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n having gone through arduous auditions callbacks and a 2 week waiting process for the final cast lists i have managed to be cast in two of my university s departmental shows which is a great honor indeed i have two great parts in two great casts and it really is a wonderful feeling to be rewarded with results like this in a business that constantly dismisses the talent of an individual and now i can enjoy this five day break back at home with my family and with a reassuring blanket of certainty keeping my ambitions safe at least for the next few months then who knows what actors live very transient lives i realize as a student i am only just beginning to grasp how fleeting the nature of my work will be shows hold auditions are cast produced and closed within the blink of an eye and consequently it can be tempting for me to dismiss the lasting impact of my craft but i suppose memories and emotions last longer than the final curtain even if they are less tangible measures of enduring value for me thanksgiving is a time for rest but it is also a time for contemplation as i look back on what i have in my life and where i plan to go from here sometimes i question my contribution to society what good is acting for the world one of my professors thankfully helped me to reexamine this notion he talked to us in class about how we should never treat our chosen field in the arts and humanities as somehow inferior to the sciences or social sciences yes the world will always need scientists doctors engineers creators of the practical but to create art is of no less importance science should not be compared to art and vice versa because they are incomparable after yo yo ma finishes a concert one would not ask him what s the point of playing the cello a better question might be what compels you to play the cello or when you play the cello what do you feel art is not and should not be a product that can be bought and sold like a plastic toy off a production line it does not necessarily feed us clothe us assist us in the practicalities of day to day life or answer the deeper problems of our existence but for anyone who has seen a beautiful painting heard a moving composition or experienced the enchantment of a sublime piece of literature or theatre they know that art is an essential part of being human and enjoying our lives to the fullest and so i realize that art for art s sake is more important that art for the sake of practicality art can be practical but it must exist for itself first we create art because we are inspired and we go to art because it inspires creation within us art can give us solutions but more often i think it raises questions and i am a firm believer that it is just as important to be able to send a man to the moon as it is to inspire the hearts of men and women through the mystery of art happy thanksgiving everyone may it be filled with rest peace and good art posted in a little bit of background life experience tags actors art art for art s sake art for the sake of practicality auditions blessings callbacks cello contemplation departmental show junior year mystery of art practicality rest thanksgiving thanksgiving break transient lives yo yo ma absence and practicality november 15 2009 leave a comment hello all or one or whoever might happen to read this first of all my apologies for my lack of updates recently i suppose it is not very professional to leave one s blog un updated for so long and i enjoy writing it gives me a release valve for all the built up pressure of words and thoughts and ideas that accumulate in my brain over the course of the day or in this case weeks but as with so many things i enjoy it still requires practice and practice requires a certain amount of discipline i would consider myself a person of grand ideas but with sometimes unrealistic expectations or patience for such ideas ultimately i have a persevering personality so good and even great things do get done but they do not always happen when i want them to nor do they always attain the level of achievement i desire for the past few weeks i have had auditions callbacks classwork and other personal goings on that have distracted me from this blog but fortunately they have also distracted me from myself instead of constantly raking my mind for new grand schemes that are inevitably overambitious i have become preoccupied with the demands of the current moment because the current moment has required it in others words i ve finally had a dose of practicality thank god that really is what the last couple of weeks have taught me simple practicality as one of my acting professors told me on friday during a class improv just work on the simple stuff you can break the rules once you ve learned the simple stuff so if i m worried that i m not extending myself enough knowing me i m probably overextending less is more quality not quantity find something to do and do it well practicality this is a good thing for me to learn posted in a little bit of background life experience tags absence acting blog break the rules discipline less is more overextending practicality practice pressure quality not quantity release valve simple stuff un updated unrealistic expectations work on the simple stuff writing bring honesty to the stage october 27 2009 leave a comment i ve been thinking a great deal lately about honesty and what it means in acting and life sadly i don t think we live in a culture that values honesty as much as we should but i believe that many people still greatly appreciate honesty when it is shared with them but in acting honesty is not merely an act of kindness or respect it is essential you must be honest with your audience and you must be honest with yourself this might be confusing since the nature of theatre is often compared to a lie what is happening on stage is not really real actors are portraying characters but i don t always like to consider theatre a lie i like to consider it a different representation of the truth even an autobiography contains some altered or fictional elements that have been adjusted or rephrased for the integrity of the entire message a play should be performed with honesty if it is to share the integrity of its message with the audience the performers must believe in their characters if the audience is to believe in them i think the process of acting would be easier if actors placed greater emphasis on portraying characters and situations with honesty at the same time i don t mean obsessive realism film can be a medium for obsessive realism but it is rarely manageable on the stage by its very nature the stage is an unrealistic convention for sharing moments of significance with an audience instead of bringing honesty to the stage through ulta realism bring honesty to the stage through authenticity to play hamlet for example it is not necessary nor advisable to work yourself into a suicidal state but neither is it good to demean the character to a stereotype to a shakespearean cliche from centuries past to paraphrase noted film and stage actor anthony zerbe you must take a step towards the character on the page and let hamlet take a step from the page towards you you are not hamlet hamlet is not you but if you meet each other in the middle you can find a little of each other and share something with an audience that maybe no one has ever seen before and that authenticity is compelling it is honest and that is an undeniably satisfying quality to see portrayed on stage posted in life experience musing of the moment tags acting actor anthony zerbe authenticity bring honesty to the stage demean the character hamlet honesty process of acting shakespearean theatre ultra realism theatre the great provoker october 24 2009 leave a comment i recently saw a professional production of david mamet s oleanna at a regional theatre near my university i ve read both glengarry glen ross and american buffalo but this was my first exposure to mamet on the stage and it was moving perhaps i shouldn t say moving because if anything the play stopped me dead in my tracks and it made me angry the subtitle for the play is appropriately a power play and it was just that a constant shifting of energy between just two characters for 90 minutes with an inevitable explosion of frustration between them overwhelming the audience with a catharsis of violence and anger it was not traditional mamet at least not from what i have read minimal strong language vulgarities or obscenity there was just a simmering brooding resentment that seemed to be building in the characters for the entire duration of the play and it often seemed within the audience as well apparently the original broadway production suffered brawling fistfights between audience members in the lobby after the premiere how can a play a work of fiction do this to us i ve known for a long time that the theatre can be a place of extreme provocation just look at brecht or augusto boal s theatre of the oppressed or arthur miller s the crucible it even goes back to the plays of shakespeare s contemporaries and some of the satyr plays of the greeks as long as there has been a need for censorship in the theatre there has been provocation but at the same time i ve probably more commonly associated theatre with a place of entertainment maybe even enlightenment provocation i feel can be both just look at mel brook s the producers springtime for hitler and germany brooks manages to accomplish much of his humor through almost but not quite deeply offending his audiences but then is that really provocation i think my 21st century western notions of theatre can be very comfortable at times if its a comedy it s funny if it s a drama it s moving whatever that means to roughly paraphrase something i heard anne bogart say it is not the theatre that moves me that i find so interesting as the theatre that holds me motionless that takes my breath away oleanna took my breath away because it provoked me it made me angry alright so i didn t get in a fist fight in the lobby afterwards but i was deeply concerned about the implications of what i had just seen because i could see truth in it perhaps this is why a play like oleanna is more than just an edgy comedy or an enlightened drama it takes us past a comedic edgy into a realistic edgy and instead of patting us over the head with a neat little moral precept or enlightened solution it throws deeply distressing problems in our face and then withholds any satisfactory answers to our questions oleanna stopped me in my tracks despite the play being nearly 20 years old because i could see the relevance of the problems it was exposing and instead of trying to offer a solution to the problem which i don t necessarily think is the job of a playwright mamet frustrates us to the point of emotional anguish to the point of an explosion and then perhaps we realize the irony we are not so different from the characters on that stage and unlike them we are real posted in a day out of the ordinary musing of the moment tags a power play a work of fiction anne bogart brecht brooding resentment censorship david mamet enlightenment entertainment extreme provocation oleanna original broadway production provocation provoke theatre theatre of the oppressed western notions of theatre take care of yourself october 17 2009 leave a comment this advice is just as much for me as for anyone else who happens to read this as humans we have almost always lived in some state of danger or uncertainty living in a country like the united states in the 21st century however it is easy to forget just how dangerous the world can be with cell phones the internet medical technology transportation abundant food and a huge amount of instantaneous satisfaction it can be very easy for me to forget just how quickly all of this can be taken away i am not invincible even though sometimes i would like to think i am accidents can happen mistakes can occur i am blessed with a tremendous amount of control over my life and my future but even then money and privilege can not but certainty i do not know that i will wake up tomorrow for certain i do not know that my dorm room might burn down for certain i do not know that my friends or family might be killed in a car accident for certain these are terrible things to think about which is why i think death is such a taboo topic in our culture it makes us feel uncomfortable but i think it is far better to acknowledge these possibilities rather than live in denial i m not saying be morbid i m simply saying that we shouldn t take our lives for granted recently i have been taking my life for granted i have been taking the opportunities given to me for granted i would even go so far as to say i have been squandering them despite my privilege and opportunity i have not taken care of myself or the blessings i have in this life staying up late very late with no real reason other than i do not want to sleep i think i am too good for sleep as a reaction against my narcolepsy with the help of my new medication i think part of me thought i was invincible that sleep was no longer that important it was a big mistake by staying up late by increasing my sleep debt to an inordinate amount i literally made myself sick at first i thought it was just seasonal allergies but i ve realized over the past few weeks this is a yo yo effect if i get a decent amount of sleep for a night i feel alright the next day but since my sleep is never consistent the sickness soon comes back i had terrible chronic headaches a bad cough and painful sinuses my muscles felt weak and stiff and i was feeling cold shivers it was getting to the point where i was even starting to feel dizzy when i got up almost falling over if i exerted myself too much and this was entirely my own fault yes i could easily blame seasonal allergies the flu season the demands of college but deep down inside i know that i am the instigator of the suffering with which i am now contending i have taken life for granted to the extent that i am causing myself harm nothing outside of me has done this so i must take responsibility this is perhaps a sobering entry maybe more so for me as i type it than for those few who i know read it but i am glad i am saying it because it is encouraging me to be accountable and my life is improving i have been insisting i go to bed at a sensible time and after several nights of good sleep the improvement in my overall health is very apparent the key is to make such behavior a conscious habit just like any form of actor training it must become a part of my daily ritual the same as brushing my teeth or doing my stretches my advice to all please take care of yourself no one else can do this for you and no one else can help you recover until you take the initiative yourself whether you are an artist or not you will reap the benefits of good health through this behavior which will also help you tackle ...
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