I
Understanding, discovering what your character wants and needs, what the obstacle to that is and what kind of choices the character makes to achieve his or her goals is the task. As you’re looking at those choices you are beginning to define the character. And when you do that several times, you begin to understand that you yourself make choices every day in your life and that those choices, when put all together, define your own character.

Working on monologues — even if you are not planning to become an actor – is terribly rewarding for anyone. It’s not just that you can become a better audience member, understanding what an actor is going through. When you are afraid to stand up and deliver your monologue, and then you do it and are successful, a whole new you opens up. You faced your fears, and you realize it wasn’t that bad. So that if you had to get up and give a talk, you could do it now. In all my years of teaching I never saw a student not be able to get through a monologue. I’ve seen some lose some lines, or garble up some of the words but I’ve never seen anyone not get through it. It’s a really rewarding achievement to learn about standing in another person’s shoes and deliver these words that are important to them. I made sure that every student, to the best of my ability, had a monologue that they felt strongly about. Something that maybe connected with them personally, passionately or politically. This was important to me. Because once they have a piece of material like that, something they feel they really want to say, and they have worked hard to get it into their body and their mind, when they are delivering this piece of material they’re attached to, a lot of the fear goes away. They have to tell the audience this piece of material. They have to share with them how important these words are. Fear gets lost in the desire to reveal the message.

II
In classes, there always just was that one student, who was holding themselves back. Fear, Scared. Then upset with me, the teacher, for assigning them something. But it was themselves they were mad at. I would do my best to try to encourage and watch over them a little more. Most times it was successful, but sometimes not as much as I would have liked. You know it’s really not about you the teacher. They may be mad at you for a variety of reasons, like the poor grades they’re getting. But it’s really themselves they’re mad at, because they’re too afraid to go for it. One acting class I had a young Chinese man who was resisting, and often falling asleep in class. (How do you fall asleep in an acting class?) Then at some point he just found ‘religion’. I don’t mean literal religion, I mean that he found something that he wanted to believe in- and that was himself. He started to give everything to the work in the class. His final scene work was just so moving. The class saw it, and knew it had changed him. And he knew he had succeeded. He finally understood what he wasn’t allowing himself to do in the earlier part of the class. That young man and I stayed close for years afterwards, even after he headed back to China. I always smile when I think of him. 

III
I remember another young woman who fought and fought. She had a very bad attitude. Always bringing negativity to class. Then one day she came in with an exercise that was unlike anything anyone else had done. It stretched her beyond what she thought she could do. And because the grading was primarily done by the class, not by me, you could see them all embracing her, excited for this strange weird things she had done. She began to understand she was not locked in anymore. It was about nine months later, that I got an email from her sending me a post that she had put on Facebook. It talked about the two classes she hated most in college, an art class and my theatre class. Then she explained why. She shared that these were the two classes that she had learned the most from. When she sent me this posting, she apologized for having been so negative. I wrote her back and told her I was so proud of her, and that I never took it personally because I understood it was coming from a place of fear. The person she was really the most upset with was herself. All the years I taught I can only think of one young woman who consistently brought in below average work. She just didn’t put anything into it. And she kept trying to defend her work as if she was really working soooo hard, and was not appreciated. But she wasn’t working hard, nor cleverly, nor trying to excel. The class knew it. The class and I were consistently giving her some of the lowest marks. I could tell that she was really upset with me by the end of semester. She wanted a better grade. What could I do? The class primarily were grading each other. In her work she never had that moment of allowing herself to work harder, to shine brighter, to fly, to excel. It’s strange to me that often these are the ones that you may remember the most. But I also do remember the ones who really excelled. Who were really excited every day to be there to challenge themselves. One student, many years later after getting his second million dollar business underway, gave a radio talk to the universities entrepreneurial center and he mentioned me as the mentor that had meant the most in many ways to him. He said it was in that class that he began to understand about himself, about choices he could make, about working hard to find creative choices, interesting choices, and how he could stand up in front of people now and and deliver a talk. He learned that when he knew everything he could about the subject matter, when he had really prepared himself, he had less trouble getting up and just giving his presentations. He had a period of inner growth in that class that allowed him to go forward with a confidence. I smile every time I think of him, too. 

IV
I often helped out when students were directing projects as an Acting Coach. Occasionally when another professor was directing he’d ask me to help as an acting coach on his projects. I mentioned how in high school you learn your lines and blocking and are rarely given more than that. As you get older, and begin to have more understanding of life, deeper ability to contextualize your experiences all that information begins to flow into the work you’re doing. In college that’s a good place to begin to deepen the work. You need good acting coaches to do that. This particular director had me help out on a couple plays. There’s only so much time at university to walk the students through a production. So, often, the director ends up just having the kids learn lines and blocking, which I have said many times is not what acting is about. My fellow professor recognized this and wanted to do more, but time is limited. So, my job was to work with the students when they were not rehearsing on stage. To help them begin to understand how to deepen and expand their acting. What is the play’s theme, how does your character fit into that theme. What are your obstacles. What choices are you making to get over those obstacles. What are the questions you need to be asking yourself? I used to call it “The 100 Questions” – find them. Start with “The Givens” of the text. Search. And then how to answer the myriad of questions that come up.  This time is not only where you learn about your character, but also about yourself. 

One of the plays we worked on was “Middletown” by Will Eno. I have to say it was a revelation for me. Every day working on that play brought out some insight either in the student or in myself, as we discussed these seemingly ‘not complicated’ scenes and moments of this amazing play. Small moments in a day of one’s life. I really wish at the time that I had taken detailed notes about all the things we learned. I intended to write something about it, but then one gets busy and time moves on. I have already shared a couple on another memory on this side.

V
There was one other experience I want to share that happened during this particular time teaching. The theater department decided to do a production of “A Streetcar Named Desire”. While I was not officially working as it an acting coach, the students knew that I had been in several productions of it myself. So they were always coming to ask me for advice. I mentioned to the young lady, a black actress, who is playing Blanche DuBois that I think it was the hardest role I’ve ever seen an actress try to tackle. She wanted to really try to understand this character, to fulfill the obligation of it. Of course part of the problem is a young girl who is around the age of 20 can’t understand what this character has been through. Blanche is only about 27 in the play, but what 27-year-old playing that role would be able to really understand all the experiences that Blanche has been through? This young actress had grown-up in Chicago, it hadn’t been easy. There wasn’t a lot of money. Just recently she had the death in her family of someone near and dear to her. When the show got into performances, at the end of the play the actress was in real tears every night. Which you would be. But one of the tenured professors felt this was inappropriate for a student her age. She thought it was traumatizing. The actress had not been directed to go this deep place, she was going there because she understood that moment. She needed that catharsis, for her character and for herself. This professor was so misinformed. She made the girl feel like she had done something wrong. The young actress was more upset by the professors comments and the guilt that the comment created, than by anything she emotionally went through on stage. Frankly, in a university setting, especially these days, where you have not only guidance counselors, your mentors, medical teams, a whole team of people all around you where you can go to get help, this should be a place to explore these deep emotions. If the student wants to. If they don’t tackle as a young actor how to navigate this emotional turf in such a safe environment, what happens to them the first year they’re out of school and they have to start working in those spaces where there’s nobody to help you?
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