born with enough drive to go and get it on their own.  

You have to have it.

Got an email this morning in which a young actor I know said that he had more and more recognized that acting is all about money.  And of course it is in the business side of acting.

I am constantly amazed that youngsters think that without and experience and training they are going to get a major role in a major film.  No way can that happen except for the super extraordinary person who leaps from being in a high school play to stardom as Ann Margaret did when she was cast in "Bye Bye Birdie."  She was recognized as having all the unique qualities needed to be a bankable star.

Theatre and making movies is not about being a good actor.  It is about making lots of money. Productions cost millions and millions of dollars and no one is going to gamble on an unproven person who does not have all the unique qualities needed. The reason so many actors never become professional in spite of having a great deal of talent is that they lack the charm, personality, and look that people want to pay money to see.

The look is not always beauty or handsome. Jack Nicholson is not a handsome man. But he has so much charm that we will pay to see him again and again.  And his look is so unique that he always is distinctive in his portrayal.

The reality of becoming a professional actor is not that you need an agent or training or experience so much as it is that you need to be able to give a unique rendering of the character from your look to your charm to your talent.

Money talks.  You have to be an actor that producers know will help bring money in at the box office.   This is also true in the amateur theatre where the producers want to at least break even on their productions.  So the actors cast in the leads and major roles are those that the audience will want to come an see because of the actors' reputations of being effective in previous plays.  Yes, money is often the reason why someone else got the role you wanted.  You have to be unique and pleasing to the audience--an asset at the box office to succeed.

The few actors who are unique and pleasing as those that make it.

An Actor Prepares

This morning I heard from a student I had in class forty years ago.  He wote to comment on a post I had made on Facebook regarding the sorry state of acting in today's theatre.  Most of that post was an article by Arthur Penn, the famous director.  My former student wanted to let me know how he has achieved success as a professinal tenor, performing opera.  His message is one that actors need to take to heart-- that it takes courage and conviction, dedication and perseverance to succeed as a professional performer.  What he has experienced is not unlike what a good actor experiences in preparing for his career.

I am greatful to this former student of mine for reminding me that training is important in the search for success.  I have perhaps downplayed that importance in much of my writing. But it is necessary for the actor to keep his voice and body in tune through constant coaching and instruction in classes.

Here are the portions of his letter to me that are most applicable to actors:

 
"I AM a great guy, and this fact has NEVER helped me find work! Perseverence and drive, living like a Bohemian, showing up to every audition and spending everything on lessons and coaching is what works. No one cares, at all, that I have had a more than colorful life. They only care about how I sound and how I look and whether or not they can somehow use me in their house. I am only what I can offer at that very moment and all the rest does not make any difference whatsoever.

"I have been monumentally lucky in that I am FINALLY making my big-assedTiroler Festspiel Erl this summer singing the Duke from Verdi's Rigoletto. This offer was made following my FORTY-FIFTH audition. What a boon! What a coup!"

It is difficult for us to imagine attending 45 auditions for a role.  I have read of actors attending half a dozen or more, but never so many as this.  It is a tribute to the directors who want to have the best possible production, and it is a tribute to the singer/actor who endures and succeeds!

Acting and Playwrighting

Some concepts about plays that a playwright and actor need to know:

a. Plays are not conversation, nor are they discourse(Discussions of an idea).

b. Plays are stories told in action. Everything Aristotle wrote about play writing (which he called Tragedy making) indicates that.

c. Plays are stories about someone's emotional reaction to a situation and what that reaction causes him or her to do.

d. A playwright fashions a play, he does not write it. He expresses the fashioning of the play by writing down what he has created in terms of stage directions and dialogue..

e. Thus the fashioning of the story is what the playwright does first. He tells the story in theatrical terms, which means he creates an situation and places a person into it. That person has an emotional reaction to the situation and does something that expresses the reaction. (either the situation or the character's response to it is a disorder that must be repaired) A chain reaction of his action causing an emotional response that causes an action that causes an emotional response......and so on until the story is complete by order being restored. The playwright creates no dialogue until he can tell the story in terms of action/reaction with no dialogue at all.

 

As an actor, you need to be an emotional responder to the stimuli of the play moment by moment.  Those responses will also contain the action of the play (what you need to do as an actor).

All I Need Is An Agent

It certainly seems to be the prevailing urban legend about becoming an actor that all one needs to do is to get an agent and they will be launched into stardom.  I am besieged with email from young people, usually teens and pre-teens but sometimes young adults as well, asking me for help on getting an agent. The seemingly urgent requests reveal that most young acting aspirants have no idea about the nature of the acting business and what it takes to become an actor.

An agent is not the first thing an aspiring actor needs.  It is very much the last thing he needs. You see, the business usually works this way:  An extraordinary person comes to the attention of an agent or casting director and gets an acting job.  From this job, their extraordinary qualities get them other jobs, and they are in the business.  Well, that sounds easy, doesn't it?  The problem is that they have to be "extraordinary."  And not just in one way--they have to be extraordinary in many ways.  They need, among other things, to have extraordinary talent, courage, personality, charm, and look.

Most of the young people who suddenly or not-so-suddenly decided they want to be actors lack one or more of the extraordinary requirements for becoming an actor.  And some of these people will have one of the extraordinary requirements to a degree that the rest of them are of little consequence.  Thus, the aspirant may be so handsome or beautiful that the agent or casting director is not very concerned about the other qualities.  Or the aspirant may lack one of the qualities so that those they have are of little or no consequence.  The actor may be very talented, but his lack of courage prevents him from taking the risks needed to become a professional actor.  And if you don' t have the personality and charm to hold a stranger's attention in a conversation, you are going to have a hard time with professional acting.  Additionally,  as an aspirant to an acting career, humility and lack of egotism are very important.  There are tons of other qualities that are pluses for an aspirant to have. These are listed in my e-book, The Tao of Acting.

So far, I have only written about the extraordinary qualities the aspirant needs. These he has before he has done any acting.  They are either inborn like his talent or acquired like his charm.  Before the aspirant needs an agent, he or she needs other things in addition to the extraordinary personal qualities above.  They need an extraordinary resume, head shot, demo reel, business card, and post cards (not ordinary post cards, but personalized ones for networking.).   These seem like simple things, but they may take years to acquire.  Most young aspirants can make a resume with one or two shows that they have done on it and stating that they have been in drama club or taken drama classes in high school.. That is not extraordinary.  An extraordinary resume not only lists the leading roles in amateur, semi-professional and professional productions the actor has done, but also it lists the highly regarded acting schools and studios with which he has studied.  That is one point.

There are many other points to be made about the aspirant's need to be extraordinary in a great number of ways if he is to succeed.  Acquiring these things to go along with your other extraordinary qualities is what is needed before you need an agent.

Spencer Tracy, Method Acting and Intensity

The late Spencer Tracy was one of the greatest film actors of all time. He was nominated as best actor nine times and won twice.  He was renown for his natural style and versatility. And he did not subscribe to any nonsense about acting.  Once at a party he attended, several actors were discussing the merits of Method Acting.  After a long and often heated discussion that Tracy only observed and did not take part in, one of the actors asked, "What do you think, Spence?"  Tracy replied simply, " I think it is very important for an actor to learn his lines."  Simple and direct.  An honest reply without any nonsense about acting.  A reply I admire and applaud.

Recently an actor wrote to me and asked me to evaluate a video audition he had made.  In it, he often looked down at his script before saying his line.  I replied that he was too tied to the script to be effective in the scene. As an actor you have to respond to your scene partner, not to the book. So you have to free yourself from the book in order to concentrate on your scene partner. The book and not having the lines down also presented a barrier between the actor and his scene partner. I noted that his emotional responses were not reaching the audience and that he needed more intensity.

Now, here I have to tip my hat to the Method actors. The thing that made Method acting popular was how intense the actors who used it were.  Marlon Brando, James Dean, Montgonery Clift, Robert DeNiro, and Al Pacino give us highly intense acting.  Jack Nicholson does them all one better as he not only has great intensity, but he also is having great fun playing the role.  This gives him the highest charisma that an actor can achieve. An actor needs to catch the casting director's attention with the intensity and fun he communicates while playing the role.

That intensity and fun is communicated to the casting director when the actor feels those qualities while reading for the part. I have always said that acting must be fun and it is very important for the actor to communicate that he is having a ball doing the audition or playing the role.  Then the actor must also feel the intensity of the emotions his character is expressing.  The actor does this by allowing himself to fully release his emotions without inhibitions.  When he does that, the intensity takes care of itself.  Remember that acting is not an intellectual activity, it is an emotional one.  Make sure you are always emotionally in the moment before each scene begins.  Then you need to respond not with words from the script, but with the emotions those words represent.