Let's start with a story:
This
may surprise you, but I went to college for tap dancing. (Yes, really.)
Twelve days after I graduated high school, I flew across the country to
NYC, a city I had never traveled to, and began training in a two-year
conservatory musical theatre program.
I
chose musical theatre because I knew I wanted to be an actor,
and since I can sing and I can dance, it seemed like the best course of
action to have training in all of those things. This plan worked out for some time: I got a job dancing at parties and events for a
few years, wearing some cool and some bizarre costumes while doing
choreographed routines to some of Broadway's biggest hits. Next, I got a
job touring the country teaching musical theatre (and improv, mime, and
Shakespeare) to children.
I
got back to NYC in September of 2008, just days before the housing
market crash and the financial disaster that followed. What a time to be
auditioning! No one was buying tickets to shows, so few shows were
being produced. I got a restaurant job and weathered the storm.
When
work opportunities slowly started to come back, I learned that I didn't like musical theatre anymore. More
importantly, I loathed auditioning for musical theatre. I was bitter. I
wasn't trying my best. I didn't want to be there, and, therefore, no one
wanted to hire me. I realized that classical theatre was much more
appealing to me, but I didn't know how to get involved.
I'll
tell you what I did, and what I wish I had done sooner. My path may not
be what's right for everyone; it certainly came from trial and error.
What I did:
I
tried the "be so good they can't ignore you" technique. Honestly, I
probably wasn't all that good yet, with minimal training in classical
theatre, but I was studious and determined.
I
worked for free. I'm not a fan of being a volunteer actor, but I needed
to get some skills. I was cast in a less-than-great production of Medea
where my dance/movement skills were a selling point in the audition.
Then I played Hermia in A Midsummer Night's Dream. THEN, I started
booking paying Shakespeare gigs.
While
I'm a big fan of learning as much on the job as you can, I still had to
play catch-up when I came in to my first paying Shakespeare job. I
didn't understand the basics of verse mechanics, and made a lot of
embarrassing, simple mistakes. Thankfully, I had patient people around
me who helped point me in the right direction. My own curiosity and
desire to not be embarrassed led me to...
What I wish I had done earlier:
Classes.
So many classes. And workshops. And lectures. I cannot emphasize enough
how much I needed to put my pride aside and get back into class. I was ten or more years out of college, with an
education that was not serving me anymore. I don't even put my college
on my resume, because it's simply unrelated to what I do now, as much as
it would be if I had gone to school to be a mechanic. I took a good,
hard look at my resume and realize that my training was lacking, so I
fixed it by learning from people in the biz whose work I admire.
Is Your Training Serving You?
Do you feel that you have the skills to be competitive in auditions, and to be a rock star if and when you book the role? If not, you need more training. Focus as intensely as you can on the skills you need to master, and master them!
Who is booking the work? What training do they have? Can you get comparable training?
A Master's Degree might be out of the question for you, due to time, money, or any number of other reasons. One potential workaround is to study with the best teachers you can find, either privately or in a group class.
What
I hope you take away from this is that if your training isn't serving
you any more, that it is okay (and encouraged!) to go get the education
you need for where you want your path to go.
Email ShakespeareCoach@gmail.com to schedule your coaching session!
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