My Acting Update
Hello Folks, yes I know it’s been awhile. I have been very happy to move into more productive work circumstances of late, and it’s been challenging and rewarding.
I am increasing my work as an Actor by training recruits in role-playing, sort of like a consultant. I’ve done this in the past but the hours are a little more frequent, and I’m also branching out into Acting in the area of tourism.
It goes like this – Read more
what comes to hand
One of the tools I’ve embraced as an Actor is the one of using what you have ‘just lying around’. If I’m working on a role and I want to get some feel for the part, usually – if not always – the information is in the script. We can then use our brains and get everything we need from the work, for the work.
Great novels are an excellent example of this. When we read Dostoyevski’s Crime And Punishment, we see everything immediately. There’s no need to torture oneself in figuring out what the character wants or why he does things. It’s all there. We don’t have to twist ourselves into knots. Read more
The Business of Acting
The business of Acting, or I should say the business behind Acting, is something I feel not very confident to discuss. This is why I have an agent. There is a time, however, when we have to look at this subject seriously, and to address things – a time when our agent will not be able to do everything for us.
I’m at that place now, and although I’d be fibbing if I said I was totally relaxed about it, I genuinely believe that this is to be a very valuable and exciting time in the development of my career. Read more
A Good Week
Yes, as the title suggests, a very productive week has just passed. It started the week before when I agreed to attend a photo shoot to promote a screenplay called “Bouncing” by Peter Fitzgerald. Then on Tuesday last I took part with a fine group of Actors rehearsing a public reading of the above script. This was then read on Wednesday night at the Subiaco Arts Centre. I also put my hand up to read a scene live on RTRFM Radio in Mt.Lawley. A live radio read is a first for me, and I found myself unexpectedly nervous, though I think it went well.
Last Friday 2 October 2009, I took part in a production called “It’s Just Gary”. I love working, and the varied range of things I participated in from photo shoots to live radio reads to rehearsing and performing in front of a full house was just what this Actor loves.
Art and Approval
Approval. I’ve heard people say “Oh, I don’t want approval from anyone” but it’s quite incredible how ubiquitous approval-seeking actually is.
This stuff has always been a kind of wrestling-match within me. I’ve wanted approval – and almost simultaneously I’ve possessed within me a kind of anti-approval, shunning those who I’ve suspected wanted a certain something for their approval that I was not willing to pay. Sometimes approval seems like blackmail. There’s a “what’s the catch?” question implicit sometimes that, when not well hidden, stops me in my tracks. “Welcome to my parlor”, said the Spider to the Fly. Read more
JUICE
How do we dig into the deep well? You know when you feel kinda flat and nothin’ comes. It’s when we have no inspiration and ev’rythin’ seems dry and barren. I’ve written of this before, but this time I want to go for a long walk with you. A walk to lush, green fields where there’s trees and flowers and fresh air. To a place where no one has ever stood. It’s a place ringed with snow-capped mountains, and a crystal clear bubbling brook, and birds and deer and rabbits and horses.
It’s not cold and it’s not hot. The sky is a brilliant blue. Right now there are no things we have to do. We might be 8 years old, or 80.
You know when it’s simply empty inside and we don’t know what to feel? I was in that a small while ago. I started looking for some music to listen to. Then I found it. Read more
Job Records
Back in the 1980’s, at Box Hill Tafe and the National Theatre Drama School in Melbourne, Victoria, I began Acting. I remember one of our teachers mentioning that it’s a good idea to keep a journal. I followed this advice, albeit intermittantly, up to the present day. The themes for my journal entries were fairly constant. I would write about my experience of the work, my strengths and weaknesses, and my hopes at the time of writing. This seemed like a good idea, not because I might like to go and re-read these entries in the future, Read more
Boldness
In Western Australia, at Perth’s Curtin University, in the past two weeks, I had the rare honour and opportunity to meet and work with students in two seemingly different fields of endeavour. The first were students of Physiotherapy and the second were Film and Television students. I was asked to use my skills as an Actor to help them in the way they work in situations that arise in their day-to-day worklife.
When it comes to creativity, there’s much to be said for taking the bull by the horns. And yet there is the constant caution of becoming arrogant, of being inconsiderate of others, or being heavy-handed and insensitive to the subtle moments in whatever you’re creating. Read more
To Dare
I believe that it’s better to dare to live authentically than to compromise for expediency.
The Working Actor
I am happy to report that my work-rate has slightly increased. I have been working with the Curtin University in Western Australia. It has been a great thing to meet the students and help them in any way I could with the skills that I have.
It’s very regenerative to get work with my chosen profession. Long may it continue.
