Having shared my recent eXtreme theater eXperiences with a friend, a seasoned actress and director herself, I received a flood of advice recently. Some of her concerned notes, below:
"...I must say that you get yourself involved with very, very, very amateurish productions (at least as far as the technical side goes). You are expected to move furniture, have tons of costume changes and don't have a dresser to help you in the wings? Your director is also the stage manager and an actor? No no no no. Don't do this again! Your role seems fun and a good comedic stretch, but the circumstances are dreadful. It is hard enough to go on with little rehearsal without having to worry about all this other stuff."
"Even in 'little theatre,' every director worth his salt is able to get FREE crew for sets and costumes in exchange for being part of a fun theatrical experience and the chance to learn something. The light guy usually has to be paid something because he/she has to know what he is doing and not just be able to follow directions as to where the furniture goes or when to take the curtain down or how to zip a zipper quickly and correctly."
"And what have you learned in your three plays? You can only do your best in the best circumstances so even if the next one is only your 4th theatre experience, make it a better one. When you are cast ask about the rehearsal schedule (Actually, you should be given a written schedule at your first meeting to avoid conflicts), plus (nicely) wonder what the production staff is like. You can say something like, 'Oh, what will the stage crew be like? Are they volunteers from the college/high school/church nearby or do the same people like to work on all your shows?' ...Check out the lights - just look up and see what is there. The lack of the latest technical stuff will not make or break a good performance, but why put up with a director who is not up front at the beginning so you know what you are getting into? You learn by working with directors who know what they are doing! They can work bare bones or high tech, but should be very, very organized."
"...Maybe times have changed or maybe it is because there are too many wanna-be directors and actors out there who don't know how to get the whole job done correctly...There is a difference between the actors doing some of the work because it is a small show and low income and actors doing ALL of the work with insufficient rehearsal."
"Also, you could try out for college or jr. college productions. They often need older people for roles they can't cast in their theatre departments and they always have sufficient rehearsal time and costume/stage/light crews + stage manager because technical experience is part of what one learns in the theatre department of college. Here, too, learning how to act most effectively on stage is usually part of the experience so you gain more than just another line on your resume. Also, why not go to different little theatres and see the quality of their current productions? Then try out for the shows at the theatres which impressed you. You're good enough for 90% of little theatre even if you might not be ready for equity yet."
"I'm sure you have discovered already that stage acting is a whole different ballgame than film acting, the major difference being you must be much much bigger in attitude, voice and body language on stage - so much bigger that it may feel unbelievable to you at first - so hang onto the inner thoughts and character motivations and project them way over the footlights (assuming you have footlights). You need to find your light without breaking character and not let anyone upstage you (of course, you would never upstage anyone else.) You need to get the feel of the audience, especially in comedy, so you don't step on someone else's laugh line or start speaking too soon/late on your own. You can learn timing on stage like nowhere else because you have immediate feedback from the audience."
"It hurts me to see you work in the circumstances you describe. You may be a beginning stage actress, but you have a lot of talent as I can see from your film snippets. You deserve better treatment!"
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