Actors and Thought Work

Theatre folk.

We know how to rehearse.

The permission to be wrong.  The collaboration (if the producers/directors are open to this) of the company.  

The exploration.  

What is the theme?  What are the expectations?  

There are markers along the way, some imposed by others, and some we lay in our brains all by ourselves.

By this date, I will be off book.

By this time, I will know my cover tracks.  Have the movement cold. Alert my social media feed that there is a show growing.

And this time comes with pressure.  Because there is a hard date. 

An assumption. 

That all will come together and the show will open.

So, we have this time that is fluid, within a structure (schedule) that is static.

There is always a possibility lingering, that something will change. Cuts will be made. 

And we will shift, we adaptable creatures, to adopt the change and still focus on the date when the show is set. 

Rehearsal time. Creativity within a structure. 

The flow is forward, and can be gl...

Amazing Actors.

Let's think about your thoughts... as Open Space.

Open Space in the world of the environment can mean a natural, undeveloped area of land allowed to grow as nature would have it be.

Think of your mind, with its tens of thousands of thoughts, as your Open Space.

So. What is growing there?

Wild, chaotic thoughts, climbing and growing toward the sun, choking out the less tended plants.... I mean thoughts?

Have you shorn all your thoughts to a nice steady 3 inch high level, seeing all you can see, and admiring the security and comfort?

Are you seeing the toxic plants?  The invasive species, the poison ivy, the plants that, quite honestly, need to be pulled or at least, pruned?

Are you allergic to anything growing there?

The untended brain. Is like open space where the world gets its way. Tangled with undergrowth, swampy in places, arid in others. 

If you absorb every news broadcast, every unkind remark tossed your way, every repeated story your mother told you, ev...

I don't know whether to do this or that.

You might think.

And when we give all the power away for that decision to 'I don't know', we lose the opportunity to Find Out. 

Whether.

This works. Or That works.

Or neither.

Decision making is the Single Best Way to propel yourself toward your goals.

Full stop.

Again. All together!

Decision making is the Single Best Way to propel yourself toward your goals.

So.

Why oh Why don't we do it more?

Because we are afraid of feeling a feeling.

Take a simple audition example.

I don't know whether to give full venom in this audition scene, because 'it might be too much', or to be quietly steaming.

You go back and forth a bit.  Maybe ask your scene or taping partner.  

You use your time up (oh, most valuable currency!) and your energy (the psychic kind! and another of your currencies) in a vexing back and forth. 

Maybe 15 minutes go by.  Maybe more. There may be a snack involved. 

You may check your phone. Your feeds.

You certainly may...

This one has festered for a while.

I see the thought and accept it.  

For so so so so many years, the female voice was written, predominantly,  by the males.  

The ideas we conjure about who women were, what we wanted, what we thought, were contained in the pen to paper of men.  

Not only written by the males, but performed, given life, by the males.

So, we females were doubly removed from the process.

I'm sure that felt good.

And sometimes they (these males who could afford paper) got it brilliantly right.

Then there's this one.  One example in the sea of possibilities.

Not an affront.  Not getting huffy.

Just. This awareness.

It would be great to know what she thought.

This recipient of the Second Best Bed.

We are developed enough to realize that time, history, culture, advocacy, education are all bending through our thoughts and we have come so far.

This is simply one strain of thought about the woman who married Williams Shakespeare.

What we know (or what on line aca...

Oh, here it is...

The one you haven't been waiting for.

What we do when we aren't doing the things we think we want to do. Should do. Ought to do.  Have told ourselves repeatedly we need to do.  

And yet. 

Somehow. Aren't doing.

First:

Actors aren't alone in this, of course.  We have the whole of humanity who, given free will, will trot briskly back into the cave in order to conserve energy, avoid pain, and seek a little (OK, let's make that a LOT) of pleasure.  

You may have noticed a pattern in your work life.  If you book a job, you start working hard to 'be ready' for the rehearsals, the shoot, the requirements of the role.

Or. 

You use the lack of work as evidence of lack of opportunity. 

You stop working to be ready, because a clear vision, a specific job, a notable audition, isn't in your calendar, beckoning you toward greatness.

Let's examine the framing of the word, 'lack'. 

The state of being without, or not having enough of something.

So, sure.  When you're not...

There is a tendency for us to 'value' ourselves by the contract we work.

Broadway principal.

Top of show recurring.

Guest Artist.

Or, by our paychecks.

Our unions have established minimums for contracts, so some of the 'valuation' work here is done for our agents.

Beyond that, there are negotiations for status, risk, celebrity, complexity of the role, industry platform, and many other intangibles.

Straight scale happens a lot.

Are you valuing yourself based on one of these?

I invite you to think of your value as bigger than this.

Let's think about a definition of VALUE.

The regard that something is held to deserve.

The exchange of value for value is as old as the first barter system.  There is even a theatre in Virginia where the patrons were allowed to bring produce and farm animals to exchange for a ticket to see the show.

And yes. The actors were sometimes fed this way!

Remember, 'we'll work for food!'?

At some point, one of the values in the exchange became money.

I...

Well.

Don't we all love to be given these...

Not.

Most of us are aware, globally, of the 'no no' that is giving an actor a line reading, either director to actor, or actor to actor, or teacher to actor.... 

Sometimes we do need it. Ask for it.  Just to speed things along.

Sometimes as a standby or cover, we choose to slip into the rhythm of the actor in a role to keep the pacing familiar.

But sometimes we don't.

And when we are 'given' a reading, whether because we request it, or it is simply hurled at us in rehearsal, we have a thought about it. 

And that thought generates a feeling.

'I hate saying it that way.'

'That doesn't work for me.'

'That is inauthentic.'

'This director is asking for a result, not my instincts.'

'Thank God I know what they want!'

'I can do that.'

'The director is in a rush and I wasn't getting there fast enough.'

There are as many 'sentences in our heads' as there are actors who receive the line reading.

You can't be in the business for long wi...

This is not really about acting. 

Maybe a bit about coaching.

I opened the nondescript box containing my best friend’s ashes today. 

 He had been in my guest room, on a bookshelf for months, as my family awaited permission to have a memorial in the place he chose.

 I would at times turn toward this box and talk to my friend, feeling him truly in the room.

I had not been avoiding it.

Just deciding I didn’t have to do it yet.

 He wanted his ashes scattered by my family at places we knew he wanted to be.

 And this.

 It turns out.

 This meant I had to divide him up.

 As an actor, as a friend, as a mother, as a daughter, as a human, I have lost loved ones.

 Most of us have.

 I have attended wakes, touched the skin of the dead, cried over open caskets (very big in the South) and grew up not being afraid of the human body.

 My friend came out an an age when it was not easy.

 Is it ever?

 I know. It still isn’t, for so many humans on our planet.

Transitioning humans. Non binar...

What is buffering?

A quick smartphone check answer: 'To lesson or moderate the impact of something.'

That can be a good thing.  There is an old pain medication that uses the word buffer in its name, as an indication that it does that.   Take this, and your pain will be lessoned.

We as human need this sometimes.

But most often, we buffer when we don't.

You may already be aware of times in your life when you 'make yourself feel better', or calmer, or justified, by having a drink, or eating a brownie (or 6) or streaming an entire series in one sitting, or going down endless funnels of instagram posts. 

And you do get relief, as planned.

Get a role, drink to celebrate.  Don't get a role, drink to commiserate. Don't like the way your partner snapped at you last night? Stream 5 stories about disfunctional relationships. Or 3 hours of romance movies, or work out (again) even though your body has plenty of love, strength and capacity.

We can buffer with work.  Because it feels justifie...

All of the power in your life comes from this.

The decisions you make.

The decisions you don't make.

The decisions someone else makes 'for you'.

All. Of. The. Power.

We tend to frame so many decisions as Right or Wrong.

What if.

None were right or wrong, but simply movement.

Your mental shift (movement) forward.

What if.

No decision was wrong.

What if.

Instead of beating yourself up about a decision, you had your own back. 

If the results you create with that decision are not ones that serve you, you can consider it failure.

Or learning.

Or a path.

We need to get comfortable with discomfort.

So many times, we are deciding to decide.  Waiting to know what the results will be before we act!  Then, having evidence that our decision will be correct, we 'decide'.

See what is happening here?

How about this.

You decide. You do. You learn.

Because by choosing not to act.

Choosing not to do. 

You never learn what works.

By learning what doesn't.

We need to give ourselve...