Good Improv is Better Than Sex.

Good improv is a spiritual experience. It touches down to the core, where you and the character become one. There is no more separation between actor & character, your choices become theirs, their choices become yours.

Good improv fulfills the actor, you walk away fully satisfied, knowing more about yourself, your character and the relationship to the other character.

Good improv is truth on stage.

Good improv will have you asking "What just happened?" because you are so in tune that you just live purely in the moment. Only after trying to remember are you actually able to reflect on what just happened.

Good improv should be uncomfortable at some point. If you're not uncomfortable, you aren't letting enough walls down. But after that comes the pleasure, the pure ecstasy that comes from letting yourself just be there, not knowing what's coming next.

Good improv keeps you wanting more.

God how I love a night of good improv!

P.S. The picture is a Tamara de Lempicka painting. Love her!

Isn't there a better way?

Alright, I'm sick of monologues. Seriously.

I'm sick of seeing them done, I'm sick of the torturous process it is to pick one out, I'm sick of the falsity that comes out of doing a monologue for an audition.

All a monologue tells me is if you know how to tell a story, which is important, yes. But a monologue doesn't tell me if you are going to work off the unexpected gifts that your partner gives you in a scene. It doesn't tell me that you know how to listen and truly justify your lines based on what has happened before it. It doesn't tell me whether or not you have a sense of the character that I'm looking to cast you in.

I mean in a way they have their purpose, but not all good monologists are great actors, and not all great actors are great at delivering a monologue. I guess that's why I hate seeing them done, because for me the most beautiful moments on stage involve at least two people coming to a realization about who they are and where they've come from.

Sorry, this is just a little pre-audition venting. Not that I really have a solution to this problem for when I'm involved in an audition for more than one theatre or director. I just wish there was a better way.

Shucks. ;P

I still think he's an amazing actor.

Okay so I'm probably one of the few people that will defend Christian Bale in his tirade on the DP of the Terminator movie.

So here's why I'm defending him...

Though now I focus more on my directing, I used to act. I understand how fragile your mind is when you are in the middle of a scene. As actors, we are charged with living truthfully in imaginary circumstances, we must trick our brain into believing what we are saying, doing, who we are is real. For even those most experienced actor this can be a very difficult task.

Christian Bale is a serious actor, I was going to use the term professional, but his outburst kind of struck that word from the vocabulary to describe him. He is intense, he cares about the work he does, sometimes probably more than he should. (I mean did you see the Machinist?) He puts his entire self into a role and while he's in that moment, things like a DP walking through in his line of sight, adjusting lights can be a pretty distracting. It takes you out of the moment, which then can be extremely hard to get fully back in. And the DP didn't do it just once, it happened twice! Let's say you're trying to do something extremely difficult, and someone messes you up twice, wouldn't that frustrate you?

So though I do think it was kind of crappy that it happened (I mean everyone on that set should be professionals, especially considering how much they are getting paid), I understand the frustration that incited that explosion of anger.

We aren't all perfect. And even though he's a celebrity, he's still a human being. My other question is, this incident happened in July, why now was the audio released? That part doesn't sit right with me.

What I learned from Superheroes...

So lately I've been watching superhero movies. The Incredible Hulk, Ironman, Dark Knight, etc. What can I say? The bar has been raised and superhero movies are a lot better than they used to be. Well I noticed something that they all have in common...

They are honorable, but they are self-loathing as well. I wonder if their self-loathing is directly related to their honor as a human being.

(Please remember this analysis is based off of the movies I've watched, not the comic books)

The Hulk: An anger induced monster who responds only to the woman he loves when he is in that state. When he isn't busting with rage, Bruce tries to keep calm, keep the monster under wraps. He fights his true nature and focuses on maintaining what he sees as the real him, while denying the rage that lies beneath.

The Dark Knight: Bruce Wayne is a playboy who floats through life, his counterpart fights the evil that lies deep within the city he loves. Batman is his true self in a sense, while Bruce is his cover. I feel with that way that it's portrayed that though he hates his "Bruce Wayne" persona, he maintains it to provide a cover for his true passion.

Ironman: Tony Stark comes to loathe the man he once was. Through his alter ego he realizes that there are more important things in this world than lots of money, fast woman and big guns. He learns to see what's right in front of him and that though there are fun toys, people are what's most important.

There are a few others that have similar themes (The Punisher and X-Men come to mind off the top of my head). So what does this mean as artists? I think for an actor that it is one more thing to look at. What does a character hate about themselves? Does that hatred/self-loathing bring honor or is it a source of shame?

Just one thing to think about.

An Essential Tool for the Actor

So this has never happened to me before... I lost my voice. Yep it went bye, bye and left me with little to work with.

This took me back to my first day of orientation at Cornish and the Freshman voice teacher Ellen Boyle (who later became a good friend and mentor) had lost her voice because she had spent the weekend protesting against the killing of Canadian Geese in one of Seattle's many parks. So she had been screaming at the top of her lungs trying to scare the geese away so they wouldn't be killed. Honestly, when she first told the story I thought it was a little weird, but she was passionate about her cause and I respected that. She told us about how profound it was to lose her voice, since as a voice teacher she relies on it so much. I really didn't understand what she meant until this week.

I mentioned how last week I was experiencing the "Death Plague" and it's reach was farther than just the fever, chills, cough and phlegm. The cough was so powerful that I seriously damaged my vocal folds and it was very hard for me to talk. I was not fully "on-voice" for a few days. All you got out of me what whispy sounds that resembled words.

What made it a profound experience for me was when I was in rehearsal with the Watch cast. Normally if I'm talking about an actor using their voice is a weird way I will demonstrate, because a visceral experience is always more informative than me just telling them about it.

Well I couldn't demonstrate at all. What a punch to my gut!

My voice and speech has always been there for me, it was something I excelled at in school (with the exception of keeping my soft palette lifted) . And, no, I can't sing; just for the record. I always took for granted that my voice would be there, even if I hadn't warmed up fully, it was there and usable. I had control over this, my vocal choices were always the first choices I made as an actor once I learned how to harness my tool. Learning about my voice and exploring and using it made me a better theatre artist.

Well I'm on the mend and my voice is slowly but surely coming back, I'm not trying to baby it, but I'm also trying not to overwork. I just hope things didn't change too much in the past week.

Your voice is how you let the world know you're there. I don't know what I'd do if I lost it.

Why Do They Leave Their Socks On?

Is porn art?

Background: Flipping through the HBO channels I come across Thinking XXX, a film by Timothy Greenfield-Sanders about shooting portraits for his book XXX: 30 Porn-Star Portraits.

One of the subjects, Sean Michaels, likened his work to art. My first reaction was, what the fuck? They get paid to fuck. How is that art?

Mr. Michaels said his work was an expression of the art of fucking. Made me think...

Porn Stars get paid to fuck on film. Actors get paid to act on film. (I won't make this distinction between art and entertainment in this post, though it could be valid)

Porn Stars get paid for their pornographic still shots. Models get paid for their photographs.

Porn Stars film soft-core scenes of simulated sex. Actors simulate sex scenes in movies all the time.

These are just some parallels that I've come up with off the top of my head. Though that also brings to mind the actors are like prostitutes, we are paid to perform.

Art & Sex have always crossed paths. Artists push the boundaries. Was the Marquis de Sade's work smut or literature?

What is the link between sex & art? Can sex be art? When does sex cross that line where it is no longer art?

Simplicty of your needs.

As actors, we try to justify everything we do and say on stage. We create trains of thought, stories to flesh out our character's history, we create a whole new person inside of us. We find truth in a story that was created. We live truthfully in imaginary circumstances.

I do find one thing though... Actors find it very hard to get to the core want/need of the character. They over complicate the simplicity of what we all want. It comes down to one simple thing that will fulfill us completely. For example, in my own life all that I do focuses on one thing.

What is that one thing? Expressing myself. I do theatre to express my artistic viewpoint. I write a blog to express my ideas on theatre and the work I do. I express myself in my work by advocating social media/networking and how I think it can benefit people. As an actor I want to express the character I've created.

We all have one thing we yearn for, the deep dark core of our soul. What's yours?