Archive for November, 2009
Becoming a Triple Threat
This blog originally appeared on Straight from School’s website:
There are lots of young people in the UK that desperately want to work in Musical Theatre and for good reason. When you go to a show like Wicked, Les Mis, Spring Awakening or one of the other BIG musicals – it’s glamourous, sexy and looks like great fun. The truth is, it’s bloody hard work and it takes years of intensive training to get to the position of being good enough to cast for a professional musical. Don’t be fooled by watching those TV talent shows, the amount and level of training those people have or get is unbelievable.
Becoming a Musical Theatre performer is a tough journey that requires real graft, commitment and an indomitable spirit. Those that stand the best chance of working in the Musical Theatre are those who are trained as Triple Threats.
The Triple Threat (T3) is so-called because they can sing, dance and act. Now, all the T3’s that I’ve ever worked with have a primary skill and then work their tails off to become better at the others. We’re not talking about being a fantastic actor with basic dance and some singing skills. We’re talking about those performers that have trained themselves to a professional standard in all three areas.
Not all Musical Theatre performers are T3s, but it’s the T3s that have more success of gaining employment. They can go for dance roles, singing roles, acting roles, or those that require any combination of all three. The T3 is a special kind of person and it takes a real dedication to achieve a level of professionalism in the three disciplines where one can be called Triple Threat.
Being Triple Threat means being able to market yourself as a singer, dancer and actor, and the training should start early…particularly for those that are not natural dancers. Acting and singing can be learned later in life, but you really DO need to get your dance training in early, the earlier the better.
Why are they called Triple Threats? Because when you’re up against one, they can beat you to a job in all three disciplines. The choice is clear, becoming a Triple Threat or get beaten by one.
With a certain sense of irony, Happy Birthday David Mamet 
)
Mark Westbrook is a Professional Acting Coach and runs Acting Coach Scotland, a private acting studio offering acting classes in Glasgow, masterclasses, workshops and audition coaching for actors at all levels. His acting studio is based in Glasgow, Scotland, although he teaches all across the United Kingdom. All Blog Posts © Mark Westbrook 2009
10 Reasons Why Smoking will Harm Your Acting Career
Hey Everyone
I’m sure that the title sounds all morally anal, but let’s be honest, there are a LOT of GOOD reasons why actors shouldn’t smoke and it’s all about your career, so if you won’t do it for your health, then do it for the longevity of your career. Here are 10 reasons why smoking will harm your acting career:
ONE: Your Voice – You may have a lovely now, but your lung capacity and your range will be drastically cut. You have fewer casting opportunities because you have a voice that sounds like you chew gravel for fun, and that’s just the women…
TWO: Money – Let’s face it, smoking costs a fortune, and if you’re happy to burn your money, I suppose that’s okay, but most actors are dirt poor or saving for periods of no-work or resting. In New York City, where smoking costs $10 a pack, someone smoking a pack a day is burning $3650 dollars per year (think about how many acting classes, cool TVs, new Apple Macs you could own in ten years – after ten years, that’s $36500 – imagine the growth in a guaranteed investment – you could get a Reel professionally done and have change for SAG membership, AFTRA membership, need I go on?). Last but not least, most actors don’t earn that much money through acting, so if you gave up smoking, you’d have to do less shifts in your crappy waiting job… but the choice is yours
In the UK, the average pack is £5.85 (your CCP membership – which you say you can’t afford, the voice coaching – which you say you can’t afford, the Equity membership that you know you need, but you say you can’t afford, the new 10×8s that you know you have to get, but you say you can’t afford can ALL be afforded- ALL with the £2135 you waste on cigarettes each year.
THREE: Physical Endurance – If you’re a smoker, you know that physical exercise is NOT your friend, there are many shows that require serious physical capability. Just forget those roles, there’s some more roles you can’t get.
FOUR: Prematurely Ages You – The action of smoking creates deep wrinkles in your face, which even with really good cosmetic dermal fillers can’t be fully removed. Furthermore, the tar discolours your skin, age spots are increased, yellow fingers, dull eyes from years of smoke damage, brittle nails – women particularly will suffer. But hey, the choice is yours.
FIVE: Kiss Goodbye to Romantic Scenes – Sooner or later you’ll have to do a romantic scene which involves kissing. All the gum in the world will not take away the gut wrenching, stomach turningly awful taste of kissing a smoker. Your co-star or scene partner will dread the moment they have to get close to you.
SIX: You Stink – Let’s face it, I don’t need to write you an essay on this one, your sense of smell has been damaged beyond belief and you can no longer tell just how bad you smell.
SEVEN: Weight/Nerves - Actors use smoking to control their nerves and maintain their weight. Actually, you’re just ignoring a problem, problems just get worse when ignored.
EIGHT: Smoking Actors Die Young - Just look at the statistics, actors that were big smokers usually die young. Patrick Swayze died young – Ah you say, but Pancreatic cancer, but Swayze and his doctors were both reported as saying that smoking contributed to his cancer (and therefore his young death).
NINE: Ill Health Cuts Short Your Career – Many actors can work right up until the day they die because there are parts for actors of all ages. However, if you start to suffer from terrible ill health related to smoking related sickness, then your career is over, shame – cos you were just getting to play the cool older parts.
TEN: Role Model – Whether you like it or not, you’re a role model to others, and the more successful you are, the more people will look up to you, so if you don’t care about your own health, so you care about those people that admire you?
ELEVEN: This is a bonus one – this is completely for free – if you’re American, think about your dental insurance or the cost of dental work. It’s going to cost you a fortune to keep that smile and once you’ve lost that smile, you can’t get it back without serious expense or kissing goodbye to your TV and Film acting career.
You may think this is some kind of anti-smoker’s moral campaign, but all I care about is the longevity of your career, don’t you?
So will you give up smoking for your career? No? Then you may have to give up your career for smoking.
Today, I was served tea in a Pyrex measuring jug… now I’ve seen everything ) Much love to our friends in London!
Mark Westbrook is a Professional Acting Coach and runs Acting Coach Scotland, a private acting studio offering acting classes in Glasgow, masterclasses, workshops and audition coaching for actors at all levels. His acting studio is based in Glasgow, Scotland, although he teaches all across the United Kingdom. All Blog Posts © Mark Westbrook 2009
Mamet on Acting – Part 1
It would hard for anyone to read my blog and not read in my obvious admiration for the contribution to drama, theatre, film, and acting that David Mamet has made. His ideas certainly have inspired me greatly over the years as a director, acting coach and writer and they still do. I don’t always agree with him, or some of his highly provocative statements (“Repetition is BULLSHIT” – to a recent Atlantic Theater Company Acting School class*) but there’s a lot that can be gleaned from him. His word is not law, but many times, it inspires and agitates, and it makes us question, that’s the important bit. Coming up with the answer can take a life time, and that’s okay.
Here are some of my favourite moments of David Mamet talking about the topic of acting, and these I do agree with.
“The theatre is a profession of mountebanks and misfits, much like myself, who’ve come in through the backdoor because no one else would have them and learned to find a place in society by getting up on the stage and doing plays that people need to hear, doing them well in an interesting, provocative and unusual manner. Who haven’t had the life bred out of them.” I think any of us that work in the arts know this feeling, a feeling of being an outsider, and many still are outsiders to the outsiders, those who live on the fringe of the misfits. Perhaps these days, the gate keepers are employed to keep people from coming in the backdoor quite so readily.
Mamet talks about organic acting and relates it to objectives, this is important for Practical Aesthetics practitioners, this is great for scene analysis, As-Iffing or playing the scene:
“A child who doesn’t want to go to bed. A lover who wants a second chance. A man or woman who wants a job. Someone who wants to get laid. There’s nothing that these people won’t do. And that’s called having an objective. Having an objective is just a fancy word for wanting something real, real bad. When all of us, or any of us, are in these situations, there’s nothing we won’t do. All our attention is on the other person. And we’ll change horses in the middle of the stream to do anything to get them to give us what we want. Now when you see that in an actor on the stage it’s awfully damned compelling. Because what the great actor is doing on stage is changing his or her tactics to get what they need from the other person on stage, rather than performing what they dreamed up at home.”
*And let’s face it, whilst it was Meisner that created the exercise, it’s Mamet that taught it to his original NYU Practical Aesthetics Workshop class, and part of Practical Aesthetics it has become, perhaps these days, he doesn’t think it works, I’ll do some investigating and see what I can find out!
To You, The Best!Mark Westbrook is a Professional Acting Coach and runs Acting Coach Scotland, a private acting studio offering acting classes in Glasgow, masterclasses, workshops and audition coaching for actors at all levels. His acting studio is based in Glasgow, Scotland, although he teaches all across the United Kingdom. All Blog Posts © Mark Westbrook 2009
Assistance with Repetition
The Repetition Exercise is one of my favourite parts of actor training and in my classes we spend a considerable amount of time attaining high skill levels in this exercise at all levels of the ACS training syllabus. I’ve been reading a lot about emotions this weekend, and whilst we do not try to fake emotions, we do try to be able to determine the behaviour and emotions of our partners. I’m sorry, this is probably not much fun for anyone that isn’t already taking classes or doing repetition elsewhere, but it’s fairly essential reading for my students.
The trouble is that among experts there is very little consensus on the actual basic emotions that the human being feels and therefore exhibits:
The Stoics believed there only a few basic emotions: Pleasure or Delight, Distress or Fear. (Can you tell when your partner is in one of these four basic states?)
In 1972, a now famous psychologist called Paul Ekman (he pioneered the reading of micro-expressions and emotions and a character based on him is in the TV show Lie to Me) came up with his own list of the basic emotions namely: Anger, Disgust, Fear, Happiness, Sadness and Surprise.
Now these are useful, but they don’t quite complete the full range of basic emotions, so in 1999 Ekman revised his list and came up with:
Amusement, Anger, Contempt, Contentment, Disgust, Embarrassment, Excitement, Fear, Guilt, Pride in Achievement, Relief, Sadness/Distress, Satisfaction, Sensory Pleasure and Shame.
This is very helpful for those of us staring at someone’s face (don’t forget it’s their body language and their tone too, this is just ONE facet of Repetition)
So Jesse Prinz was dissatisfied with these and came up with some of his own, Prinz is a philosopher, working in the field of emotions and the philosophy of psychology. Here’s Jesse Prinz’s list:
Frustration, Panic, Anxiety, Physical Disgust, Distress, Self-Consciousness, Satisfaction, Stimulation and Attachment.
Now again, not all of these work for repetition, but they’re good to consider.
Now the reason that I’m highlighting these for you, is to get you to become better and more specific at naming what you see. Think of it in terms of the stoics, then in terms of Ekman in ‘72 and Ekman in 99, then widen your thoughts on emotion to Prinz in 2004.
To You, The Best!Mark Westbrook is a Professional Acting Coach and runs Acting Coach Scotland, a private acting studio offering acting classes in Glasgow, masterclasses, workshops and audition coaching for actors at all levels. His acting studio is based in Glasgow, Scotland, although he teaches all across the United Kingdom. All Blog Posts © Mark Westbrook 2009
Contrasting Monologues for Auditions
For people that have been asked to do two contrasting monologues, they often feel that it means one comedic and one dramatic.
However,the contrast is also in tone, style, subject and deliver. Remember this and the following advice when deciding upon your contrasting monologues.
Picking contrasting monologues is vital to showing off your capacity as an act. Look at what occurs in each piece and see if they are truly different and contrasting.
Contemporary and Classical don’t necessarily contrast. They might be similar characters, from similar backgrounds with similar concerns or objectives. The same can be said of the dramatic and the comedic, they are not necessarily contrasting.
When you look at your two pieces, try to make a list of the similarities and differences in the pieces, are there more differences than similarities?
Try to contrast the situation that the character is in, is one talking aloud about their thoughts and feelings and the other mid-flow in the crisis of the drama.
Are the pace of the two pieces different?
Are the topics similar? When you think of the theme of the pieces, do they actually contrast?
Contrasting monologues are two very different characters with two very different goals in two very different situations, in two very different plays and two very different genres of dramatic literature. Contrast is black and white, night and day, not differing shades of gray.
Contrast can exist in:
- Character
- Objective
- Genre
- Situation
- Type of Language
- Movement Demands
- Emotional Range
- Mood or Tone of the Speech
- Accent
The more differences, the more contrasting. But be sure that the heart of each speech is actually different. I’m surprised by how many people bring me very similar monologues without understanding that they are almost entirely the same monologue, just wrapped in different paper.
Contrasting monologues show your dynamic range and capacity. If you need help, you know where to find me.
To You, The Best!Mark Westbrook is a Professional Acting Coach and runs Acting Coach Scotland, a private acting studio offering acting classes in Glasgow, masterclasses, workshops and audition coaching for actors at all levels. His acting studio is based in Glasgow, Scotland, although he teaches all across the United Kingdom. All Blog Posts © Mark Westbrook 2009
A Grammar of Acting
This grammar helps us to speak the same language, to develop a vocabulary for discussing the work that we do and the work of others. A shared vocabulary allows us a solid foundation for understanding how acting works and how to develop our skills.
When you have a language, you can enter into a dialogue. Dialogues empower us to learn and change. Without this grammar, without a shared language, we will find it difficult to engaged in this learning dialogue.
ACTOR: Someone that takes action.
ACTING: Acting is living truthfully under the imaginary circumstances of the play (Sanford Meisner)
ACTION1: also known as a TOOL or a TACTIC
ACTION2: Behaviour, the things that you do, made up of WANT, ESSENTIAL ACTION, PHYSICAL ACTIVITY and PHYSICAL ACTION.
ANALOGOUS CIRCUMSTANCES: Parallel Circumstances that help us to understand what we must do and how we must behave in the As-IF.
ANTECEDENT EVENTS: Events that occurred before the play begins.
As-IF: Developing parallel circumstances so that you understand the context for how you will play the scene, offers stakes and tempo-rhythm elements for your ESSENTIAL ACTION.
As-IFFING: An exercise used to habitualise the TACTICS of the ESSENTIAL ACTION into your body.
BIT: An individual section of the play script/text
BIT CHANGE: When one BIT of the scene changes to another because the character’s ESSENTIAL ACTION changes.
BEAT: What it sounds like when a Russian says ‘Bit’ and so, BIT has been replaced generally by BEAT and BEAT CHANGE.
CHARACTER: The sum of a person’s characteristics, the total of what they do. The sum of their actions2.
DIRECTOR: Someone who directs the ACTION2 of the play
DRAMATIC ACTION: The conflict of will as the Antagonist(s) strive to achieve their goals and what they do to try to achieve them.
ESSENTIAL ACTION: What your character wants from the other reduced down into a single powerful, actable sentence. Each Essential Action has 9 Criteria.
THE FACTS: An effective way to arrive at a summation of the GIVEN CIRCUMSTANCES.
GIVEN CIRCUMSTANCES: The term comes from Stanislavski and refers to all of the unchangeable facts of the scene. These facts are not open to interpretation; they are external influences that affect the situation of the scene. The writer, director and all the actors should be able to agree on these circumstances, as they are FACTS.
HABITUALISATION: The task of making something into a habit and therefore capable of being done without thought.
IN THE MOMENT: Now, not before, not before after, but RIGHT now.
LITERAL: A basic description of the scene – given without interpretation. A summation of what’s happening concluded into a single phrase.
MOMENT-TO-MOMENT WORK: Responding truthfully to what occurs in each moment, rather than based on what you did earlier in rehearsal.
OBSTACLE: What hinders your task IS your task.
PHYSICAL ACTION: Another name for a TOOL or TACTIC.
PHYSICAL ACTIVITY: Physical doing. Making a pot of tea. Killing Claudius, Undressing, Crossing the stage to pick up an object, or waving hello, these are all PHYSICAL ACTIVITIES.
PLAYWRIGHT: The ‘maker’/’wrighter’ of the play. The person that puts the pieces of the DRAMATIC ACTION together.
PRACTICAL AESTHETICS: A practicable theory of art.
RELATIONSHIP: The relationship type, be it PARENT, CHILD, TEACHER, STUDENT, EMPLOYEE, EMPLOYER, FRIEND, STRANGER etc that is between the characters in the scene that helps the actor to understand HOW to behave under the Imaginary GIVEN CIRCUMSTANCES.
REPETITION: An exercise created by Sanford Meisner to teach actors to listen to each other and respond to each other truthfully. It helps to develop spontaneity of action and reaction in the moment.
REPETITION WITH ACTION: The exercise played from the perspective of the ESSENTIAL ACTION.
SCENE ANALYSIS: A way of tackling any scene by asking several essential questions:
- 1. WHAT’S THE CHARACTER LITERALLY DOING?
- 2. WHAT DOES THE CHARACTER WANT THE OTHER CHARACTER TO DO?
- 3. WHAT’S THE ESSENTIAL ACTION?
- 4. AS IF: WHAT’S THE ESSENTIAL ACTION LIKE TO ME – IT’S AS IF…..
SCRIPT ANALYSIS: The overarching analysis of the play/screenplay to align the actors with the Dramatic Action the writer has constructed.
STAGE BUSINESS: Incidental PHYSICAL ACTIVITIES performed for dramatic purposes.
STAKE: What your character has to lose in the scene, what you have to lose in your AS-IF. Often generated in class/rehearsal by the question:
WHAT IF YOU DON’T? – WHAT ARE THE CONSEQUENCES
TACTICS: The things that character/actor does to get what they want. The things the actor does to the other actor in terms of TRANSITIVE VERBS that aim to produce the result required by the ESSENTIAL ACTION. It must immediately be capable of being done to another human being. TACTICS should be played based on what the other ACTOR is doing and not planned in advanced.
TEMPO-RHYTHM: A way for the STAKE to create speed of motion by setting a time signature.
TRANSITIVE VERB: A verb that can be done to someone else in Practical Aesthetics these are known as TOOLS or TACTICS.
TOOL: Another word for a PSYCHOPHYSICAL ACTION or TACTIC.
VOLLEY: To automatically fire the same ‘YOU CALL’ back in REPETITION when it isn’t necessarily true. The term is taken from tennis when the ball is hit back over the net before allowing it to bounce.
WANT: The desire, the underlying need that powers the character through the scene. Expressed in SCENE ANALYSIS as: ‘What does the character want the other character to DO’
To You, The Best!Mark Westbrook is a Professional Acting Coach and runs Acting Coach Scotland, a private acting studio offering acting classes in Glasgow, masterclasses, workshops and audition coaching for actors at all levels. His acting studio is based in Glasgow, Scotland, although he teaches all across the United Kingdom. All Blog Posts © Mark Westbrook 2009
Don’t Be Desperate in Auditions
Nothing is more repulsive to another as the sounds of desperation. Please… please please cast me, please cast me, please give me a place on the course, please let me come to drama school, please like me… yuk. If you want something, do not transmit your desperation because it will repulse people, it will put people off you. You might not realise it, but it isn’t pleasant at all.
Instead, you must transmit to the director or the auditors that you are an exceptionally professional person, with a good character and most or all of the following qualities:
You’re Well Trained - You’ve had the best training you could get and it has served you well, you demonstrate this by being a professional and knowing the ropes so to speak.
Prepared - Probably the most important element, are you prepared or do you request the indulgence of your audience? Please forgive my lack of preparation and see how wonderful I am. Imagine the door slamming in your face whenever you even consider failing to prepare. Failing to prepare is preparing to fail.
Energetic - Does anyone want to work with a tired, dour, docile actor? Bring your energy, but don’t be a lunatic.
Maturity - Regardless of your age, you should be mature.
Team Player – You’re not in this just for yourself, you’re an ensemble player, it’s not just about you.
Enthusiastic – Demonstrate that you’re excited and enthusiastic about the project, combine this with research and preparation, so you’re ‘in the know’.
Reliable & Committed – They can count on you. (Often demonstrated by arriving on time, being prepared and ready to go with the flow)
Fun to Be With - You’re not difficult, nor desperately fawning, you’re fun to be around, you make work feel like play.
Did you see anything in these qualities? Are they just the qualities of being a good actor? Yes! But they’re also the quality of being a good human being. The most important character to play well, is YOU. Your character is essential.
To You, The Best!Mark Westbrook is a Professional Acting Coach and runs Acting Coach Scotland, a private acting studio offering acting classes in Glasgow, masterclasses, workshops and audition coaching for actors at all levels. His acting studio is based in Glasgow, Scotland, although he teaches all across the United Kingdom. All Blog Posts © Mark Westbrook 2009
Help Me Out with My Decision About Glasgow Acting Classes
Mark Westbrook is a Professional Acting Coach and runs Acting Coach Scotland, a private acting studio offering acting classes in Glasgow, masterclasses, workshops and audition coaching for actors at all levels. His acting studio is based in Glasgow, Scotland, although he teaches all across the United Kingdom. All Blog Posts © Mark Westbrook 2009
Improvisation and the Advanced Glasgow Acting Class
I want to tell you something about the project my advanced students are currently working on in their Tuesday evening classes. Not because I am trying to persuade you to join them, cos I’m not, but because I think it might be interesting to hear about the work we’re doing together.
The advanced acting class at Acting Coach Scotland is a place where students that already have a firm grip on the technique of Practical Aesthetics explore more advanced elements of the technique and the training. This is an invite-only class and the standard of the student is high.
In this block of classes, we’re doing something different, we’re creating improvised scenes from scratch, working on them for a while and then handing them to playwrights to work up into script scenes.
The project started with the students creating an improvisational scenario for two other acting students. We do this with the tools of Practical Aesthetics. The student actor created a scenario, involving two people in a situation. They determined the location and what the individuals wanted from each other in the scene. Then they decided upon Essential Actions for the characters in the scene.
The next part involved a story conference with the students telling each other their ideas and I worked as story editor, working out any kinks, strengthening any parts of the story that I felt were vulnerable and challenging some of the thinking behind the decisions made.
The ‘actors’ for each scene then created an As-If for their improvised scene, to make a personal connection to the circumstances of the scene. Then they go from Repetition to connect with their partner, to Repetition with Action to begin to habituate the essential action whilst staying connected with their improv partner and finally into the As-If to bring it all together.
The students will work for a couple of weeks now on exploring the scene through improvisation before our three playwrights Ann Marie di Mambro, Chris Dolan and Philip J Larkin come in and watch the work in progress improvisations. They’ll then take their notes, their impression of the scenes and an audio recording of the improvisations and spend a week creating a scripted scene from it. The students will then work on rehearsing the scenes under my direction and using Practical Aesthetics to bring the scenes to performance.
I’ll keep you up to date with how the scenes develop and the process the students go through as they experience the generation and fruition of ideas into their performance.
To You, The Best!Mark Westbrook is a Professional Acting Coach and runs Acting Coach Scotland, a private acting studio offering acting classes in Glasgow, masterclasses, workshops and audition coaching for actors at all levels. His acting studio is based in Glasgow, Scotland, although he teaches all across the United Kingdom. All Blog Posts © Mark Westbrook 2009
Graft…
There are no shortcuts to any place worth going to… Anonymous
We live in a culture where talentless instant media celebrities have become some kind of inspirational and aspirational role models. Without talent, and without hard work, they achieve financial reward and media spotlight. This has encouraged others to believe that it takes no work at all to achieve these positions.
The trouble is that with the acting profession that many people are plucked from obscurity, they don’t go the conventional route, and all people see is that someone else didn’t have to do the hard work. Like John Cusack for instance, he didn’t need to go to drama school. Right then, say his fans, we don’t need to go to drama school, but they fail to realise he was a working actor, with two lead roles in Hollywood pictures under his belt before he graduated high school. He has earned his right to learn on the job and probably escape picking up some pretentious and precious behaviours from being in that kind of environment. But hear me, there are NO shortcuts.
But for the rest of us, there’s graft: plain and simple. We’d all like a direct route to fame and fortune, and just cos Susan Boyle got to reveal her talent to millions, doesn’t mean that you’re entitled to say the same ‘easy’ ride. The business owes you nothing and just because you believe you’ve got the right, doesn’t mean you do. AND hear me, there are NO shortcuts.
Graft is the keyword. If you’re willing to graft, to learn from others, to get out of your own way, to learn the technical skills, avoid the idiots and bring yourself from a wanna-be dreamer into the reality of life as a jobbing professional actor, then you might well get there. But hear me… there are no shortcuts.
But if you’re waiting for a star to fall out of the sky and turn you into someone famous overnight, well keep dreaming.
Our craft is hard fucking work. Much rejection and disappointment. Pain, misery and broken promises. But for those that MUST do it, they MUST do it.
There’s a story about a circus that comes to town and as the parade moves through the high street of the town, there’s a little old man behind the whole thing whose job it is to shovel up all the animal shit. And someone says, now come on old fella, surely there’s better jobs than this that you could get, with better money and less back-breaking work and the old man looks up enthusiastically and says ‘What and leave showbusiness?’. You see the old man loved it, as do many of us, regardless of the shit we have to shovel.
Some of us shovel the shit and work in the business. Some of us dream of it and never leave their 9-5. But hear me, there are NO SHORTCUTS.
To You, The Best!Mark Westbrook is a Professional Acting Coach and runs Acting Coach Scotland, a private acting studio offering acting classes in Glasgow, masterclasses, workshops and audition coaching for actors at all levels. His acting studio is based in Glasgow, Scotland, although he teaches all across the United Kingdom. All Blog Posts © Mark Westbrook 2009
On Becoming the Character
You are not the character. A character is not a person. A character is a fictional thing, and it is only tangentially related to the 360-degree, 3-Dimensional human being like you and me. A fictional character isn’t a real human being, they are a collection of words and actions that when embodied, create the illusion of a real human being. There’s nothing wrong with being an illusionist, there’s nothing wrong with learning how to create that illusion for the audience’s benefit and the techniques to do that.
All the techniques and character building exercises in the world will not help you to become the character, because you can’t. They’re voodoo. They’re superstition and most of the time it just wastes good rehearsal time. You can only make a transformation in the mind of the audience. If you do actually achieve a REAL transformation, then I suggest you take some time off and rest, drink lots of water and green tea and come back when the delusions stop.
We judge a person’s character on what they do, upon on their actions. By their actions we see what kind of person they are. The same can be said of a fictional character, we understand them by their verbal and psychophysical actions.
That’s not to say that acting is just saying the lines. It is understanding the script, learning the lines by rote, connecting to the script and its contents, connecting to your scene partners and living in the moment. The rest is technical skills and you can learn them anywhere professionals practice.
Does that mean that acting is just mindlessly saying lines. By no means. But acting isn’t about creating a new human being. You are already a more interesting human being now than any character you could create. Learning to bring yourself to the role and the role to yourself, now that’s the real task of the actor.
To You, The Best!Mark Westbrook is a Professional Acting Coach and runs Acting Coach Scotland, a private acting studio offering acting classes in Glasgow, masterclasses, workshops and audition coaching for actors at all levels. His acting studio is based in Glasgow, Scotland, although he teaches all across the United Kingdom. All Blog Posts © Mark Westbrook 2009
What YODA has to teach us as actors
Recently, I did a blog offering advice for actors based on the philosophy of the rapper and businessman Fiddy Cent. This received many emails and messages and I’d like to thank you all, I’m so glad it was helpful for you. Well, in the same spirit, this blog is inspired by the quotes of that famous acting teacher, oh okay, he’s not an acting teacher, but he may as well be, the one and only YODA:
“No! Try not. Do, or do not. There is no try.”
Meaning: ‘I’ll try’ is preparing to fail. (Mamet) If you allow the idea of failure into your pursuits, you are already admitting defeat. Either take action or do not. There is no in-between.
“Named must your fear be before banish it you can.”
Meaning that you need to identify your fears, blockages, obstacles and problems, examine the problem/fear, put it into the spotlight to prevent it from quietly defeating you. For an actor, this could be fear of working on a particular kind of material say Shakespeare or Film, or hating doing monologues or cold reads. Shine a light on your issue and go after with the same passion that you want to be the best actor. Whatever your weaknesses are, find them out, and banish them.
“If no mistake have you made, yet losing you are … a different game you should play.”
Meaning: If you repeat the same strategy for your career over and over and it doesn’t work, you must change your strategy, for PA practitioners, this also means, CHANGE tactics!
“But when the day comes that even old Yoda does not learn something from his students-then truly, he shall be a teacher no more.”
Meaning: No matter how clever, experienced and gifted you are, you still have something to learn. Even your acting teacher should be humble.
“Already know you that which you need.”
Meaning: For the actor, you already have the capacity to live truthfully and the mind to do it under imaginary circumstances. Everything you need to become a better actor is already inside you, but you might need some help in finding it and bringing it out into the open.
Mark Westbrook is a Professional Acting Coach and runs Acting Coach Scotland, a private acting studio offering acting classes in Glasgow, masterclasses, workshops and audition coaching for actors at all levels. His acting studio is based in Glasgow, Scotland, although he teaches all across the United Kingdom. All Blog Posts © Mark Westbrook 2009
The Principles of Acting and NOT the Rules of Acting!
When I teach acting classes in Glasgow, I’m often very strict about the way that I approach Practical Aesthetics. It’s almost like there are a set of rules and I’m making the students stick to them. I suppose from the outside, that looks rather restrictive. In our journey from unconscious incompetence to unconscious competence, somewhere, we have to learn the ropes. But I don’t think that it’s my job to teach ‘rules’. I don’t approach acting with a rule book in mind that people must stick to, instead, I believe that I espouse the principles of pragmatism, a practicable approach to acting that we called Practical Aesthetics, the approach formulated by Mamet and Macy and developed by its practitioners ever since.
Principles? Rules? What’s the difference? A rule says THIS is the way that YOU (and all) MUST do it. Principles say ‘this works, take it or leave it’.
Firstly, acting is not about rules. Although the rebellious acting student wants to break them, usually before they’ve discovered if there are any. Anxious students, wanting to be perfect (the route to stiff, mechanical thinking, behaviour and action) try to obey rules, and get confused and upset when it doesn’t all work out like 2+2=4. Rules are easy to follow, but art and craft of the actor is based on principles, and these are a little more grey in their definition, but they work, time and again. If you’re willing to spend the time learning them.
We live in a get-it-quick culture. We want to take the shortest route anywhere. We will usually do the least possible to get the desired result. But becoming a professional, and I mean that in the fullest sense, becoming a professional actor means opening one self up to the richness, fullness and thoroughness of the craft. If asked to familiarise yourself with the work of Pierre Marivaux (or anyone for that matter), do you read one and scan Wikipedia? Or do you spend time reading his work, reading about his work and learning who he was and what made him tick. Most people wouldn’t bother, but this thoroughness, it permeates through your entire work ethic.
If you practice everything as if there is nothing to lose, when it comes to the real thing, you will flounder under the pressure. Thoroughness in everything, thoroughness in all. This is a principle.
Excellence in acting requires graft, perseverance and a thorough grounding in the principles of the craft. I believe and when I teach my acting classes in Glasgow, or anywhere in fact, it starts with the simplest principles and it ends with those self same principles.
To You, The Best!Mark Westbrook is a Professional Acting Coach and runs Acting Coach Scotland, a private acting studio offering acting classes in Glasgow, masterclasses, workshops and audition coaching for actors at all levels. His acting studio is based in Glasgow, Scotland, although he teaches all across the United Kingdom. All Blog Posts © Mark Westbrook 2009
FEMALE MONOLOGUE AUDITION PIECE
Okay, I don’t know whether this is a bit of shameless self promotion, or genuine act of benevolence on my part, but I’ve decided to offer a monologue from my play The Emotional Life of Furniture to the Internet as a potential audition monologue for female actors with a casting age around 23. If this is useful to you, I hope it brings you success, if not, well, there’ll be another blog tomorrow )
The Emotional Life of Furniture by Mark Westbrook
The part of Katie was first performed by Ceejay Watt at the Tron Theatre in October 2008.
Katie is talking to David, another patient in the psychiatric unit about how she ended up in the hospital.
KATIE:
The Greeks invented psychiatric medicine.
Did you know that? Smart bastards.
They prescribed three things: Quiet. Occupation and Herbal Purging. I like the sound of the first two. The last one’s a bit like doing a shit.
I’ve been ill before, before this time I mean. Well, actually I was ill twice before this. But this once, this one time, I got quite sick. I couldn’t do much for myself. I had to remind myself to get in the shower. I had to have a shower at the beginning of the day. I had to start my day with a shower or there was no shower. And then there was a smell. There were sores and then there was the smell of the sores. It smelled like erm…. vagina for want of a better smell, sweaty skin and wet hair, but…more disgusting. Not that there’s anything disgusting about vaginas….They’re quite lovely and everything. I’m not into vaginas though. Well, that’s not true, I quite like my own, which is quite odd for a girl.
I was numb. I was distant from others. People said I was distant. And the smell usually kept people away I was distant from myself mostly. Mainly from myself. That was the main thing. I didn’t do much. But it was quiet And no one bothered me. I had to ask myself – What was so terrible about this? So what if I was a bit mental? I liked it, it was….quiet. But I couldn’t read and eventually the sick pay ran out and I had to go back to work.
It was fine for the first day, there was no one there
But on the second day everyone was there. But no one spoke to me. And I was clean and everything. No smell, I’d been showering for weeks and going to the gym and showering there too. Actually I was feeling much better by then but no one spoke to me. No one. They went for lunch, went for coffee, went for tea. But no one spoke to me. And they gave me stupid crap to do, like you’d give a work experience girl. Then one day, this guy Dr Tony, one of the lecturers, he asked if I’d go down to Physical Resources and ask them to sort me out a long weight in one of the lecture rooms. I was like fine..No problem. I waited for four fucking hours. Four Hours. A very long wait. One day, I waited for them to go for coffee, then I did a shit on their desks. It was really hard to do three big shits like that one after the other – but I managed it.
They asked me to go after that, I’d been there five years. They had a party when I left. I wasn’t invited.
With special thanks to BellaLuce, keep reading 
Mark Westbrook is a Professional Acting Coach and runs Acting Coach Scotland, a private acting studio offering acting classes in Glasgow, masterclasses, workshops and audition coaching for actors at all levels. His acting studio is based in Glasgow, Scotland, although he teaches all across the United Kingdom. All Blog Posts © Mark Westbrook 2009
What does good acting look like?
ACTING STUDIO UPDATE: The studio is starting to look the part and the office is a great haven, where lots of work can be done for both ACS and Writers Inc, our writing arm… Pictures to follow!
THE BLOG: Recently in the advanced acting techniques class, we were doing repetition and I asked the two students Ian and Paul to go into the ACS Office and do repetition. The other students and I then watched through the window of the studio which allows a limited view of the office. The two students doing the repetition looked fantastic, they were just two guys, enjoying a chat, if they’d had a pint glass in their hands, they would have looked like two blokes in a pub, having a chat over a drink.
So what convinced me of this? They were relaxed and at ease with each other, they were living truthfully. They were responding to what each other was doing and they were having a good time whilst they were doing it. And it got me thinking. What does good acting look like? You see, I can tell you what bad acting looks like:
*stiff
*false
*exaggerated
*dead
*loud
*mechanical
But good acting is somehow less obvious:
* easy
* not convincing but invisible (you’re not aware of it)
* subtle
* organic
When I watched Ian and Paul doing Repetition in the ACS Office, I saw this, I saw this invisible, subtle, ease and now as advanced acting students and professional performers, it’s their job to bring that same sense of ease and invisible to the acting of their scenes.
On a great positive, this advanced class will be joined by experienced playwright/screenwriters Ann Marie di Mambro, Chris Dolan and Philip J Larkin to develop the student’s improvised scenes into carefully crafted scripted scenes.
To You, The Best!Mark Westbrook is a Professional Acting Coach and runs Acting Coach Scotland, a private acting studio offering acting classes in Glasgow, masterclasses, workshops and audition coaching for actors at all levels. His acting studio is based in Glasgow, Scotland, although he teaches all across the United Kingdom. All Blog Posts © Mark Westbrook 2009
A reality check before you apply to Drama School…
For those of us that already work in the arts, we can quickly forget how difficult it was to gain acceptance to this club. Well, it’s hard, it’s very hard and I want to prepare you, I want to give you a reality check, I’m sorry, it’s not pleasant, but faced with the facts, you can make the decision for yourselves:
REALITY CHECK ONE: It was reported a few years ago that there are around 12,000 people applying to drama school each year. There are 1550 places available at the 22 accredited training institutions in the UK. That’s roughly a one in seven chance of getting a place at one of the top actor training schools in the country. That’s a 14% chance. You’ve got a better chance of getting into Oxford University.
If you want to improve your chances, then get some experience and get a coach to help you with your audition preparation.
REALITY CHECK TWO: According to American Equity (and it’s probably worse in the UK) – only 5 years after graduating drama school, only 10% of actors are still in the business.
If you get into this business, you’ve got to stay in it to make it work.
REALITY CHECK THREE: Few other training institutions (outside the arts) offer you a training that prepares you for a job you *might* get, if you’re lucky, perhaps.
REALITY CHECK FOUR: Despite the number of channels increasing and digital film making democratising the process of production, the number of jobs for actors in theatre, film and television is decreasing every year. On the other hand, the number of jobs at Tescos and Sainsbury’s is increasing.
If you’re going to get work, you’ll need to be the best, consider getting some coaching to keep yourself in tip-top condition.
REALITY CHECK FIVE: If you worked at minimum Equity rates all year round (the chances of which are highly unlikely) you wouldn’t earn as much as a Postman and significantly less than a fire fighter.
If you’re going to get into this, it has to be for something other than the money.
If I’ve put you off, I’ve done my job, if I haven’t put you off, I’ve done my job.
To You, The Best!Mark Westbrook is a Professional Acting Coach and runs Acting Coach Scotland, a private acting studio offering acting classes in Glasgow, masterclasses, workshops and audition coaching for actors at all levels. His acting studio is based in Glasgow, Scotland, although he teaches all across the United Kingdom. All Blog Posts © Mark Westbrook 2009
A YouTube Clip for Acting-Blog.com from Olivia from Straight From School.org
A great wee clip from Olivia, a trainee Casting Director…
To You, The Best!Mark Westbrook is a Professional Acting Coach and runs Acting Coach Scotland, a private acting studio offering acting classes in Glasgow, masterclasses, workshops and audition coaching for actors at all levels. His acting studio is based in Glasgow, Scotland, although he teaches all across the United Kingdom. All Blog Posts © Mark Westbrook 2009
What Actors Can Learn from 50 Cent
Well, I suppose you weren’t expecting that title. I guess I’m not the kind of guy that most people would associate with rap music. But I’ve recently been listening to an audio book by Robert Greene (author of The 48 Laws of Power) and 50 Cent (yes, THAT Fiddy Cent). They co-wrote a book together called The 50th Law and I’m enjoying it very much. While I’m listening to it, I keep having moments of inspiration and thought that you could learn along with me.
So what can actors learn from Fiddy Cent? Fiddy Cent grew up on the tough streets of South Queens, he learned to be fearless, this fearlessness is the basis of his personal philosophy and guides him in all that he does. Here’s what we can learn from Mr Cent.
ONE: Fear is a prison, it holds you captive and prevents you from doing what you want. The more fears you have, the more obstacles to getting what you want. What are your fears? How can you remove them?
TWO: Fear is primal, it is inherent in all of us. It is strongly connected to our survival instinct. But as the number of threats to our actual safety decreased, we’ve allowed smaller, more insidious anxieties to take their place. The trouble is, that they are no longer useful to us in this way. If you can’t let go of your fears, these fear change your perspective on the world and your life within it. You approach life from the perspective of fear.
THREE: The odds of failure and the fear that accompanies those odds are always present. Self belief and action can overcome even the most powerful odds.
FOUR: Be Patient, but don’t let patience lead to stasis built on fear. Patiently wait, and take action as the moment arises.
FIVE: Rejection is a strong primal fear. We all have it and yet as actors, we must confront it constantly. Accept it’s place in the scheme of things and move on.
SIX: Place yourself in the situations that cause anxiety and the fear of rejection, quickly those situations will lose their power over you.
SEVEN: Without a Plan B, without a safety net, you are compelled to take action and go after your target. When you have something to fall back on, you act with the knowledge of safety, you avoid trouble and you look for opportunities to return to that safety, rather than throwing yourself into the game.
EIGHT: ‘The greatest fear people have is that of being themselves. They want to be 50 Cent or someone else. They do what everyone else does even if it doesn’t fit where and who they are. But you get nowhere that way; your energy is weak and no one pays attention to you. You’re running away from the one thing that you own—what makes you different. I lost that fear. And once I felt the power that I had by showing the world I didn’t care about being like other people, I could never go back.” – 50 Cent.
NINE: We have little control over our circumstances, mainly we just react. We struggle to maintain equilibrium but we have little control. But we can our way of thinking about these circumstances, and if we can do this, we can change our circumstances.
TEN: Bold action backed up by real confidence will be your secret power source. When people are confronted by real confidence, they either back down or follow. When someone expresses real confidence, people cannot help but admire it.
ELEVEN: Don’t be afraid of change. Be fluid. Go with the flow. Everything, I mean EVERYTHING is an opportunity.
TWELVE: Our days are numbered, it could all end tomorrow. What did you do today to propel you towards your target?
THIRTEEN: Ingratiation is weakness. No one respects it.
FOURTEEN: Refuse to avoid confrontation with your fears or those determined to get in your way.
FIFTEEN: Your fears exaggerate themselves. When you confront them, you will overcome them as you see them in perspective.
To You, The Best!Mark Westbrook is a Professional Acting Coach and runs Acting Coach Scotland, a private acting studio offering acting classes in Glasgow, masterclasses, workshops and audition coaching for actors at all levels. His acting studio is based in Glasgow, Scotland, although he teaches all across the United Kingdom. All Blog Posts © Mark Westbrook 2009
Audition Advice for Actors
Audition: Love it or hate it, as an actor, it’s your only chances of getting work, so here’s some useful advice that I’ve learned in my career that should be of help to actors out there:
ONE: Don’t focus on the expressions of the audition panel, it’s not an accurate indication of what they are feeling and you’re making yourself more self-conscious. I know this, because I’ve got a horrible, thunderous, you’re shit expression, which does not reflect what I’m thinking. Focus on your task. Don’t know what that means, send me an email, I’ll help you out.
TWO: Don’t bring in props, just mime it. They make you look stupid.
THREE: Cleavage. These are not assets that you should be showing off in the audition. Have the sense to put them away and keep them away. The reason for this is simple. When you enter the audition room and your chest comes first, this is likely to occur: The gay men on the panel won’t thank you for it, the straight men will be appreciative but as this is a professional audition, they will either spend the entire time trying to avoid looking at your tits – in which case, they won’t be paying attention to your audition, OR the straight men will be staring at your tits, which means they won’t be paying attention to your audition. The women on the panel will immediately lose respect for you and you can’t afford to do that. Get cast based on your abilities, not your breasts.
FOUR: Don’t be everybody’s friend, lighting up the room with your effervescent personality, they’ll smile to your face and hate you when you go. Don’t go on about the writer or director’s work, they’ll think it’s false, you won’t get the part. If you want compliment the writing, then do it justice. Do it well even if it’s the worst crap you’ve ever read, if you want the job, make it come to life, treat it like it’s Mamet, Coward or Shakespeare, do it as well as you can and go.
FIVE: No matter who you know on the panel, keep it professional.
SIX: Do not change the tiniest part of the script. Most writers spent a long time on their script, if you want to write, writer your own script.
SEVEN: Just do your audition. Don’t ask for direction before the audition or ask if they want to see it different. If they want to see it different, they’ll ask for it.
LASTLY: Be GREAT. That’s all they want. All other audition tips are basically void when compared to this instruction. Go in and be great. Easier said than done? Well, that’s your job, don’t moan about it.
Of course, there are many more things I could tell you about auditioning, but you’ll have to be a patient!
To You, The Best!Mark Westbrook is a Professional Acting Coach and runs Acting Coach Scotland, a private acting studio offering acting classes in Glasgow, masterclasses, workshops and audition coaching for actors at all levels. His acting studio is based in Glasgow, Scotland, although he teaches all across the United Kingdom. All Blog Posts © Mark Westbrook 2009
THIS is Olivia and she TALKS SENSE…
Olivia is 19. She’s not a professional but she talks more sense about acting than most of the people I’ve met in the industry. If that offends you, I’m not sorry.
She runs a website called Straight From School and what’s great about it, is that she is offering advice, help and opinion on acting and casting and we the visitor learns as she learns.
I really liked this YouTube clip, not just because she quotes me, but also because she is clearly passionate about what she does, what she wants to do and she’s savvy enough to start making an impact right now. She’s a bit obsessed with Harry Potter, but I’m sure we can live with that.
Take a look at the clip and remind yourself. Acting is NOT your dream, it is an achievable goal.
Unfortunately, I couldn’t embed her YouTube clip into my page for some reason, but if you’d like to see her chatting about Acting and Dreams.. Here’s a link below.
To You, The Best!Mark Westbrook is a Professional Acting Coach and runs Acting Coach Scotland, a private acting studio offering acting classes in Glasgow, masterclasses, workshops and audition coaching for actors at all levels. His acting studio is based in Glasgow, Scotland, although he teaches all across the United Kingdom. All Blog Posts © Mark Westbrook 2009
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