March 27, 2011
-
Acting!
There are various reasons that I give. That I wanted to improve my presentation skills in my consulting work. That I wanted to understand actors better when I was writing for stage or radio or film. That I wanted to get some techniques down for that stand-up routine that I’ve been fantasizing about for years.
All those reasons are true. It’s just that none of them happen to be the real reason.
I signed up for a series of one-on-one acting classes with a company called Shine: Creative Coaching (http://shinecreativecoaching.com). Great range of services, very reasonable rates for the level of expertise and attention you get.
My instructor was Laura Nordin, an accomplished actor and one of Shine’s founders. Her CV (http://lauranordin.com) is incredibly impressive and as such you’d think it would be intimidating for a newbie like me to work with her — but she is very approachable, has a vast range of experience to share and is one of the best teachers I’ve encountered in some time. I met Laura in her capacity as Creative Director with Praxis Theatre in Toronto (http://praxistheatre.com) who did a dramatic reading of my stage play version of “The Progressive Apparatus” — which you can see right here on this blog site if you click on the video section.
The classes were a fun and stimulating experience — but they were actual work. I had to lay down for a couple of hours afterward.
The monologues were probably the hardest for me — at a lot of different levels. Just remembering the lines, leaving about characters, delivery and trying hard not to speak with raising my eyebrows all the time! I think “surprised” must be my natural state of being.
Okay –”The King’s Speech” time. We did lots of work with vocalization and articulation and making lots of weird noises with our mouths and faces. The three year old child in me (who only lives about 1/8th of an inch below the surface of my brain) loved doing all this. Very liberating and extremely helpful in the public presentation department.
Laura’s genius was getting a neurotic man who is twice her age to a place where he was able to do all this important work without making him feel even slightly embarrassed.
I will always be grateful to Laura for helping me to discover my diaphragm. (and also for letting me take these lomo shots of one of our sessions.
Another exercise was saying a line and then
throwing a tennis ball to the other person,
who would then say their line and then throw the ball back.This is not easy. At least not for me. It helps you focus and project your voice to the other person and makes you listen to what they are saying. Unless of course you’d like a tennis ball in the head.
These are good skills in many life situations. At least if you ever want to talk to somebody…
One of the things that I learned was how smart, creative and dedicated actors are. They need to build huge multi-disciplinary knowledge bases to draw on, they have to be effective practical psychologists and their delivery skills are as complex as playing a musical instrument. We should respect them more and find more uses for their talents.
BTW – Laura is not screaming at me for messing up on my monologue in the above picture. This shot is either from the “Cheap and Chippy Chopper” section of the tongue twisters exercise or she’s reenacting something from Shakespeare.
So why did I take the acting classes anyway? After all, in that educational context I should know more about motivation, right? Well…perhaps…I will reveal my reason…at some point….
