The Real Lessons of Drama School

Drama school. What a waste of time, eh? Singing, dancing and prancing around pretending you’ve got a glittering career ahead of you. Surely it’s just three years preparing yourself for a life on the dole, right? Wrong.

With it’s dizzying array of classes and subjects, drama school can seem like a very expensive way to become proficient at jazz hands but all those subjects can genuinely help you in the real world…

Singing…

Ever wanted a tube carriage that’s exclusive to you and your little gaggle of actor friends? All you need is a good song to sing in the round and with just one turn at ‘Rose, Rose, Rose, Red’ you’ll have ordinary, hard-working people risking life and limb to get themselves on to another carriage. Ah, a seat all the way to Cockfosters... 

Dance…

You might think that the dance that you learn at drama school will make you a hit down at the local disco. And maybe it will if the kids at Infernos are impressed by the same 4 moves repeated for the entirety of Orinoco Flow. But what will eventually stop their taunts and jibes is when you’re stuck in the queue for the toilets. While they’re miserably hopping from one foot to the other looking like amateurs, you can style out that wee-dance like the beautiful lovechild of Wayne Sleep and Michael Flatley that you are.

Improvisation…

Keith Johnstone, author of the book ‘Impro’ which will you'll see an unfinished copy of in every actor's bookcase, said:

“Good improvisers seem telepathic; everything looks prearranged. This is because they accept all offers made – which is something no ‘normal’ person would do.”

Quite. And that’s why improvisation is such a useful tool. There’s no way you’re going to do well as an actor if you deny any knowledge of Microsoft Excel in your temp agency interview. Say yes to EVERYTHING. Fax machines, accounting programmes, open heart surgery...anything so you can stop living off the random selection of cold meats and drying quiches in Tesco’s discount fridge. You can worry about the dead bodies and confusing spreadsheets later. 

Voice…

Vocal support is incredibly important. And no, not because the meanies at the National Theatre won’t let you have a mic. But because how else will you let the rest of the bus know that someone once told you that your portral of Sally Bowles was better than Liza’s? I said “BETTER THAN LIZA’S.” If you don’t allow that to resonate through the whole bus (both floors) then no one will realise just how important you are. And you never know, there might be someone very influential listening in like Trevor Nunn or the recruitment officer for Asda.

Animal Studies…

Tutors can spend as long as they want telling you that Animal Studies is important for character development. It’s not. However, what it is useful for is having a story that’ll instantly make someone else feel better about their life. Friend just been dumped? Sibling lost their job? Their woes will be instantly alleviated when you tell them about the time you were chased around a dance studio while you lumbered about pretending to be a pig.

Accents…

Because you never know when you might be asked to fill in for Aiden Gillen on Game of Thrones…

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zHIykid21j4 (contains spoilers,)

Alexander Technique…

You might think that lying semi-supine in a studio can’t teach you anything. However, this class will teach you the invaluable gift of sleeping while you pretend you’re doing something incredibly important. If anything, Alexander Technique sums up your whole life as an actor.

Movement…

You may not still fully understand the point of Laban and your physical interpretation of the sound of running water may have been reminiscent of a skittish cat but I defy anyone to beat you at Charades from now on. And what better way to show your family that you’ve finally made it then successfully miming Saved By The Bell to your cousin this Christmas?

Acting…

Don't worry, you won’t be needing that.

A Guide to Talking to Actors

“So what do you do?”

You had to ask, didn’t you? You’re at a party or a gathering, you’re introduced to someone and, of course, you ask that person what they do. It’s natural.

You might then see a grimace. You might get the sense that a few cogs are turning as they work out how to answer. Then they’ll take a deep breath.

“I’m an actor…I suppose.”

Then they wait for the inevitable.

If you’ve asked a woman, then you might go straight for the jugular and ask why they’ve called themselves an actor instead of an actress. Of course, if they’d called themselves an actress then you would’ve asked why they don’t call themselves an actor.

Maybe you’re one of those who’ll say, “Oh, you’re an actor!” and you’ll do some flamboyant hand gesture. If you do that, you deserve all the bad things that are coming your way.

But, more likely, you’ll ask:

“Been in anything I might’ve seen?”

If you have to ask this then you probably haven’t. Or you’re being seriously disrespectful to the actor because, if they say yes, their performance was clearly so forgetful that you’ve just dealt them a massive blow. You’re also ridiculously suggesting that the actor knows your viewing habits. And you’re also opening yourself up to the actor revealing to the rest of the room your appalling taste.

“Why yes. You saw me in Romeo & Juliet With Herpes. Don’t you remember?”

Also, if you ask a particularly feisty actor, you risk these answers:

“Your nightmares.”

“Your bedroom.”

“Your mum.”

However, what you’ll most likely get is an embarrassed “No,” while the actor painfully remembers all the productions they’ve been in that have been poorly attended that their career has been a string of private performances or never made it to air or brilliantly made it to TV but were shown on Channel 5 at 1:35am.

So, best not to ask.

Next, you might go for, “What kind of acting do you do?”

This is near impossible to answer. Unless you’re an actor who refuses to do anything but interpretive dance in the style of a frantic pigeon then the chances are that you do all manner of things. Theatre. Film. Commercials. Corporate. Musicals. Sitting at home constantly worrying that HMRC are on their way over to get you.

“Anything,” you say.

“Porn,” they think.

So now, a person you met only 2 minutes ago thinks you’re an out of work porn actor. To try and break the tension that has very quickly formed, they’ll ask:

“So are you working on anything at the moment?”

Oh god. Never ask this. If the actor hasn’t already told you at this point in the conversation then never ask this. Clearly, they’re not. Or, if they are, it’s so horrific that they really don’t want anyone to know about it. Like Diana the Musical.

So, again, you’ll probably get a mumbled “No,” while the actor desperately tries to remember a time when they were asked this question and they actually were. Never, they realise. 

By now, you might feel the need to lighten the mood. You might ask,

“So, are we going to see you in EastEnders soon?” Never do this. Again, if they were going to be in EastEnders, they would’ve mentioned it. Seriously.

Or...

“Is your agent like the one in Extras/Friends?” No. Or yes. Either way, you’re presuming the actor even has an agent. Given the previous couple of minutes of conversation, that’s quite an assumption to make.

Or even...

"Why don't you just do panto?" I've been genuinely asked this more than one person. They're all dead now.

So next time you see someone at an event and you think they might be an actor, walk away. You’ll know who they are immediately:

They’ll be the ones trying to ask subtly whether there’s a free bar.

They’ll be the ones hovering behind waiting staff like a hungry shadow.

They’ll be the ones desperately avoiding any questions.

Happy Firstday

If you're lucky, you're making your way to somewhere suitable. However, more often than not, you're heading to someone's house, someone's office or, as I genuinely have, an abandoned roof top. If it's sunny, maybe you're heading to the park, your pollen-filled eyes raging and wondering why you're putting yourself through this. But wherever you're going, you're probably a bit nervous. As you check GoogleMaps on your phone for the millionth time, convinced that no one would hold a first rehearsal down this road, you become convinced that you're going to hate everyone and whether you'd be better just to turn back.

I arrive at things so early that even Doctor Who is jealous of me. So, I normally arrive in time to walk around the block a few times to then arrive at the venue 15 minutes before the director turns up. The director, thinking they've arrived a good 15 minutes early will give me a quizzical look and wonder just how keen I am. However, I believe the experience for most people is to arrive when the room is actually open.

So, you get there. Maybe some other members of the cast are there too. You recognise someone from your audition.

"Hey, we you at-"

"Yeah, we were in the same group. Wonder if that guy got in to?"

You laugh. You don't which guy they're talking about. You soon realise that they don't recognise you and think you're someone else. As more cast members arrive, two will be surprised to see each other. They worked together on a previous show or they trained together. However it is that they know each other, they'll make sure that's everyone's aware of this incredible coincidence within seconds. It's around this time that someone starts getting changed in the middle of the room.

Once you've all arrived, you're asked to sit in a circle. Scripts, pencils and bottles of water are gathered and everyone sits on the floor. You think you're still fine sitting on the floor. 30 minutes later you realise you're not but someone's already been told off for lying down on your front so you put up with the pins, needles, daggers and fire in your bum cheeks. You all get to know each other. If you're lucky then you'll just go around the circle and everything will say a bit about themselves. Someone will insist on talking about the AMAZING show they've just finished in and you'll realise you have nothing interesting to say about yourself but it will all be fairly painless. If you're unlucky then you'll be made to play a game. A game involving names where everyone's just a little bit too eager to prove they're willing to throw themselves into anything.

Maybe you'll then read through the script. It's usually around this point that someone will ask if you've got a spare pen or pencil. Everyone takes a huge gulp of their drink. You learn who everyone's playing because they cough before their first line. You start hearing other people's lines and start wishing you had their roles instead. Everyone else seems to have the funny lines or dramatic scenes. You start to realise that your part is a lot smaller than you originally realised. As you realise this, the director tells you that you're going to be the non-speaking village person in this scene, the talking owl with one line in this other scene and the tree in the final scene.

Once you've stumbled through the play, you might be shown a stage plan. Or, if you're really lucky, you'll be shown costume designs. Everyone else seems to have had elaborate drawings done of them with lots of thoughts and theories behind what they're wearing. When it comes to your character, you're little more than a stick character in a Primark scarf. You try to look enthusiastic while wondering whether you can kill someone with a highlighter.

You start packing up your things, delighted to be working but looking forward to going home. They all seem like nice enough people but are they people you want to spend the next two months working with? Just when you think you're not that keen you hear the words:

"Anyone fancy going for a quick drink?"

Ah yes. It's going to be fine after all.

Disorganised Time

It was nice to wake up on a Friday morning being offered an audition. Normally my morning emails consist of Groupon offers, a notification that a weird Twitter SEO specialist is following me and a woeful casting call notificatin. So, the message asking me to audition was a lovely addition to my early start.

They were asking me to audition over the weekend and wanted me to let them know when I was available. I had some things planned for the weekend so I quickly set about rearranging them and within half an hour I emailed back asking if I could be seen on Saturday morning. Brilliant. It wasn't even 11am and already I'd arranged an audition for the next day. I saw that they'd attached the script so once I was settled in at work, I opened it up. However, this wasn't an ordinary file and what I was instead faced with was pages and pages of hand-written storyboards wonkily scanned in. Although I was yet to hear back from them confirming that they were able to see me at the time requested, I sent off another message just to let them know that it seemed they'd sent me the wrong file. Either that I was expected to take on the form of a blob and hastily jump around the room for theirv viewing pleasure.

Lunchtime came and went and I was still to hear back from them. My afternoon at work dragged by slower than a student production of King Lear and still nothing. I went home convinced that they'd reply that evening. But no, nothing. It was now 15 hours since I'd replied to their message and I'd still heard nothing. Oh well, I thought. Maybe they'll contact me overnight. But, of course, it won't surprise you to hear that on waking up on Saturday morning it was just Groupon, weird Twitterers and dodgy casting calls. I toyed with the idea of just going along anyway but why should I? If they're not organised to confirm and audition and send a correct attachment then why the heck should I travel for over an hour across London only to find that the auditions probably weren't happening anyway. Plus, if you're unable to organise auditions properly then the chances that your shoot will be a tightly run affair about as likely as me not eating that bag of crisps.

Although mildly irritated by this lack of organisation, I set about my day. If anything, they'd freed up my morning on what was a gloriously sunny day and had made my travel plans a whole lot easier. I whined a bit about it to my mum, then I had an ice cream and forgot about the whole thing. That was until my phone buzzed at 5.30pm. It was a message from the director sending me the correct attachment. That was it. Nothing to acknowledge my audition slot request. No apologies for taking 31 hours to get back to me. In return, they got a rather blunt email and now all is quiet on the disorganised audition front.

Now, I should add that I was dealing with students. So I know they are still learning. Of course they're not going to get everything spot on otherwise they probably wouldn't be training in the first place. But surely you don't need to go to film school to learn everyday common sense? Plus, they don't know what I'd cancelled for that audition. I sometimes work on a Saturday and if an audition came up then I'd drop work like the drop of a hat with a very strong sense of gravity. I don't know how they operate but unnecessarily losing out on a day's pay just because a bunch of students don't understand the very basic workings of replying to an email puts me on the Watership Down level of unhappy bunny status.

Of course, this sort of thing sadly happens all the time. This is the first badly organised audition I've narrowly missed out on and it certainly won't be the last. If I had a pound for everytime an audition was cancelled last minute or I never heard back from a director or I was left waiting for over an hour to been then I'd have amassed a small fortune by now. Maybe that's what needs to happen. Every time a director or a producer or someone else messes an actor arond then they have to give everyone affected a pound. And, on the flip side, everytime an actor fails to turn up to an audition, they too have to give a pound to everyone whose day has been screwed up. Might be time for us all to start saving up.

Professional Conduct

It always amazes me when I see castings having to specify that they require actors who are capable of being professional on set. Professionalism shouldn’t be asked for. Like a bottle of water and an eagerly highlighted script, professionalism should be brought with you from day one. But, as anyone who has ever worked with anyone else knows, this often isn’t the case. 

Someone on Twitter mentioned this week that an actress was leaving a production just four days before the show was  to open. Now, I don’t know the ins and outs of this particular story so I won’t comment on it but I have been in productions where an actor has had to leave pretty last minute and being left in the lurch is bloody annoying. The couple of times that it’s happened, I really can’t say that I blamed the actor. They were involved in pretty terrible productions and instead of putting themselves through it, they took the wise decision to bail. However, it’s one thing realising a couple of days into rehearsal that a show is destined for the theatrical bargain bin and another thing waiting until you’re halfway through the tech rehearsal to hand in your scripted notice. Like I said, I understood on both occasions why they did they left. The first ditching happened because he got a paid job. Strangely he was sick and tired of being in a job that didn’t even offer expenses and mainly consisted of us all rehearsing in the dustiest room in north London. Instead of appearing in a show that was wrongly listed in Time Out, he chose to appear in a well-paid film. I was seconds away from hiding in his bag and living off his lucky air. And then the second incident happened because an actor found himself in a fairly horrible situation. There were too many actors with not enough money and we were all away from home. There was bitchiness, bullying and as a man of older years, I don’t blame him for deciding that he shouldn’t put up with such things.

However, the aftermath of these actions mean that everyone else is left picking up the pieces. The director gets a big ol’ kick in the teeth and the actors have to suddenly work a whole lot harder. Either they’re having to cover the role between them or they have to support a new cast member coming in at very late notice. The whole production starts running on panic mode and the atmosphere changes dramatically. Actors will start wondering whether they too should jump this rapidly sinking ship and the director and producer get the same look of desperation in their eyes as the captain of Titanic did.

But a bit of last minute escapism isn’t the only way an actor can be unprofessional. A moment that will always stick with me was during a rehearsal for the complicated final scene of a play I was in. It was at that point when everyone is ready to kill each other. We’d been rehearsing for hours, it was hot and every single line and movement was being agonised over. Suddenly a mobile phone rings. Normally you’d expect the owner of the phone to apologise profusely and switch it off. However, this actor was a pain in everyone’s arse. So, of course, he answered it. And he didn’t go to one side and deal with the call quickly. Oh no. He decided the best place to take the call was right in the middle of the scene. The director tried to ask him to finish the call or at least move elsewhere and the actor asked him to not interrupt his call. I know actors like to react to everything but I think even the least reactive hermit in the world would be aghast at such behaviour. How he kept his job, I’ll never know.

And then there’s all the other annoying things that actors do. They turn up late and destroy hours of rehearsal time. They don’t learn their lines and are still stumbling over them on the opening night. They appoint themselves as assistant director and take great pleasure in giving actors unconstructive notes. They turn up to rehearsals still drunk from the night before and despite having a kissing scene, they fail to brush their teeth. They get drunk and tell other cast members that they’re not very good actors. They tell the director/stage manager/costume designer/front of house how to do their job. They take costumes home and lose them. They upstage you just so that the scene works for them. 

They say you can’t choose your family but you can choose your friends. However, the saddest thing for an actor is that you can’t choose your fellow cast members. 

 

A Few Thoughts

For probably one of the least glamorous jobs in the world, it’s amazing how glamorous people think acting is. We grow up believing that being an actor means constant meetings with Hollywood directors, accepting gloriously interesting roles with daring and respected directors and choosing which dress we’re going to wear when picking up our fifteenth Oscar. And it’s hardly surprising that we’re lead to think this. Unless you’re unlucky to know an actor in person, the closest you probably get to the life of a thesp is in interviews where hugely successful actors will endlessly talk about the wonderful projects they have lined up. Oh, of course, they’ll also mention the quieter times to make them sound human and we’re informed that those leaner moments are known as ‘resting.’

The phrase ‘resting’ will conjure up an image of an actress with her feet up on a chaise lounge while some poor fool feeds her grapes. Maybe she’s glancing over a few scripts or she might be conducting a few telephone interviews. What she’s not doing is living the reality of most resters. Maybe my resting is more extreme than most but it often consists of crawling out of bed way after BBC Breakfast has finished, sloping around the house in your pyjamas wondering how to make a stale loaf of bread and a three year old tin of sweetcorn last you the rest of the week and then spending a few miserable hours trawling casting websites looking for work. If you’re lucky then you might find a job that would cover maybe a week’s rent however, more often than not, you’ll find jobs  that either don’t pay or are looking for everything that you are not.

The problem with acting is that it’s not a very nice friend. It’s the friend that calls you up when it’s run out of other options. When there’s absolutely no one else to turn to then acting will come knocking at your door and expect you to drop everything at a moment’s notice. And, of course, you let it get away with such behaviour. Others will ask why you put up with it but you just tell them that that’s how acting works. They’ll sigh and tell you you’d be better off with sometihng more reliable  but you’ll ignore them and gaze at your phone, waiting for your fair-weather friend to ring again. And then finally, they call. Suddenly, just when you’re thinking of giving up on them for good. And you think that this is it. This will be the time when acting finally makes your friendship public. You’ll get bracelets with each other’s names on and you’ll start emailing them photos telling them that it reminded you of them. But of course, it doesn’t happen that way. After maybe a couple of days, weeks or months (if you’re really lucky) in acting’s warm glow, they’ll drop you just as quickly as they found you. You’ll be ok for a couple of days. When people ask how you’re getting on, you’ll have something interesting to tell them. And you’ll hope that acting will start to remember you now. Maybe they’ll call on you a bit more frequently. But of course they don’t and in a matter of days you find yourself wandering around the house in your dressing gown convinced that you’ll never get an acting job ever again.

Yet we still find ourselves sticking at it. This happens mainly because we’re stubborn fools who, despite our occasional negativity, we’ve trained ourselves to believe that the glass is always half full (of wine, preferably) and that that terrifyingly big job is creepily lurking around the corner. And who knows, maybe it just is?