If I knew then what I know now

September sees the fresh faced arrivals at many drama schools and colleges throughout the UK and means that the streets of Covent Garden are adorned with the latest intake of students at the Royal Ballet school. None of which is a bad thing of course.

What is worth pointing out to the same drama students though is that although the quality of teaching that they may have might well vary a little from institution to institution, they industry may well regard those venues (and their teaching) as vastly different. As I'm sure you've all been told before, Life isn't fair. Deal with it.

I was sitting and thinking about what I wish I knew when I started my training at City Lit? What would have made my life, not easier per se, more perhaps productive? What traps I could potentially avoid I guess.

The short answer is that I wish I realised that I had one mouth, two ears, and sometimes only half a brain. I admit that I was one of those students who needed to understand the reason behind the exercise that the teacher was putting us through. If, as often was the case, I didn't grasp the point of the exercise then I would spend a huge amount of energy trying to fathom it out rather than just getting on with it and seeing what followed.

My end of term reports often intimated that I was being too analytical and too cerebral and that I needed to not fear the visceral response sometimes. What crystallised the lesson for me was when a teacher, the immensely talented and hugely patient Jonathan Dawes, took me to one side and said "Imagine you're standing on a kerb or a wall. Balance right on the edge of it. Allow yourself to fall and deliver your lines in that moment of uncertainty and freedom." To this day I often find myself taking a character I've got trouble finding and, using bits of dialogue, I go and balance on the steps by the Renoir cinema and I play. Just play. With the words, the meaning, the timing. In that play I find a huge release of my own expectations and preconceived ideas about the character. As I topple forward, or backward if standing that way, off the kerb my instinct kicks in and my focus is not on me, or the character. I cease to exist. My attention is on the fall. The journey if you like. And in those moments the first glimpses of a character can sometimes be seen.

It's worth saying that Drama School, any Drama School, will be the most supportive, inclusive, welcoming, safe space for you to learn your craft in. So don't get caught up in petty squabbles between students and especially not between students and staff! You may or may not wish to include 'Romances' in the category of 'Petty Squabbles'.

Having seen relationships blossom and die between students in the same acting class I would suggest that although a dalliance might well be fun, be aware that if the relationship sours you may well have two and a half years of having to sit in the same room with, and reveal the deepest darkest secrets of your soul to, someone who you previously adored but now wouldn't pee on if they were on fire. Needless to say this added frisson can bring a useful element to some examples of scene work but may well interfere with others.
Let's not forget that the relationship may well have an impact on others in your class too. It may be that you and your partner want to work almost exclusively with each other on scenes too. But that would limit the learning that you both have ultimately.

We learn by being exposed to other actors. If we repeatedly, and misguidedly, seek to work with only someone we love, or even just 'fancy' in some cases, then we are limiting our own experiences. It is an actors  job to seek out new experiences and to challenge ourselves by, perhaps, working with the people we feel least inclined to work with. After all once you've left the safe environs of the drama school you will inevitably be faced with the situation one day of turning up to the first day of auditions and finding someone standing there you really would rather wasn't. If you don't have that experience of working with all sorts whilst at college you may find that you are thrown when the cast doesn't all gel perhaps. Even if they don't, and sometimes even with the best will of all concerned they just don't, you still have a show to perform so you have to behave professionally and in a civil manner. At least until the final curtain falls on the run.

To sum up this post, drama training should be fun. A play is called a 'Play' for a reason after all, so play. Play with character, with emotion, I would say play with yourself but I fear that may be misconstrued.

Be aware though that the start of training is precisely that. I loved my time at City Lit and I learnt loads. I also now know that I've learnt infinitely more about the business since graduating than I did in my time there.

Most drama schools seem to skirt around the 'Business' side of the business so I want to say a few words about that but I think that'll have to come in the next post.

Immersive experience

My recent relative silence here and on Twitter has been due to my involvement in something new for me, immersive theatre.

I know that this is something that divides both audience and critics alike and I am someone who has been to immersive, interactive, theatre and hated some of it as much as I've loved others of this ilk. 

What was interesting for me was the huge amount of improvisation required to keep the audience firm in the belief that they had become immersed in your world, and that that world was different to their own. 

Working in a damp disused railway tunnel takes its' toll on your voice unless you remember to support it correctly and so does no daylight for 9 hours a day during rehearsals but the whole thing was made much more enjoyable by having a great cast who were all phenomenally generous, and a fantastic director whose vision resulted in the creation of something that defies classification and straddles genres with ease. 

From audience reactions we knew we had something good happening but we could not tell how good. And then we found we had been nominated for an Off West End Award (Offie) and collectively smiled a huge smile. 

It's not that we do this for the recognition of course but the way this particular show is set up there is no chance for the audience to applaud the cast and some find that a little difficult after working so hard for so long, so the good reviews and the nomination serve as our collective applause and we, as one, salute you. 

I should also say here that the show is Jack the Ripper's London, by Crow Theatre and directed by Natasha Campbell. We are resting the show for August whilst some set changes happen and then we'll be back in September ready to amaze and delight. 

Twitter and How to Use It

Sometimes life has a habit of getting in the way of even the most well planned of things. That is what has happened with my blog of late. Life, in the form of my own insecurities and foibles, has left me rather distracted of late so I have neglected my blog for almost two months.

I shall try, but won't promise, to provide a blog post at least once a month from here on in.

This particular post is being written at the request of one of the most highly regarded headshot photographers around, Mr Michael Wharley.

He is off to the NSDF conference this year and has asked if he can feature me as an example of an actor who uses Twitter effectively. Once I was over the shock of being asked if he can use my Twitter page as an example we talked the topic over a little and I decided that I would blog on the slightly wider topic of "How to Use Twitter if you're an Actor"

Not meaning to sound like I know what I'm talking about, and absolutely not meaning to lecture but it does strike me that there are some very simple rules to follow when using Twitter as a professional tool no matter what your profession.

Firstly there is the little matter of picking your name. Pick it carefully.

As much as your Equity and Spotlight names are your brand name so is your online presence part of the same brand. The fact that your schoolmates might well have called you Wobblybottom or that you really did have an email address that was "punanimaster@...." is something that you need to leave behind you.
Nothing, and I mean nothing, smacks of a lack of professionalism more than having an unprofessional online name. Your email address, even if it's a free web-based email, and your Twitter account are professional tools and need to be treated as such. The simplest solution is to just try to get an account that matches your name as closely as possible. If you have to veer away from that because some other person has already nabbed your name then so be it but don't veer off into the inane or profane.

If you want brand consistency across all platforms then I would suggest looking into sites like NameChk which allows you to check name availability on almost all forms of social media or Know'em which does something very similar but also allows you to check domain name availability and then gives you the option to pay for a service which will register your chosen name on up to 300 websites in one go. Personally I didn't much see the point in the pay service when you really only want to grab the top sites anyway but the option is there to use if you so desire.

Now you've got your page reserved what do you do with it?

This is Twitter we're talking about here so I will stick with that, although these can be extended to other social media sites too of course. Twitter allows you to change the background to your page. So change it. Even if you just tile your main headshot over the page that is something. And use a professional headshot as your avatar too.

I know these may sound like idiot guides but heigh-ho... Now you've set up your page you need to start to follow people. Personally I think there is limited mileage to be gained from following the celebrity Twitterati as you will not really be able to engage them in conversation. (Even if you do you will probably be speaking with the web manager employed to Tweet on behalf of the celeb anyway.) When I started out I found the Twitter accounts for as many of the London Fringe theatres I could find and then followed them. I looked at who they followed and followed them. That way I quickly built up a list of people I was following who were at least interested in theatre.

Read their posts. Reply. Ask questions. And above all else be prepared to help out too. If people need a retweet of one of their messages then retweet it. If you're stuck for something to say then ask who you can help.

I treat Twitter as part of the job of being an actor. Of course it doesn't improve my acting per se, nor will it get you auditions but if you follow film and theatre production companies, directors, and above all else casting directors, then you will hear about things in the pipeline often before they are public knowledge and that gives you a chance to be helpful.

There are some fringe producers out there who will look at a Twitter presence and if you've a growing following on here and someone else has none they will tend to offer parts to the actor who can readily market an upcoming show to their following.

Twitter isn't just about getting bums on seats though. Acting can be a very lonely profession at times and online social media can provide you with support and guidance in those times when you are ready to quit. And everyone has those moments sometimes. If you have engaged with people and shown compassion then you will get compassion back in return.

Speaking personally and entirely subjectively here I can say that there have been times when Twitter has given me room to vent and let off steam and others when it has given me strength and succour to continue. It has also put me in contact with some wonderful people who produce work that I truly admire. Of course, overtime, as you build your own online presence your personality will start to shine through. That is a good thing. You cannot expect to be entirely business focussed all the time and it's to be encouraged to have opinions on things and to Tweet them too.

I have seen people use paid-for Follower tools on Twitter. I decided long ago not to go down that path as even though they would generate a large kick in follower numbers it is doubtful that many of them would be even vaguely interested in theatre, film, or acting in any form so what would be the point of having the number for the sake of the number. I would rather quality over quantity any day.

As I've said before, spend time reading the Tweets from people who you follow. And reply. Twitter is a modern day version of the chat over the garden fence and it's going to be a very dull conversation if only one person talks all the time.

Be proactive. Be helpful. Be mindful too.

By mindfulness I mean don't flood your timeline with a million tweets about your undying love for Justin Beiber/One Direction/Twilight etc. It might well be that you will marry one of them but it gets very dull, very quickly when all you do is tweet about them. So think about what you post. Share the things you like. Share the things you really don't like. Share enough to allow people to see who you are beyond just being an actor.

Showcase Shmocase

Well it's been almost a month since I was here last and what a month it's been!

I've been to lots of drama school showcases, some of which have blown me away with the display of raw talent on stage, others of which have made me wish for a lightening bolt descending from the skies to strike the director who deemed their ideas worthy of being a showcase. I can't stress enough how terrible some of them have been.

Back in the day when I was approaching my own showcase it was drummed into us by our head of faculty that the job of the showcase was to, unsurprisingly, showcase us. It was not to give us all equal stage time if that time meant we could shoot ourselves in our feet. Metaphorically speaking of course. Well it seems to me that some drama schools take the view that all students need to be given equal stage time regardless of ability. Hence I've witnessed singing that was flat, voices that were indistinct, acting that was timid and utterly mind-numbing and I've also had to sit through umpteen excerpts from the same handful of plays over, and over, and over again. Even the food on offer has started to take on a relentless sameness. Standing around in the bar afterwards chatting to agents they all share the same view.

Drama school showcases invariably take place in the lunch hour so that busy agents, casting directors and producers can justify getting out of the office for a bit longer than an hour and seeing something entertaining and finding new talent. The new talent is undeniably there but the "entertainment" factor has been absent by and large. Making the audience laugh, or even making them smile, makes them more predisposed to like the actors they see on stage. Boring them or picking scenes that all feature two people screaming profanities at each other gets rather tiring.

The most entertaining, and arguably most successful showcase so far this year has featured a mixture of duo and monologues together with larger company pieces and even the odd song. And no this was not a Musical Theatre showcase, they're an altogether different bag usually featuring a large degree of shirt movements revealing toned six-pack abs, row upon row of preternaturally white teeth and any number of Stiles and Drewe songs segueing into hard bitting dramatic scenes where the leading candidate to play Dandini in panto this season in Margate is allowed to flex his acting muscles by declaring himself in love with the beautiful girl opposite him whilst struggling to hide his penchant to punctuate sentences with a demonstration of a jazz hand or two. But they are entertaining nevertheless.

I have to say the thing uniformly lacking in most of the drama showcases I've seen so far has been simply that. Drama. Mainly scenes are underacted with the actors showing scant connection with the text and not able to project vocally beyond the first two rows of the stalls. This has been the case in even the smallest, and oddest choice of venue, the Fortune Theatre where the showcase also suffered from being badly lit.

Why do I go if they're so bad I hear you say? Well, not only do I live moments away from the majority of venues but I also have a job to do. I'm an actor, a director and now a producer. When I go I am looking at, and for, actors. Sometimes the design of the showcase makes it hard for the cream to rise beyond the sea of little UHT milk capsules bobbing about. I beg the people tasked with creating showcases to remember what they are there to do and to showcase the talent. But please please please make the hour entertaining. Mix it up a bit. If you have one black actor please use something other than Blue/Orange to demonstrate his skills. Why not let him do Coward, or Crimp for that matter. Shake it up. Be bold. Let your imagination fly and let your students take wing rather than shackle them by lacklustre direction and no imagination.

Topics for discussion

As some of you may well be aware I've been somewhat lax in keeping this blog up to date with new, pithy, insightful comments. Well that will now change.

I've asked on Twitter and will ask again here for what it is you want me to cover about the world of acting.

So far I've been asked to discuss why it is that Art is important and also how to create a firm sense of place when you're on stage or in the audition room.

I was debating going in to detail about recent productions I've seen and what works, and what doesn't, and thought that might just become a rehash of the reviews I write for Remote Goat and also now for Bargain Theatre so came to the conclusion that doing that wouldn't make for good reading. So, I think, to mark my return to the bloggersphere I will tackle the big one. Why is Art important?

But I'm not going to tackle it right away because I'm hungry and it's lunchtime. So this post serves as an introduction to what will follow... and also as a question about things you'd like to see me tackle. Let your minds run free. Mine frequently does, hence the three pages of a one man show about a gay vampire that are currently sitting on my desktop asking for attention... More about that later I think. Until then, happy lunchtime!

New Year reflections - kinda

So it's 5th January 2012 and so long 2011. You were a right pain in the arse at times and yet at others you seduced me with your softly spoken voice and your puppy dog eyes. Still, you're last year so no point dwelling on what I didn't manage to achieve now that 2012 is here and there's loads that I want to do with my future. And that doesn't include dwelling on the past. However 2011 does deserve a quick glance over and the time it takes to reflect a little.

Due to a number of personal factors, mainly featuring a huge amount of building work going on at home that meant that I was unable to dwell in my chosen dwelling place for month after month, I will own up to saying that I allowed myself to become distracted from acting. And from theatre also.

Casting my mind back I had though that the larger part of 2011 had been consigned, with the rubble, into the Skip of Lost Chances, but when I stop and think about what I managed to do in 2011 I realise that I am being unfair and am guilty of allowing a small period of upset to tarnish a good year.

I'm not going to bore you all with the details but suffice to say I made some superb contacts last year and I got recalls for some really rather scarily big league producers. OK so I didn't land any of those roles but I learnt loads. For example I learnt that it's not always wise to say that you "weren't impressed with a script and that you thought it might run in the provinces but no London audience would ever come and see it" even when it was truly terrible. It's better to say "Great script! Love it! Love it! LOVE IT!" and then just be busy if they want to cast you.

For the record I learnt those two gems from a friend who spent most of November and December wondering why he hadn't had a recall for that particular project. One day he'll learn. Perhaps.

Should I stay or should I go?

Hunting around for a topic to write about is sometimes easy and sometimes not. A bit like Life really. Especially when that life belongs to an actor.

So, being a generous soul, and not being able to think of something to write myself, I donned the cloak of generousity and asked the Twittersphere what topic(s) they would like me to write about on here.

After strenuously examining the vast number of reply I had (thanks Rhonda! Glad to know someone reads this!) I thought I would deal with the most popular topic that cropped up. Once.

The single reply to my offer read as follows:

How about a piece dealing with Office Politics during a project? Possibly emphasizing (she's American so she's allowed to spell like that) how to handle your work when the project is a kind of disaster and everybody is grumbling and complaining.

When do you leave?

How do you make that decision?

Why should you stay?

OK, how do you deal with office politics in a production, which doesn't have an "office" but a rehearsal room which can be fraught and tense, and exhausting. And then shifts to a stage which can be a whole myriad of things all at once?

When all about you moan and whinge what do you do? What do I do?

I'm always honest here and I've no reason to change that. Also I only ever write about my own experiences as that it what I have to draw on in my life and it's that life that, at times, has meant I've had to deal with awkward decisions. But as to how you deal with office politics in a production there is one rule. And for me it's an absolute. And that rule is don't get drawn in to petty political squabbles in a production.

It's fine to offer an opinion when it's requested by the director, or even when another actor asks for help but avoid at all costs getting into the You're Right/Wrong type of arguments where you have to take sides. Be diplomatic.

Says I. Who in one of the first productions I was found myself in a nonsense of a production. A director without a clear vision. Without the ability to explain to the cast and crew the essence of his vision without saying "It's all in my head. I'll know when it's right".

This same director regularly would turn up late, sometimes by as much as 3 hours or more, to a 6 hour rehearsal. And then he would explode at the cast and crew for not being "on it" immediately when he arrived. He would undercut the choreographer at every opportunity, mainly by listening to what they said, watching what they'd got us doing and then saying "that's not right. It needs to be like this...." and proceeding to rechoreograph entire routines. He would, and did, arrive in the wings two minutes before curtain up and hand a cast member a prop whilst saying helpfully "this will help your character be real" before they walked on to a stage to do a song and dance routine. Now carrying a brand new, unrehearsed, unrequired, unwarranted prop.

But that was the actual production.

Back in rehearsal cast were regularly kept waiting, as I said for hours on end, by the director who would then break every 20 mins for a smoke and a coffee and wouldn't allow us more than 15 minutes for lunch.

One cast member, a good friend of mine, left and the following day (8 days before opening night) the director arrived, about 2 hours late, and I should add the director had the only key to the rehearsal space, and gathered everyone together to publically attack the now absent cast member. Who, it must be pointed out, had left because he couldn't cope with the utter disregard the director had for the company.

I had spoken to a teacher of mine about the situation and she gave me sage advice which I still go back to today. I said to her that I was tempted to walk. She said if you've signed a contract, or even if you haven't you never walk. Be utterly businesslike and professional but never walk. Her advice dealing with the tardy director was as follows....

1. Explain why you are not happy. Clearly.
2. Set out some rules of conduct for the director.
3. And for the cast.
4. State the outcome if the director breaks the rules.
5. Be prepared to carry them out.

In this circumstance, the discontent was because the cast were regularly hanging around outside the rehearsal room for a minimum of 20 mins and a max of perhaps 150 minutes. We had no warm up time. No structured lunch breaks. No structured end times.

To deal with this it was suggested that the rehearsal rooms were open 30-45 mins before our rehearsal call times, thus allowing people to warm up ready to go for the start of the rehearsal.

Also that the director had to be there by the call time for the rehearsal. If he wasn't, I said I would wait twenty minutes and then go home as I could work better there by myself than waste time waiting for him to arrive.

Oh and we had a known schedule for breaks and for lunch. Of course we weren't going to walk out when the clock hit lunchtime if we were in the middle of something but everyone knew that about 1pm we would break for one hour for lunch. And at 11am and 3pm we would break for refreshments/smoke etc.

That way everyone knew what the rules were. From that day on the rehearsal room was open everyday 30 mins prior to the call time. The director was never late. We all had rest and felt able to go on. If someone hadn't made a stand we would have all been utterly exhausted and probably been injured during the run itself.

It's not that this is strictly to do with office politics but there is something important here and that's that although the relationship between Director and Cast can at times be fraught, and at others beautiful to behold, everyone in a company has a job to do. Just because someone has a bigger title than Actor does not mean that they can ignore the feelings and sensibilities of the cast. Nor should the cast be prepared to lay down some simple, professional, rules of conduct.

This was a Fringe production but that is not the point. Assuming that because a budget is small the process would automatically be "difficult" is wrong. I've had the utter delight of working with gifted, visionary directors on Fringe productions with minisucule budgets who never failed to show their cast utmost respect and never once allowed their professionalism to be compromised by budget restraints.

Everybody pays to be in a production. Producers pay money and stress. Cast pays in blood, sweat and tears. But when everyone treats all the others involved with respect it's amazing how much more fun it is. And how much better the final result is.

So, young actors out there, don't be scared of saying if you think something, or someone, anyone, in a position of responsibility in a Company is out of order. On the big issues obviously. Don't waste time over the small stuff. But remember it's not your job to undermine the director. It's about being professional at all times and expecting the same of all others.

It isn't just what you do on stage

Yesterday I went to see the work of an up and coming theatre company who are striving to reinvent the Rep Company for the 21st Century. They strive to provide a year long training program built around the experience of putting on three full scale professional productions throughout the year.

After the experience of yesterday I would still say that these are lofty ambitions and deserve support, however this is a business not a fairytale adventure and sometimes businesses need to be tough in order to teach people valuable lessons.

It was apparent from watching the assorted cast of some 17 young people of varied talent get to grips with the reworking of this classic Greek tale of lust, revenge and death, that some of the basics need to be attended to urgently.

There really is scant point in staging a full scale professional production when the cast are in obvious need of speech lessons. There is no point putting on what is ostensibly a college production and calling it professional.

Perhaps equally importantly the actors should all have drummed into them the importance of an online presence. I was trying to write up my review of this particular play this morning when I realised that my task was made much more difficult than usual due to the utter lack of photos and biogs in the literature handed out at the theatre. It could not be too arduous a task to have a couple of pages with just a headshot and the name of the actor next to it could it? I'd think not. But nevermind, I thought, I'll turn to Google and will go through the names listed and call up the relevant Spotlight or Casting Call Pro pages for the actors concerned.

I think my biggest shock wasn't that most of the cast are not listed on either site (as far as I, with the help of Google, could ascertain) but more that the few who were listed had not bothered to update their online resumes in quite a while. In one case that "while" equates to five years. None of the actors listed the current production.

Wearing one of my other hats, this time as Director, I constantly look out for actors who get added to my list of people I would want to work with in the future, or at least see how they develop over the next few years, but none of those on stage made that list yesterday purely because of the lack of ability to identify them.

Even a wall of headshots in the theatre would have helped!

I would hope that young actors, and those just starting out in their careers who may have a few years of Life on their side, would realise that most casting these days is done online initially. And that in order to improve their chances of getting roles, of actually just getting seen, then their online presence is just as essential as their technical knowledge.

Studio 2 - Somewhere

I'm currently part way through rehearsals for a drama pilot for the BBC. A studio drama pilot.

What's so special about that I hear you ask. Well if you consider that it's the first studio drama to be filmed at BBC TV Centre since 1996 then I think it's something of note.

Walking around TV Centre (TVC) it's clear that studio facilities are not being utilised. A senior producer today said that the "studio was restricting for writers" and suggested that having to contain action to a minimum number of sets was a restriction many writers would not want.

So instead of producing studio dramas of note the BBC use the gem that is TVC to churn out light entertainment shows that chase ratings. It's a public service broadcaster who has the luxury of being given a few billion quid a year to produce output. Surely some of that cash can be used to make studio drama that's relevant to today.

I've been told stories of every studio being full all day, every day. I've also been told that the BBC now directly employ only two cameramen. The rest are freelance. That being the case where is the apprentice structure for the technicians to learn their craft? It used to be in Wood Lane but now it's gone. Perhaps the view, also espoused today by a BBC Exec that they can "no longer compete" in the realms of producing drama has led to a culture where the first though is negative when it comes to producing quality studio drama. The second is, the Americans do it well so let's just buy some in.

The BBC is a public funded, public service broadcaster. How is it in the public service to not produce quality dramas at home? In studios they own. How can it be in the public interest not to nurture new talent both in front of and behind the camera?

That would lead to us exporting talent and finish products. That's not a bad aim for a public service broadcaster to have somewhere is it?