Acting Classes in Washington, DC...the Demanding Ones

Acting is an ongoing education, not only in studying great actors in film and on stage but also in formal classes. We're always working on our craft.

A little play I was in last month won its one-act competition, with nice comments from the judges about my performance. It was the first time on stage that I was free of stress about my lines and about performing in front of an audience. It was enjoyable....exhilarating. Now is the time to pump up my stage work with a class that pushes me back out of my comfort zone.

I've been surveying local actors on which programs are likely to be the most challenging.  Here's what I'm hearing....

The Shakespeare Theatre Company: Accessible. Classes of 5-6 sessions. Great for the classics (and what actor doesn't need a firm foundation in the classics?). Learn at your own pace. Enunciate! Enunciate!

The Studio Theatre Conservatory:  Demanding. Not for the faint-hearted, or the thin-skinned. A full 3-year program, which they encourage beginners to take, or individual classes to round out the more experienced actor. Joy Zinoman and her faculty are known as tough customers (but I like tough customers). Just 8-12 students in each class, which is enough for good scene work and feedback, but not so many that you don't get enough time to perform.

#StudioTheatre #ShakespeareTheatreCompany #Actorslife

An actress is always learning her craft

The Non-Glamorous Side of Acting...

Up at 3 am. Camera ready and on the road by 4:30 to drive 81 miles to an early call and avoid much of rush hour. Astonishing how many cars are already on the road. Then a lonely breakfast in McDonald's, drinking coffee and watching the first gray threads of dawn break on the horizon. Worked from 7:30 a.m. until 4 p.m., much of it in bitter cold and without a coat, then fought heavy traffic for 3 hours to get home. To get home dead tired.

I've known dayplayers and background actors  to be on the road 8-9 hours round-trip to work a film or TV show, which often means being up more than 24 hours straight, unless they can catch a catnap back in holding. It's called dedication.

The Latest in a Year of Great Movies....Birdman

What a year for great movies! And what a feast for actors to watch and learn.

Saw #Birdman with my husband yesterday. Wow. That…was…different. Wow. My husband (he's the literary one) pointed out that it draws on the School of Magic (or Magical) Realism that was popular in Latin American literature in the 1940s and 1950s. Think Jorge Luis Borges or Gabriel Garcia Marquez.  Events occur as normal, then people begin to fly. Yes, it's that different.

Birdman defines "tour de force" on so many levels, right down to the titles. I can't even imagine what it took to light those tracking shots.

And Michael Keaton, Edward Norton, Naomi Watts (This after her turn in St. Vincent. Fabulous!) The Brits have dominated acting for decades. Now the Americans are showing them how it's done.

Other Sources for Acting Inspiration

Actors draw inspiration from many sources, including the fine acting to be found in silent films and old radio shows.  I’m a huge, huge fan of the radio drama, Yours Truly, Johnny Dollar, which aired from 1949 to 1962.  It's the story of an insurance investigator, but one that rivals any private detective from Sam Spade to Lew Archer.

I was in Nevada and Arizona a couple of weeks ago and stopped by the Lake Mojave Resort near Bullhead City, Arizona, because it was the location for several YTJD episodes, including “The Mojave Red Matter” and “The Red Mystery.”

Sixty years ago when it took 10 hours and $153.00 to fly non-stop from New York to Las Vegas, getting to the Lake Mojave Resort sounds like a trek to an exotic place.  Here’s an excerpt from “The Red Mystery” that mentions the resort:

“…the awesome beauty of the clear night sky over the desert with its billions of stars twinkling in the black sky above is something I’ll never tire of.  The stars seem close enough to reach out and touch them. As the plane hit the glide path down to the landing strip at the south end of Las Vegas the myriad many-colored lights of the city winked and sparkled like the lights on a gigantic Christmas tree.  Yeah, from the air Las Vegas, the fabulous city of chance, is just plain beautiful.

I’d like to have stuck around Las Vegas and tried my hand at some of the casinos and clubs along the gamblers’ alley they call The Strip, but I had other things to do. So, Item #2 is $50 bucks deposit on a rental car and within minutes after the plane landed I was heading south and east across the desert down toward Davis Dam, down to the Lake Mojave Resort. The desert, mile after mile of nothing but sand and sagebrush and Joshua Trees, of tumbleweed and cactus, of high plateaus and broad mesas. Here and there the skeleton of some animal that has perished in the remorseless, terrible summer sun.

And then suddenly, in the middle of it, the life giving waters of Lake Mojave.

At the south end of the lake, just above Davis Dam, is the resort, with its clean, comfortable motel, good restaurant, tackle shop, and dock, everything to warm the heart of a fisherman. Yeah, and in the bright light of the moon I could see the lake itself, calm as a millpond. That meant that, unlike the cold and snow I’d left back east, here it was warm and perfect weather for fishing. It took a bit of self-control to keep from driving right on down to the dock. Instead I drove in a circle around to the office where, in spite of the hour, someone came out to greet me…"

The reason he couldn't stop to fish was that he was tracking down murderers and racketeers. It was a wonderful show and Bob Bailey by far the best of the eight actors who played Johnny Dollar over its nearly 13 year run on radio. There’s more about Yours Truly, Johnny Dollar online on several sites devoted to old time radio. You can also listen to episodes of this and other shows - like Gunsmoke, The Six Shooter, Bold Venture, and others - at no charge at: www.oldradioprograms.us It's wonderful acting.

I enjoyed walking about the resort and took a few photos.  Next time I’m in the area, I think I’ll try my hand at fishing for some of those “lunker bass.”

Lake Mojave near Davis Dam in Arizona

An Overview on The Biz

Flying out to Nevada I took along the book Making Movies by the late and great director Sidney Lumet (Dog Day Afternoon, Murder on the Orient Express, Network, The Pawnbroker, Serpico, 12 Angry Men, Running on Empty, and on and on through 73 films and TV episodes).

What a find! As actors we tend to see just one part of the elephant and can only guess about the rest. This book takes you through the entire movie-making process and explains the considerations at each step: concept, funding, writing, locations, editing, lighting, sound, directing, acting, post-production, audience previews, and marketing.

Why does a film need star casting? On what take is an actor likely to be giving the director their best? What is the preview process like? Why does a director choose to do a particular film? How has the film-making process changed over time?  And does it now make sense?  Not always.  Not even to Sidney Lumet.

But this book illuminates a lot of the whats and whys that go into making a film, and information like that makes you a more informed actor and better able to shape your career.  This is a book that is going on my Quick Reference shelf. 

I'm reading it through again, now that I'm no longer distracted by the wild-eyed woman passenger who went streaking up the airplane aisle just before the door closed and promptly keeled over in the gangway, leading to a short delay in takeoff while the airline staff called the paramedics and removed her luggage from the plane.  Ah, the joys of air travel.

The Goblin Baby Premieres

The Goblin Baby, Shoshana Rosenbaum's supernatural short, premiered to a full house on September 27th at RiRa's in Georgetown. Michael Gabel, Oriana Oppice and I were among the cast who attended. Well done, Shoshana! On to the film festivals!

(L to R) Actor Michael Gabel, actress Kathryn Browning, writer/director Shoshana Rosenbaum (and son), actress Oriana Oppice, and production staff Robin Noonan-Price and Victoria Buksbazen.

Time for New Headshots

Every year or two an up-and-coming actor needs new headshots, and since my hair had gone from almost black to ash blonde (Hey, blonde is the new gray, Baby!) mine were overdue.

Over the years I've come to the conclusion that the point to headshot photography is to show what I will look like when I walk in the door to audition. Well of course, you say? Try convincing the photographer! I've had inexpensive family photographers and really expensive New York photographers. I've been flat-lighted to the point where my face looks like two eyes and a mouth on a white sheet of paper. I've been photoshopped to the point where I look like I'm made of plastic.

Every actor has had this experience and the odd thing is that (1) the photographer thinks that you want it that way and (2) his or her ego is such that they can't release a photo without making you "pretty."

But the result is that whenever I see a breakdown posted, half the time the casting director now asks for a snapshot so they can see what you really look like! So who's kidding whom?

I AM pretty (well...on a good hair day), but I'm also a woman of a certain age and I wanted that to show in my face, complete with crow's feet and freckles. I also wanted lighting that put some dramatic shadows on my face, because I have been making do for the past few months with a screen shot that did just that and it was getting me auditions. I talked over my concerns with actor Ken Arnold, who does headshot photography as a sideline in Baltimore (and leads some really helpful workshops at Studio-Boh), and he got some great shots.

By the way, to look your best in headshots be sure to use Clear Eyes or other eye drops before your photo session to get the red out. You want the color of your eyes to pop and if you're like me your eyes are often irritated from makeup, hairspray, bright lights, etc. Teeth a little dull? Swish for 30 seconds with a mix of 3 parts mouthwash to 1 part hydrogen peroxide (spit it out!) and then rinse your mouth with plain water. It will remove surface stains. It also pays to learn to do your own makeup and style your own hair so you can reproduce that look for auditions. I even cut my own hair. Finally, you know the look you're going for, so choose your own outfits.   

Anyway, here are the final four, chosen for the three kinds of roles I most often get  - older Mother (which I used at right on my blog), senator/detective, and secretary/socialite - plus an "everywoman" look, since a big budget mini-series may be coming to the area where "factory worker" is likely to be a role. I didn't change my hair, makeup, or earrings from shot to shot, so they all have a similar look, but they're still just a tad in one direction or another, depending on what I was going for. An actor doesn't need to be too much in character in their submission photos. They just need to hint at the possibilities while still being themselves. Ditto the big grin. I try for a middle ground of looking amused/pleasant and keep the toothy smile in reserve if casting specifically asks for it.

Ken added a bit more color saturation on some of these, but none were retouched (which you can really see in the larger 8" x 10" prints). We'll see if these get me in the door at casting.