Want to be a good actor? Try being a kid.

My mom can keep tabs on her children by the frequency of their calls. With my sister, no news is good news. With my brother, no news is good news because if there is news it's usually big news. And with me, no news means I'm not doing very well.

The same seems to be the trend in my blogging.

I'm fine, please don't be alarmed. But March was rough for me, both personally and actorally. (Those are the same thing. But I just made up 'actorally' and I wanted to use it.) March was a month filled with more self-doubt and "what am I doing with my life?" moments than I would like. But March is over now, so we're moving on.

I just started the Foundation Intensive at Margie Haber Studios. I had been shopping around for acting classes and had audited another that I hope to attend in the future, but we happened to go to this orientation the day after it occurred to me that I haven't been in an actual acting class in a time long enough to grow a fairly medium-sized child, and that that is entirely unacceptable, so when they said "Class starts Tuesday and we'll offer you $100 off" I jumped at the chance.

Last night was our second class. I like it. I spent the beginning of the first class battling my ego in my head, as only about 4 out of the 14 of us have any acting experience whatsoever. But it doesn't matter. It's all on-camera and it's all audition technique, both of which are things I desperately need to learn.

The approach is basically "Hey, remember when you were a kid and you played and used your imagination? That was when you were a good actor." It's interesting. Actually imagining and living the life of the character is already helping me get more specific and more truthful and less actor-y. The beautiful side-effect is that this approach allows me to find the art in creating a character every time, even if I only have two pages of sides. I've found a way to link acting with auditioning that works for me. That makes me happy.

As with all things, I'm taking some of it with a grain of salt. I will concede that I have some bad habits that I need to un-learn, but I don't think I need to throw out everything I've ever learned about acting ever. That's a bit extreme. I appreciate what the teacher is saying, but her approach is at times lacking in the finesse department. She yells and curses to make her point and then says "I'm not yelling at you, I'm yelling with you" or "I'm sorry, I'm just very passionate." That sounds an awful lot like the guy who treats people like shit and then excuses it with "Sorry, I'm an asshole. That's just who I am." But hey, we all have our faults. And her nuggets of brilliance outweigh her moments of yelling.

So. I apologize for the writing hiatus. I hope you're well and April is a beautiful month for us all.