Actors and Thought Work

Some holidays. Some family vacations.

Weddings.

Graduations.

Other people's shows.

A baby's first laugh.

Dinners with friends.

We do miss things.

For great reasons, and some not so great.

It is useful to decide early on in your career, or at least Now, what is important to you in terms of being physically with other people.

Because we often do not know what our schedules will be.  If we are in the Production Work Lane (see Work Lanes for Actors), in a theatrical production, we likely have our schedule, and know the possibility of Ins and Outs allowed in our contract.  

If we are filiming, there is rarely wiggle room once they give you the inside/outside dates of shooting. 

So. We miss things.

In the 50/50 of human life, with roughly the same amount of positive and negative emotions coursing through our lives, what we can avoid is adding suffering to the feeling of loss, or sadness, regret, or shame at missing family events or holidays or any happening we would attend...

We all have manuals for other humans.

These are the rules we keep in our minds about how others should behave.  

Some of us have enough to fill a library.

Others of us have them for ones we love, but not for strangers.

And vice versa.

And all the other humans have ones for us.

A manual for a partner can be like:

You should text me back within 5 minutes of hearing from me.

You should know I don't like that person/restaurant/color/style/music

You should always laugh at my jokes.

You should come home in a good mood.

You should buy me the perfect gift.

So - how much fun is it to be this other person?

A manual for a director could be:

You cast me correctly, and praise me often.

You understand when I am 5 minutes late. Which is every day.

You never lose your patience.

You ask my opinion.

You credit me with ideas that come from me.

We need to close these tomes, full of judgement and shame and recipes for frustration.

And toss them out.

The humans are going to be the humans. And unless...

Unmade Decisions are everywhere.

Jobs, loves, lists of things to do, offers, how to frame a self tape.

Here's the thing to notice.

Not making a decision is a decision.

We all fall into this way of drifting through our lives, especially when others around us are making decisions which affect us.  We sometimes let them override our decision making, or default to their reasoning.

If you have a problem, decisions will solve it.

Deciding to decide. Life changing.

How to know if you are avoiding making a decision.

Are you buffering? Buffering is a way of giving our brains some relief (chips, porn, scrolling, even house cleaning or taking another course... All can be buffering) from something it doesn't want to let us feel.  The modest dopamine hit from the pleasure (this tastes good, this turns me on, this is just checking the news, my apartment needs to be Really Clean Right Now) is temporary, and solves nothing.  Yes, your apartment may be clean. But the decision, or...

We have schedules that often mean different, hurried, isolated meals.

We work a lot of nights, if we are theatre folk.

We decide we are stressed.

We want to drink.

And we do.

To celebrate, commiserate, reward ourselves.

To feel connected to our company, to get to know each other, to let off steam.

Because we want it.

Deserve it.

It tastes good.

We feel better.

All fine.

And that dopamine hit is mighty fine.

But when we use alcohol to escape from our lives, or to dull our painful emotions, or as the only reward after a show.  

When we think about it while working...

I can't wait until I can have a drink.

At least we are going out afterwards.

When we are tired, as we often can be, after a 2 show day, or a long shoot with odd hours, our primitive brain takes over.  That is good in many ways.  Our primitive brain has kept us alive through terrible and wonderful times, by seeking pleasure.

Because that is how our primitive brain responds to the concentrated affects of...

Life doesn't just happen to you.

This is a story we tell ourselves.  The events of our lives.  This happened, so I can't do this other thing.  

I don't have this job because someone they knew got the offer.  I don't love my work because the director is difficult.  I can't get to work on time because the subway is late, the highway is congested.

My self tape is not getting results because I am not good at tech.

Time to take responsibility for your life.  It feels great. And scary. And great.

A place to start is with Abundance.

This includes, naturally, how much money you have. Not spend. Have.

But is not only, or even most importantly, about that. The only thing you need to be super clear on is how much you have. And how much you want. The space between those numbers is where you need to create value to invite money, abundantly, into your life

Know your number.  Truly. Add it up. Total your assets, subtract your debts, and look at that number.

And...

Taking notes.

Receiving direction with... grace. 

Many, many, many times we actors are on the receiving end of notes.  We work for small productions, with one director, one stage manager, and accordingly get messages from 2 humans.  Affecting our work, the staging, safety, tone, style, blocking, and, of course, the scene work objectives.

Or we work in gigantic enterprises with multiple layers of authority, directors, movement,  SMs everywhere. There can be notes coming from 5 or more humans, often conflicting with each other. 

Anyone giving us notes has an agenda that we are not fully privy to....

We have an agenda also.  To be excellent. To keep this job. To show someone something. To impress someone. To be the character fully. To appear supportive. 

To actually Be supportive.

There is no judgement here - we truly cannot control the thoughts that surge into our mind as we receive notes.

We can resist them. 

That is not what the scene is...

Decisions are the fuel for every dream you have.

It is that simple.  

You decide to pursue acting, with full knowledge of the life.  Or not.

Some people do 'fall into' acting.  Get discovered. Or someone in their family is in this world.  Or, a perceptive teacher steered them into this or that class.  

How you got here is not important.  

What is vital?  Why you stay.

Deciding to stay an actor. Knowing what you know about the business, and your emotional health in this world, is important.

In a marriage or partnership, you know the difference between staying because you are here already and it would take a lot of energy to change it... and choosing to stay because you like your reasons. You accept that every moment will not be ecstasy, nor every conversation a revelation.

Ask yourself: 

Am I happy in my work? Am I awakened? Am I energized? Am I deeply engaged?

If not, do I want to be?

We are not going to love every job every day. Please know...

We have several ways to view our Environment.

Primary is your mindset.  The environment, or space, you provide for your thoughts.

If you think about your mind as a clean space for a moment, imagine how focused you could be.  Your mental environment is elemental if you want to expand as an actor, as a human, as a global citizen.

This environment also includes your consumption. Of social media. Podcasts. Books. Shows you see. Plays and scripts you read. How you get your news.

Next are the people in your close circle.

We don't always get to choose.

There is our family. There is the population of our work.

Where we do have sway is where we establish our support group. Our chosen family. Our close friends. Our agents and managers.

And finally there is your physical space.

This includes your home. Your work space, which can be an office in your apartment or house, or your laptop in a comfortable chair.

When you are working, this absolutely includes your dressing room...

There is a feeling swirling around Broadway at this writing. And not for the first time.

There is a sentence or two in the air, in the ether, and now roiling the hearts and minds of a group of actors who, being human, took the sentences and made them mean something hard to swallow.

Suffice it to say, Understudies weren't prepared to go on. 

Said someone.

There is scant evidence to support any such sentiment. 

This is being written in the time of covid. Cast members, along with company members in every capacity, are being swabbed, tested, prompted, masked, lectured, and swabbed some more. Tensions can run hot because the feeling is fresh each day...Who Can Go On Tonight?  Am I being safe enough? Is my mask tight enough? Is their mask enough?

Who is Ready.

There are, in fact, as many states of readiness as there are humans to learn a track, directors and choreographers and dance and movement captains to weigh in, phases of the moon to disrupt...

It is time to...

There is a time for all of us actors, when we have to go on stage, hurting.

Someone is sick.  You are sick.

Someone is betrayed.  Someone is angry. You are.

Someone is accused.  Someone is canceled. You may be.

Someone is empty inside.  Someone is avoiding you. 

You break stage, you enter, breathe, project, move, cope.

You perform.

The emotions roiling inside, examined or not, will thrust into the show. We are human, and our bodies don't know the difference between a scene and life.  The third rail of acting is almost always running hot, to protect us.

That book just fell... should I pick it up?

That line was dropped...do I need to alter anything?

The pace is slow...let me press into the cues.

An audience member is coughing...let me repeat that.

My heart is sore...I am crying hard in a scene usually played dry.

The beauty and the agony of theatre is thus. We show up as humans, with all the day has brought us.  All the thoughts, the critiques, the...