According to AnD Community Update, it's been 139 days since I posted anything. Yeow. It's been a very busy summer! Well, I have some great news to start off a more reliable winter of blogging.
Those of you who have read my previous blogs know how important I feel it is for actors to continue to practice their art. And I'd like to talk about that a little bit, because my favorite acting coach, Jeanne Hartman, is making a return trip to Hong Kong in just two weeks and it's a great opportunity to get into her workshop and shape up!
Some years ago I spent a summer on the acting staff of the Banff School of Fine Arts in the Rocky Mountains of Canada. The school has a long hallway lined with cubicles each one containing a grand piano. Day in and day out, those cubicles were filled with concert pianists practicing, practicing, practicing.
Where did you have to go if you wanted to find your fellow actors? The bar. Okay, a bar is a great place for an actor to observe human behavior... certain forms of behavior anyway, but in order to reliably and, may I say brilliantly, reproduce behavior in performance, the actor needs to practice their "scales" just like a musician.
We need to get in touch with our centers, loosen our bodies, open our throats, stretch ourselves through improvisation and we have to keep doing it. Regularly. An acting coach like Jeanne is a godsend to us because she can pull performances from us we never knew we had hidden within us. She establishes a safe environment for us to explore our limits, go for whatever emotion might be lurking down there, and discover, for ourselves, just how much further we can go. Then it will be there for us in actual performance, where there is no net. We've done the work in Jeanne's class, now that work can work for us on the set or on the boards.
I've seen the testimonials of those of you who attended her earlier workshops in Hong Kong and I know how much you felt you'd stretched because of them. The moment has arrived for you to dust off the cobwebs and get loose again! Every time you "work out" in an acting class, you learn new things and reach new heights. I'm stuck here in L.A. but I cannot encourage you enough to take advantage of this opportunity, and I can't wait to hear more excited talk about how much you learned and how much you grew while in her care.
For those of you who don't know Jeanne, she is the kindest coach at the top of her form. She does not see herself as an acting guru as some teachers do. She calls herself the Actor's Detective because she helps you find the clues to your own individual performance. She helps performers reach what's inside each individual by asking questions, and detecting where this particular performance lies. She knows that no two performers are the same and no two performances will be either. It's a thrill to watch her work but more of a thrill to participate.
http://www.alivenotdead.com/jasontobin/Jeanne-Hartman-s-Acting-Workshop-Take-3-event-814561.html
Date:
Saturday, Dec 5, 2009 12:00AM
Sunday, Dec 13, 2009 12:00AM