The Weekend Part 2

So this afternoon (Sunday) I went to an amazing audition. It wasn't amazing because I know that I was cast, or I did so amazingly well in the performance of my monologue. As a matter of fact, I didn't even get to do my whole monologue or the other two partial sonnets that I had to memorize ( which btw I totally forgot about and did it this morning :/).

The audition was amazing because I was reminded of the reason I have chosen this profession and what I'd like to learn about myself as an artist. I saw possibilities in this audition that made me feel good about my path.
There were at least 60 of us in one room all at the same time. The gentleman coordinating it was full of energy, amusing and clearly thoroughly educated in his craft. And he was nice. That was the most refreshing of all because I guess when your in this business, people tell you that you have to be an a*hole but I've always believed that it doesn't have to be that way. Anywho, this gentleman is looking for a good group of actors which something special for his cast. He recently arrived in N.Y. from Paris. He referenced Stanislavski, Grotowski, Peter Brook and a plethora of other greats that we have all studied time and time again in Theatre class. But the WAY he explained it- the jokes- the charisma- the goal to get his point across and help us to understand was what made him stand out to me. He had no intention of shutting people down and a great thing that he said at the start of the process was something like- 'You cannot be successful in your craft if you do not fail. So be prepared to fail today because even I do not know what we will be doing'. And of course he did have a general idea but the great thing about him was his technique of explaining things and the energy that he put into showing us how to say one syllable or one physical action and then helped people to individually understand.
For fellow actors, I think you'll understand better what I mean having had some experience with a great moment that you've had on stage and then it's gone like a flash. But this teacher was focused solely on getting us to that point and not acting but something real and his classical training was very impressive.
It's so easy for us as performers to get stuck in these mechanical ways of moving and forget our techniques and masters like Stanislavski and what they hoped actors to understand. Honestly we get tired of hearing about them but ultimately (today I remembered) it's more important now than when you first learned it. There's going to be a second audition and the teacher gave me a ref. book to look at until then and I can not wait.

I believe that these are the kinds of teachers that should be all over the city helping artists understand what real acting is about. There's never really an end to where you can GO...I think...Instead of these scam artists out here giving themselves titles. They charge you hundreds of dollars to do a monologue for them and they teach you nothing.

-Dobs