Let's just be real: I lead a bizarre life. If you want to experience the highs and lows of emotion, really send yourself for a trip and a half, enroll in a drama school and devote yourself to the work. Take my word for it; it makes for an intense, volatile, exhausting, and challenging lifestyle. It can be both incredibly fulfilling and awfully upsetting- often in the same day.
Take today for example. Starting bright and early at 9 a.m. I had Vocal Production class, the final presentation of our duets. I felt me and my partner did well. The singing was good, our movement was effective, and the teacher complimented us. But then everybody else started going. And several of them did so well, and were so much more amusing. Already my mind is rushing through all the yucky, gloomy thoughts I take myself through: I'm not as entertaining as these other people, nobody here thinks I'm very good, I never get as good of songs as the others... all that crappy jazz. Then it came time to record the accompianment for our 16 bar audition pieces, and when we got to the one I was assigned it sounded nice and pretty. Exactly the kind of thing I didn't want to do anymore. It didn't help that I was ill-prepared. I had forgotten all about the audition pieces, so I hadn't listened to mine or taken the time to think of an alternative. By the time that class was over, I wanted nothing more than to get out of that school.
Thankfully, in yet another example of divine planning, I had a three hour break. And I walked to the subway with my friend Lauren who knew all the right things to say to make me put my attitude back in perspective. And I went home and had lunch and finished up my paper for Movement class and chilled. And I returned to school with fresh determination. Story of my life. And you know what? From that point on I had a pretty flippin' fantastic day. My classes went great (despite the fact that I left my laptop at home with the video for my Movement report on it!); I got placed front and center for my group number, really quite an accomplishment for someone who'd never taken a step of dance before, and one that I am particularly proud of. And then Greek scenework came, and my partner and I worked deeper and stronger than I think I have my entire time at school so far; we did a lot of really great work. I personally took huge steps toward releasing the emotion held in my jaw, physicalizing what I was saying, and fully inhabiting my body, three things I've needed to work on my entire life. And it was upsetting, and emotionally draining, and difficult- but it felt so satisfying afterward.
After classes, I stayed to watch the AADA Company Showcase- Company is the 'third year students' who do nothing but productions all year, and then present a final showcase. It was fine. The Company members who are always good, did very good in their individual showcase scenes, their technique and performances wonderful and their speech truly great. Others not as much. Leaving the school afterward, I stopped to talk to Jackie, my Acting teacher. I expressed these same thoughts on the Showcase to her, and she agreed. Those who are always good, continued to be good. They worked, they devoted, and they were believable and resonant in their work. We wonder why she pushes us to work, challenges us to do more- that's why. Because some people can be always good, if they will do the work. I was with another friend talking to her, but the whole time she said this, she looked right at me. And then she put up her hand to give me a small high five. And as silly as that little exchange may sound, it meant the world to me. She believes in me. She believes I can be one of those people.
I have been blessed with enough experience and natural ability that I can wing the work we do in classes and still do well. And I'm man enough to admit that, for the most part, that's what I've mostly been doing. I do give it my all as much as I can every day in class, but outside of class my devotion to what I do is lacking. It's an interesting term, devotion; I've been coming to realize more and more what an appropriate word it is for the hard-working actor. The performers who are always good, who are captivating and transcendent, they give themselves over completely to the work. For many actors, what they do is their whole lives. We talked about similar things in Styles today. Acting is a fascinating craft because you are in control of the emotions you pick to work on, but then you pick the strongest ones and you let them control you. You give yourself over to it.
It scares me a little bit sometimes. But I'm ready to move more towards real dedication to my craft, starting by implementing a requirement of at least one significant daily activity outside of school to help develop my work.
And yet there is one more equally important, essential part of being a solid performer: Living. If we do not live, we do not experience. We do not go through things that move us, give us emotion, and feed our person. If we do not live, we cannot express. Life is moving, fun, complicated, challenging, beautiful. I fully believe that too. It can be just as beneficial as intense moment-to-moment scenework to spend a perfect night out with a good friend, eating and laughing and acting a fool, to experience the real emotions of life, and then to walk home as a light snow begins to fall. Thankfully, there's no short supply of such magic nights in New York City.
Wednesday, February 23, 2011
Monday, February 14, 2011
S.A.D.
Seasonal Affective Disorder, folks. It's the real deal. People may try to chalk it up to an urban myth or weakling city people explaining their issues (partially true, I'll admit), but take it from Mr. Happy-Go-Lucky himself: winter in the city can get you down. Wikipedia defines it this way: "also known as winter depression or winter blues, a mood disorder in which people who have normal mental health throughout most of the year experience depressive symptons in the winter." I've seen it displayed all around me, people breaking down every other day at school. Heck, I even had a breakdown of my own the other day, just chattin' with my Acting teacher. I've spent the last couple of weeks dreaming about summer by the lake, or beachside vacations in Aruba (those dang advertisements in the subway are taunting me!)
Yet something awesome happened today. The sun came out. It was warm! People were shedding their jackets, smiles were all around- a stroll through the park seemed unavoidable. So my friend, Lauren and I did just that. All around the snow was beginning to melt away, running in little rivers through the park, washing away all that cold and wet to make room for the warm and breezy. Really. It was cool.
And kinda metaphorical, you gotta admit. I mean come on- it's just begging to be used as a metaphor! So here you go: Sometimes it is cold. Sometimes it's grey and cloudy and it seems like it will go on forever. But it won't. The sun will always come back out! And it will be that much more kick-awesome when it does.
However here's a slightly-less cliche response: S.A.D. or any other kind of mood disorder may get ahold of you. And it may be tough to shake. Sometimes it will probably get the better of you. But you can still always choose to be stronger than it every day. Look at what you've got to be thankful for. Count to ten every time you get upset, breathing deeply (AADA will be proud of your proper breath!). Do something- recently Julie and I joined a Growth Group with a church here and got to spend Saturday morning helping give a good meal to people in the city who needed it. It was awesome! And I would challenge you to feel sorry for yourself for a single minute while you're giving meals to the people of this city. More times than not, your 'disorder' will have to give in to the power of positivity.
Will it always be easy, something you can shrug off? Heck no. Trust me. It's tough sometimes. I know. But then the sun will come back out. (I can't help it. I love those cliche metaphors.) :)
Yet something awesome happened today. The sun came out. It was warm! People were shedding their jackets, smiles were all around- a stroll through the park seemed unavoidable. So my friend, Lauren and I did just that. All around the snow was beginning to melt away, running in little rivers through the park, washing away all that cold and wet to make room for the warm and breezy. Really. It was cool.
And kinda metaphorical, you gotta admit. I mean come on- it's just begging to be used as a metaphor! So here you go: Sometimes it is cold. Sometimes it's grey and cloudy and it seems like it will go on forever. But it won't. The sun will always come back out! And it will be that much more kick-awesome when it does.
However here's a slightly-less cliche response: S.A.D. or any other kind of mood disorder may get ahold of you. And it may be tough to shake. Sometimes it will probably get the better of you. But you can still always choose to be stronger than it every day. Look at what you've got to be thankful for. Count to ten every time you get upset, breathing deeply (AADA will be proud of your proper breath!). Do something- recently Julie and I joined a Growth Group with a church here and got to spend Saturday morning helping give a good meal to people in the city who needed it. It was awesome! And I would challenge you to feel sorry for yourself for a single minute while you're giving meals to the people of this city. More times than not, your 'disorder' will have to give in to the power of positivity.
Will it always be easy, something you can shrug off? Heck no. Trust me. It's tough sometimes. I know. But then the sun will come back out. (I can't help it. I love those cliche metaphors.) :)
Tuesday, February 8, 2011
Strength Like a Fire
This semester we have a class called Mask that I find completely fascinating. However, almost every single week when I'm in there I catch myself thinking, "If someone from home walked in right now..." I won't deny it's one of the stranger courses AADA has to offer, and that's saying something. The basic idea is this: You cover your face with a neutral mask and therefore have to express all of your emotion through your body. Every week we have a new scenario of some kind that we go through as a group, then individually go through it while wearing the mask. An example scenario:
You're in a beautiful, lush, pillared courtyard. There's flowers and trees and a little pond. The ceiling is glass and the walls are open. Beyond the courtyard is a dense forest. Beyond the forest are mountains. Beyond the mountains, out of sight, is the ocean. Suddenly, a bird flies into the courtyard. It flies back and forth, from one end to the other, then right in front of you it stops and falls to the ground, dead. You kneel down to pick it up in your hands. But as you're holding it, it comes back to life and flies away!
Last week we did something a little different- We embodied each of the four elements, air, fire, water, and earth. We did it first as a group with our eyes closed. But then, of course, she made us get up an embody one of the elements as a mask solo. Worse, she informed us that this time, everybody else in the room was there. We could see them, and they could see us. I was pretty much petrified. In the group work, I had found the exercise fascinating and incredibly freeing. But to do it in front of everyone... and I knew which element I had to do, the one I most easily connected with, the most deep-rooted and personal one: Fire.
It's not surprising that Fire would speak to me. Deep inside of me, in my core there is a fire always burning. It's the most personal, most primal part of me, a part that does often get pushed aside or dampened (pardon the pun) because I'm shy or uncomfortable. However, it's the part of me that never allows myself to give up; this unextinguishable strength. And that's what great acting is all about, at least in part; sharing with people the deepest, most personal part of ourselves in performance. Because when you do that as an actor, people feel it. It's a tangible thing. And they can't take their eyes off of the work because it is so truthful. That's what I want to do. But it's still a little scary sometimes.
Life is not a cakewalk. This semester has seen both highs and lows of my New York Experience- I've been learning more than I ever expected to at school, but I've also had days where I really felt like there was really no one in this school who cared about me at all. Sometimes I spend entire days feeling progressively worse and worse convincing myself that no one likes me and there's nothing I can do about it.
I learned the falseness of that some time ago, though. There was a moment when I was traveling through Central America with my family that I realized something incredible: God created me. He CREATED ME. And he don't make no accidents. What's more, I have a literal worry-free guarantee: God's promised to take care of me, and he hasn't let me down yet. He will take me where I need to go. I may have no idea how important everything I'm going through will be to me in the future- but I know there's reason behind it all. And that's encouraging; heck, that's empowering! And it makes me feel all warm and toasty inside (which is an especially nice bonus considering how cold it is!).
Now don't get confused here: We can't just hand everything over to Big G.O.D. and expect him to take care of it with no effort from us. He will take care of everything, but we have to do our part. It's a relationship, folks. That implies two sides, and there has to be two sides for your life to become the wonderful thing it can be. This is something I've had to confront myself with recently. I think being so blessed had lulled me into a bit of complacency. That no work. But I'm working on fixing it.
I know that He's given me a dream. I know that this is where He wants me to be right now. I don't know where this career will lead me, I don't even know the next step, but I know this is where I'm supposed to be. So I gave it my all. I came out from behind that partition and let the Fire consume me. It was pretty intense for me, and I guess it came across. For almost all the others, there had been that awkward laughter of people feeling foolish- nobody laughed this time. It took me the rest of the class to shake it off, part of which included me having to put my head down and cry. The teacher had that now-familiar phrase as advice: Almost. One step more and it would have been very powerful.
I think I've heard that enough. It's all too easy to think who am I to be something incredible, but really... who am I not to be? I think it's time to take that last step. It's time to let the strength in me take over, consume me, flow from me.
Like a Fire.
You're in a beautiful, lush, pillared courtyard. There's flowers and trees and a little pond. The ceiling is glass and the walls are open. Beyond the courtyard is a dense forest. Beyond the forest are mountains. Beyond the mountains, out of sight, is the ocean. Suddenly, a bird flies into the courtyard. It flies back and forth, from one end to the other, then right in front of you it stops and falls to the ground, dead. You kneel down to pick it up in your hands. But as you're holding it, it comes back to life and flies away!
Last week we did something a little different- We embodied each of the four elements, air, fire, water, and earth. We did it first as a group with our eyes closed. But then, of course, she made us get up an embody one of the elements as a mask solo. Worse, she informed us that this time, everybody else in the room was there. We could see them, and they could see us. I was pretty much petrified. In the group work, I had found the exercise fascinating and incredibly freeing. But to do it in front of everyone... and I knew which element I had to do, the one I most easily connected with, the most deep-rooted and personal one: Fire.
It's not surprising that Fire would speak to me. Deep inside of me, in my core there is a fire always burning. It's the most personal, most primal part of me, a part that does often get pushed aside or dampened (pardon the pun) because I'm shy or uncomfortable. However, it's the part of me that never allows myself to give up; this unextinguishable strength. And that's what great acting is all about, at least in part; sharing with people the deepest, most personal part of ourselves in performance. Because when you do that as an actor, people feel it. It's a tangible thing. And they can't take their eyes off of the work because it is so truthful. That's what I want to do. But it's still a little scary sometimes.
Life is not a cakewalk. This semester has seen both highs and lows of my New York Experience- I've been learning more than I ever expected to at school, but I've also had days where I really felt like there was really no one in this school who cared about me at all. Sometimes I spend entire days feeling progressively worse and worse convincing myself that no one likes me and there's nothing I can do about it.
I learned the falseness of that some time ago, though. There was a moment when I was traveling through Central America with my family that I realized something incredible: God created me. He CREATED ME. And he don't make no accidents. What's more, I have a literal worry-free guarantee: God's promised to take care of me, and he hasn't let me down yet. He will take me where I need to go. I may have no idea how important everything I'm going through will be to me in the future- but I know there's reason behind it all. And that's encouraging; heck, that's empowering! And it makes me feel all warm and toasty inside (which is an especially nice bonus considering how cold it is!).
Now don't get confused here: We can't just hand everything over to Big G.O.D. and expect him to take care of it with no effort from us. He will take care of everything, but we have to do our part. It's a relationship, folks. That implies two sides, and there has to be two sides for your life to become the wonderful thing it can be. This is something I've had to confront myself with recently. I think being so blessed had lulled me into a bit of complacency. That no work. But I'm working on fixing it.
I know that He's given me a dream. I know that this is where He wants me to be right now. I don't know where this career will lead me, I don't even know the next step, but I know this is where I'm supposed to be. So I gave it my all. I came out from behind that partition and let the Fire consume me. It was pretty intense for me, and I guess it came across. For almost all the others, there had been that awkward laughter of people feeling foolish- nobody laughed this time. It took me the rest of the class to shake it off, part of which included me having to put my head down and cry. The teacher had that now-familiar phrase as advice: Almost. One step more and it would have been very powerful.
I think I've heard that enough. It's all too easy to think who am I to be something incredible, but really... who am I not to be? I think it's time to take that last step. It's time to let the strength in me take over, consume me, flow from me.
Like a Fire.
Friday, February 4, 2011
WE SET THE SCHOOL ON FIRE!!
I would like to start off by saying this to all of you Texas folk: Suck it up! It's cold every single day here, and lately it hasn't even been snowing. Just ice. And rain. Yuck. You guys are at least having snow days! My school never cancels for anything! And as proof I offer this story:
On Monday, I left for my three hour break and went to pick up some things in midtown with Julie. As I was heading back to school, I kept noticing fire truck after fire truck rushing by and I thought to myself, "Oh gee. I wonder what's on fire? I hope it's not close to my school." No, it wasn't close to my school. It WAS MY SCHOOL! By the time I arrived everyone had been evacuated and throngs of young actors and actresses crowded the sidewalks. There were lots of apologies by students for being so hot that they started a fire. I caught a glimpse of my Acting Teacher, Jacqueline Solotar, crying as she watched the firemen break out the windows.
Turns out the fire was only in the basement, so the school was actually fine. So, naturally, as the firemen started clearing out they herded us all back in for class. A mere hour after we'd been evacuated. For a fire. Hey, the show must go on, right?
Once we were back in the building, the melodrama began to overflow from all of my peers. At least half of them were suffocating from the lack of air and having Oscar-worthy near-death scenes. Meanwhile, Acting Teacher Jackie's yelling at me and my partner to get set up for our scene and telling everyone what big babies they are for wanting to go home. So set up we did. And, of course, as soon as we did, the fire marshall got hold of the fact that the students had been let back into a building that had been on fire less than an hour ago, and we were all evacuated once more, this time for the rest of the day.
So you can't really blame AADA for the show not going on. If it had been up to them, we would have been in school, thank you very much. Just the fire marshall. He clearly never went to acting school.
I am blessed, and it is cold. These two things I know to be true. The rest I'll take one day at a time.
On Monday, I left for my three hour break and went to pick up some things in midtown with Julie. As I was heading back to school, I kept noticing fire truck after fire truck rushing by and I thought to myself, "Oh gee. I wonder what's on fire? I hope it's not close to my school." No, it wasn't close to my school. It WAS MY SCHOOL! By the time I arrived everyone had been evacuated and throngs of young actors and actresses crowded the sidewalks. There were lots of apologies by students for being so hot that they started a fire. I caught a glimpse of my Acting Teacher, Jacqueline Solotar, crying as she watched the firemen break out the windows.
Turns out the fire was only in the basement, so the school was actually fine. So, naturally, as the firemen started clearing out they herded us all back in for class. A mere hour after we'd been evacuated. For a fire. Hey, the show must go on, right?
Once we were back in the building, the melodrama began to overflow from all of my peers. At least half of them were suffocating from the lack of air and having Oscar-worthy near-death scenes. Meanwhile, Acting Teacher Jackie's yelling at me and my partner to get set up for our scene and telling everyone what big babies they are for wanting to go home. So set up we did. And, of course, as soon as we did, the fire marshall got hold of the fact that the students had been let back into a building that had been on fire less than an hour ago, and we were all evacuated once more, this time for the rest of the day.
So you can't really blame AADA for the show not going on. If it had been up to them, we would have been in school, thank you very much. Just the fire marshall. He clearly never went to acting school.
I am blessed, and it is cold. These two things I know to be true. The rest I'll take one day at a time.
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