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.

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.

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?