Acting Workshop

This past weekend me and some of my friends (incredibly talent group of actors) got together in our acting workshop to work on our craft and sharpen our skills.  We were led by my good friend and talented director Stephen Jobes. We worked on scenes from Pinter,Williams, Albee and Shanley and the work was moving, funny and incredibly inspiring!

As actors, the one thing that we have complete control over is how sharp we keep our craft. You never know when the right audition is going to come along and if you are not ready, have not been practicing and sharpening your choices as an actor, the odds are stacked against you.

Under Conditions of Stress, you do what you learned under training!

80% of the value of an audition, scene or play can be distilled to 20% of the choices you make as an actor. What does that mean? Well, there many tools you can use as an actor to help obtain success but if you focus on the two most important questions, WHAT YOU WANT and WHY YOU WANT IT, success is easier to obtain. The Pareto rule states that 80% of all events are caused by 20% of the causes, I find this holds true in acting as well. The law in universal to everything in life.

What is that we some desperately want in the scene? Why we so desperately want it? By focusing on these two basic questions, we keep things simple and uncomplicated for ourselves. As an actor you can only really do one thing at a time so if you know what you are doing and why you are doing it, our choices are stronger and cleaner. The more complicated and scattered your thoughts, the more unmanageable the task is in the scene. Keep it simple and focused.

When fighting for what your characters WANTS, remember that your character is ENORMOUSLY RIGHT ALWAYS!