Milton would often quote (or more likely paraphrase)  Gurdjieff in saying "The first job of the teacher is to wake up the student, and the first job of the student is to realize they are asleep." I've been thinking about this during this summer. I'm sure most teachers experience to some degree the summer doldrums that occur between July 4 and Labor Day: attendance down, production down, energy down - that palpable sense of dispersion amongst the students. It takes a certain child-like imagination to persist as an artist, and I think that young part of us just wants the summer off to play. 

And listen, I don't begrudge some travel, and summer is a good time to do it - getting out of Los Angeles every so often is definitely a good thing to do. But there is travel as reward for hard work done, and then there is just being asleep for 10 weeks or more, like some weird summer hibernation. 

This week I cancelled a class for the first time in my 10 years' teaching at the BHP, because the level of scene production has been kind of sucking, and even when I threatened them last week with cancelling a class session, it didn't change, so I was forced to be true to my word. I hated my Wednesday night off, hated it. (I hated it even more when I saw on Facebook someone trying to get students to watch "So You Think You Can Dance" in the gap where class was supposed to be.) 

So. "...To die, To sleep...." Shakespeare perhaps most famously linked sleep with death, but I'm sure he was far from the first. And in contemporary parlance, "asleep at the wheel" signifies going through the motions robotically without any real thought or care, with quite a lethal and literal subtext. Sleeping while driving is about the most dangerous thing you can do.

Yet I feel as if too many actors are sleeping and driving in their creative and professional lives. This isn't strictly about scene production in class. But scene production in class is an indicator of an actor's energy level. There are very few people who exhibit terrific energy in class and zero energy outside. And very few who are lethargic in class and are just kicking ass outside. In general, lethargy is lethargy and hard work is hard work. One of our more successful actors, who spent many years on a recent very famous TV series, returned to class three times a week for the better part of a year and knocked out a couple dozen scenes during that time, before, you guessed it - booking another series and he's off to Vancouver for a few months. He was a hard worker before he booked the original series, too. I could repeat the same pattern for just about every break-out student the BHP has ever had - they are hard workers.

So when I have to face slap what is normally a terrific group to wake them up, I'm wondering where else actors are asleep this summer, or in general. Here are some symptoms of an actor's sleepiness:

Snobbery: To me, snobbery is a form of being asleep. For the entirety of my 21 years at the BHP, I've heard veteran students bemoan that newer students aren't quite with the program, or are mysteriously less talented than in the past. (Romanticizing the past - that could be an essay on its own.) Get over yourself. This kind of judgment is a form of sleep - you get to check out, secure in your superior abilities, it somehow justifies lack of energy, because energy is for those who don't yet know what they're doing as well as you do... Hah! 

Coasting: Sort of first cousin to snobbery. This is prevalent in actors who have been at it for a while, whether that means class or the broader career. A sense of "I've been doing this so long I don't need to work hard anymore." "I've got this." "I know how to act - now it's just the career to handle." I've often talked in class how this attitude is unique to acting, because musicians, athletes, dancers, etc - they would laugh at the concept. Just because acting doesn't place a specific physical / technical demand on you doesn't mean you get a pass on consistent hard work on your craft. Blow it off at your peril. I'm writing this at 1:30am after about 3 hours at the piano, and next year will mark 40 damned years at the piano. 

I didn't even know X was happening: My first year in LA, my brother was also here at the USC Film Scoring school. Jerry Goldsmith was speaking to that class, which I was sitting in on, and one of the students whined that "It seems like the business is all about who you know, and how do you beat that?" Goldsmith rolled his eyes and said, "Go fucking know someone." I loved that line. Applicable to many areas. You'll often hear actors who totally missed some activity / audition opportunity / admin idea / seeing  a good play, etc protest that "they didn't even know X was happening." That's because you're asleep. Imagine what else you don't know is happening. So go fucking know something. Be aware. Wake. Up. 

Someone else will or should do it: Lack of responsibility. You observe something not ideal, something that needs fixing, something that needs reporting, a person could use a hand, your set is a little fucked up, your class is a little lethargic, and you move on, thinking to yourself, "Well, it's someone else's job to handle that." Zzzzzzzzz.

When I'm paid I'll wake up: Bullshit. Those who think they can look like shit, dress like shit, act like shit, mope around, coast along unawares, or otherwise not be on their game, but yet think that when money is on the line, a real audition, a meeting, a gig - they will suddenly snap to and become professional, are kidding themselves. Look at that last sentence - snap to... I just typed it and it works. Snap to. Wake up. Be a professional. Don't kid yourself that you'll be a professional  when you're being paid. Frankly, the chances are that with that attitude, you simply won't get to the point of being paid - or at least no where near as often as you would like. See earlier post: Opportunity Knocks But Doesn't Leave A Note. 

I didn't communicate because I assumed ______. This entire thing with the cancelled class was a big fuck-up of non-communication. The executives of the class didn't communicate with each other. The students didn't communicate with each other. No one communicated with me, and I sat there assuming it was all handled. And yet, we're in the communication business - all this acting we want to do is just highly aesthetic communication, like music or painting or any of it. And yet... Zero. We stare into iPhones, we text, we "Facebook" as a verb, and yet... Zero. It's actually all zero. Because we're kind of asleep during all that. Meanwhile, important shit is happening right in front of us, or there are important people who need to be communicated to in this business - and you're.... asleep. Because the people you need to meet can't be just Facebooked or texted or "messaged." It's gonna take more than that. When in doubt, communicate. How many times a year do you bump into an old acquaintance and say "we should get together"? Now, what is the actual number of get togethers with old acquaintances? And those are the easy ones. You're trying to get in communication with people in this business who don't know you exist yet. Don't be asleep.

"The business is dead right now."  ..... So I can sleep. That's the full sentence. You never hear "The business is dead right now" as a call to action. It's not exactly material for the St. Crispin's Day speech. It's always a justification for sleep. Always. Never let the words leave your lips, or the lips of those around you. One of the characteristics you'll notice if you study highly successful people is that they work pretty much around the clock for years on end regardless of what their particular business is doing. Google was born out of the tech bust after 2000 - all those out-of-work engineers... That's what they came up with. 

Seeking inspiration instead of seeking to inspire: I'm just not inspired right now. How many times have you heard or said that one?  People think they want to be inspired (which immediately hands responsibility for that to other people), when actually it's far more rewarding to inspire (which puts it in your hands). But the idea of "I'm just not inspired right now" is a common justification for.... sleep. Fuck being inspired. Get off your ass and inspire others - by definition it is a more powerful place to be. 

That's all for now. I guess the irony is that to achieve the dream you have to be awake. That's why Milton called it Dreams Into Action. So how about we kick ass between now and Labor Day, between now and Christmas, how about we just kick ass as a consistent way of life? 

I've had occasion recently to read a few students' Career Concepts, and figured I'd offer some thoughts on the matter. 

I think writing down, at any length, some specifics about what you're looking to achieve in your career is a good thing. This is why Milton developed the idea and put it early on in Dreams Into Action. He alluded to the result of this exercise as certain kind of  "Declaration of Independence," and some write-ups that I have read have DECLARATION OF INDEPENDENCE written on the first page rather than CAREER CONCEPT. Okay. I don't give a shit what the title is,  but I think it's important to note that the actual Declaration of Independence marking the breaking off of the American colonies from the British was just over 1,300 words. A history-making, country-founding document was 1,300 words. While Milton encouraged writing down as many specifics as possible, he also used the words "lean, mean and concise," and did so for a reason.

I'm getting a subtext when reading them that they have been created for someone else. Three of them had a very similar format, as if adhering to a template for how these things should look. There seems to be a significant effort to explain not only details about a possible acting career, but political and personal belief systems that are interwoven throughout, as if the actor is trying to communicate some innate truth about themselves, something that is probably clear to them when they look in a mirror, but harder to explain to an outside reader. Why all this effort? There is no need to explain your beliefs, politics, philosophy, or psychological inventory in a career concept. 

You can guess where I'm going: These suckers are too damned long. I'm seeing Career Concept documents that are 3000-4000 word, 15-page or longer manifestos that have as separate sections the following: Mission, Purposes, Postulates, Policies, Principles, Affirmations, Personal Assets & Liability breakdowns, Projects, Goals, Plans (broken down into bulleted lists of items under each branch of BHP teaching), Lists, and on and on and on. Now on the one hand this work is often very impressively brought together, it takes time, and it takes a certain confront to look at it all, and I applaud that. But I also worry that the results are possibly too unwieldy, complicated, redundant, circuitous, and beg a giant question after the dozens of hours being spent to create them: Now what?  

(One thought I had - what if the dozens of hours spent creating these manifestos had simply been spent getting in communication with industry professionals?)

Milton was very concerned with the Now What? question. In the 12 years that followed the publication of Dreams Into Action, which I edited and was fully guinea-pigged on, I was part of countless meetings between him and individual students, as well as witness to innumerable critiques where he might touch on Career Concept. And in each of those meetings and talks, he sought to break down what was usually a highly intellectual and ethereal morass of career ideas into a simple concept. (It would be a very Milton thing to do to have six people in front of him at a staff meeting at his house and go around dissecting the essence of each person in about two minutes - for all six. Many of these little gems could have been adopted as a career concept.) 

He often wanted a single sentence. He wanted something you could put on a post-it and affix to your bathroom mirror so that in the morning you woke up, saw this simple declaration, and it moved you to do something that day about your career. I remember one was simply, "NOW." A single word, used to address that particular actor's habitual procrastination about everything. I met recently with a student who was frustrated by his inability to get a regular job-job because he didn't have the proper education / accreditation that employers look for. He's ridiculously talented. I offered this: "Since I'm not qualified to do anything else, how about I actually try to get acting work?" We laughed about that, then wrote down, "It's time." A counter-notion to this actor's idea that he had to "pay his dues" for a few more years before regular work would come his way, which I thought was bullshit.

Ultimately, the Career Concept exists to move you to action, not to get an "A" in Career Concept writing. If it doesn't fire you up, it's not a good concept. If it is bulky and can be used as a paperweight, it's not a good concept. Milton used the analogy of buying a car - quite rightly pointing out that (practically) no one says, "I need a car. Just any car." And through this analogy he's trying to get actors to be more specific than, "I just want to work. You know - any work." And by getting specific with the concept, hopefully it fires you up to do something about it, and target specific people who might line up with your concept of what you want to do. 

If you like BMWs, you go to a BMW dealership. If you like one-hour dramas, there are people who write, produce, direct and cast those shows. But no one I know who has ever wanted a car wrote a 15-page manifesto about it, beginning with, "I would like a car with four stunningly round wheels and stylish appearance that sails through traffic with the performance of a Porsche and the economy of a Prius, a car that inspires others to drive it, that inspires others to be as bad-ass and yet ecologically sensitive as my car, a car that resides both in the Hollywood Hills and is also driven to New York where it will have its own garage in a downtown pied-a-terre, where after it books one Broadway Show a year it will also have six TV guest-star appearances as well as being featured on Letterman....." 

So to sum-up and not go on and on about this - try to apply my own point to myself... If you want to free-associate across every facet of your life, psychology, self-analysis, behaviors, etc ad infinitum to create a 15-page draft of a Career Concept - I'm all for it. It may well be beneficial to do so. Every script has as its first iteration a pretty shitty, overlong, overwrought, overwritten first draft. NOW WHAT? Get it elemental. Get it lean. What's it about? Unlike a script, a career concept need not be something that communicates to others. No one else has to get it. No one else has to read it. No one else has to be entertained by it or moved by it. It frankly isn't anyone's damned business but your own.  There is no template, and no one should be offering one to you. The idea is that in the middle of an actual actor's day - get up regretting something from last night, feel discouraged, avoid the breakdowns, cruise Facebook, go to lame job, rehearse scene, feel discouraged, go to commercial audition, feel discouraged,  surf the web, flinch on exercising, eat too much sugar, go to class - that somewhere in that day-to-day reality, you find 15 minutes, or one hour, or two hours, where this concept fucking gets you to do something about the career instead of wallow, avoid, or theorize about it.  

PS: I remember another student for whom the entire Career Concept concept was so infuriating, so frustrating, so crazy-making...  she was just bonkers on the entire topic, coming to tears in front of Milton about how it simply did not compute for her. Milton's answer: "Forget it. Don't do one. Forget I wrote about it." He took her copy of Dreams Into Action, drew a bunch of lines over the entire chapter (in pencil), and handed it back to her - and both of them cracked up. It was the last she dealt with the topic, and they got on happily to other areas of career administration. So, as with all aspects of technique - it has to work for you, and if you really try and it doesn't - let it go. There are plenty of successful people who probably never wrote one of these out. It's a tool. You should try it as it may help, but it's not on a tablet handed down from Moses. 

This is fantastic. (Reprinted from an item in the Los Angeles Times.)

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While appearing on Broadway in her Tony-nominated role of Jeanette in The Full Monty in August, 2001, Equity member Kathleen Freeman died of lung cancer. Equity Councillor Jane A. Johnston, a longtime friend and executrix for Ms. Freeman’s estate, later discovered among Ms. Freeman’s papers a document containing A Code of Ethics for Theatre Workers. Ms. Freeman was a daughter of a small time vaudevillian team. Her childhood experience of touring with her parents inspired this Code of Ethics, Ms. Johnston writes. She also notes: “What is particularly interesting about this list of dos and don’ts for the theatre is that it was written in 1945 when Kathleen was establishing one of the first small theatres in Los Angeles and she was 24 years old. I wish I had been told some of ‘the rules’ when I was a young actress instead of having to pick them up as I went along.”

The theatre was the Circle Players (with Charlie Chaplin among its backers), which later evolved into the Players’ Ring. Although there is no record that either company used an Equity contract (they certainly pre-dated the 99-Seat Code in Los Angeles), Ms. Johnston confirms that all the participants were professionals.

Foreword to the Code

A part of the great tradition of the theatre is the code of ethics which belong to every worker in the theatre. This code is not a superstition, nor a dogma, nor a ritual which is enforced by tribunals; it is an attitude toward your vocation, your fellow workers, your audiences and yourself. It is a kind of self-discipline which does not rob you of your invaluable individualism.

Those of you who have been in show business know the full connotation of these precepts. Those of you who are new to show business will soon learn. The Circle Players, since its founding in 1945, has always striven to stand for the finest in theatre, and it will continue to do so. Therefore, it is with the sincere purpose of continued dedication to the great traditions of the theatre that these items are here presented.

The “rules” follow:

1. I shall never miss a performance.
2. I shall play every performance with energy, enthusiasm and to the best of my ability regardless of size of audience, personal illness, bad weather, accident, or even death in my family.
3. I shall forego all social activities which interfere with rehearsals or any other scheduled work at the theatre, and I shall always be on time.
4. I shall never make a curtain late by my failure to be ready on time.
5. I shall never miss an entrance.
6. I shall never leave the theatre building or the stage area until I have completed my performance, unless I am specifically excused by the stage manager; curtain calls are a part of the show.
7. I shall not let the comments of friends, relatives or critics change any phase of my work without proper consultation; I shall not change lines, business, lights, properties, settings or costumes or any phase of the production without consultation with and permission of my director or producer or their agents, and I shall inform all people concerned.
8. I shall forego the gratification of my ego for the demands of the play.
9. I shall remember my business is to create illusion; therefore, I shall not break the illusion by appearing in costume and makeup off-stage or outside the theatre.
10. I shall accept my director’s and producer’s advice and counsel in the spirit in which it is given, for they can see the production as a whole and my work from the front.
11. I shall never “put on an act” while viewing other artists’ work as a member of an audience, nor shall I make caustic criticism from jealousy or for the sake of being smart.
12. I shall respect the play and the playwright and, remembering that “a work of art is not a work of art until it is finished,” I shall not condemn a play while it is in rehearsal.
13. I shall not spread rumor or gossip which is malicious and tends to reflect discredit on my show, the theatre, or any personnel connected with them-either to people inside or outside the group.
14. Since I respect the theatre in which I work, I shall do my best to keep it looking clean, orderly and attractive regardless of whether I am specifically assigned to such work or not.
15. I shall handle stage properties and costumes with care for I know they are part of the tools of my trade and are a vital part of the physical production.
16. I shall follow rules of courtesy, deportment and common decency applicable in all walks of life (and especially in a business in close contact with the public) when I am in the theatre, and I shall observe the rules and regulations of any specific theatre where I work.
17. I shall never lose my enthusiasm for theatre because of disappointments.

In addition, the document continued:

I understand that membership in the Circle Theatre entitles me to the privilege of working, when I am so assigned, in any of the phases of a production, including: props, lights, sound, construction, house management, box office, publicity and stage managing-as well as acting. I realize it is possible I may not be cast in a part for many months, but I will not allow this to dampen my enthusiasm or desire to work, since I realize without my willingness to do all other phases of theatre work, there would be no theatre for me to act in.

All members of the Circle Theatre were required to sign this document. And they must have-because the theatre, and the group into which it evolved, was successful for many years.

I've been chatting in class a fair amount recently about administration, which is BHP-speak for the actions actors are taking to move their career forward. The good news part is that these discussions are coming about because I'm seeing a lot of very talented actors doing very talented work and are swell personalities to boot. The bad news part is that too many of these talented actors are "not working as much as they'd like to be," as the euphemism goes. 

So this begs the question: What's going on with your admin? Answer: Some clever version of "not much." Followup question: Why? Followup answer: Well....  They talk about confidence, they talk about "branding," they talk about ineffective agents, they talk about how CD workshops don't yield results, they talk about the alignment of the sun, moon, and stars, they talk about personal problems and relationship troubles and karmic injustice. But what most are not talking about is simply a diligent, consistent outflow of high quality communication and promotion regarding the product. 

Outflow equals inflow, folks. And there is an X-to-1 relationship there. There is some number X of outflowing communication/promotion that will yield a unit 1 inflow. If you send out 100 letters and get one in response, then you're a 100-to-1 person. So keep sending out 100 units of outflow. You don't have to believe in it, you just have to do it.  Some people have the admin gods on their side, it's effortless, and it seems that if they merely think about Steven Spielberg, the next day they get the call for an audition for Jaws 10. The best possible ratio would be 1-to-1 - every single letter or call or what-have-you yields a positive response. That's a fantasy, but it's here just to make the point. Everyone has an X to 1, but very few people are solving for X. 

If, like many actors, you're sending out 5 random postcards or half-hearted notes each month when the mood strikes you, when you're feeling "confident" or "inspired" or whatever, and you have nothing coming back to you - then you haven't hit X yet. Your X is higher than 5. 

Another dubious phenomenon is the one whereby  Joe Actor sends out 100 letters and gets his unit 1 comeback - a single audition. Instead of realizing the 100-to-1 equation, Joe thinks the 100 will now yield many more auditions that have simply had the poor taste not to appear yet. The promotion and admin activity stops, as does, of course, any return flow. Back to base camp and we start climbing again. 

It's simple math, daily hard work, and not a complex association of psychology, misapplied corporate branding techniques, chakras alignment or other head game that feel cathartic to chat about in support groups, makes money for those who purport to sell the Magic Pill that will unleash careers, while actually, factually, statistically, doing nothing to change the condition. Outflow. Outflow. It's about consistent outflow. It should be quality outflow for sure, specific for sure, targeted for sure,  and read the bonus thought below for more on whom you should target.  But don't kid yourself that you need to take six months to develop a "quality" piece of promo, while doing zero admin during that time. A hyper-concern for "Quality" can become an excuse for doing nothing, and wraps itself nicely with a perfection syndrome so that nothing ever goes out because nothing is ever "good enough" to go out. 

Bonus Thought #1: My experience is that whatever your X is, only about 20% of that should be random impersonal postcards, casting workshops or breakdown submissions. My guess is that for most actors, that number is distressingly close to 80% of their output. But look:  Casting directors are hired by the producers to do a job for them - before a casting person is hired, a script has been written, believed in by a lot of people, financed, etc. So when you focus your admin on casting directors and the breakdowns they put out, you're hitting only the last 20% (at most) of the entire process that brings a story to life. You need to hit the 80% or more of the iceberg that is underwater: Writers, Directors and Producers. If you're in the headspace of those folks as they create a script and move it towards production, the casting person will be calling you without your even knowing who they are.  This does NOT mean you back off the current admin you unleash on CDs, but DOES mean that you have to put out multiples of that number targeting the story creators and movers. (Or becoming the story creator yourself - see my early post on this blog: Build Your Own Door and Walk Through It.)

Bonus Thought #2: My recent conversations regarding admin have revealed in general a woeful rate of good followup. Refer to earlier post - Good Followup - It Matters. Part of this equation should the the logging of every person you meet in this business, with consistent 4-6 communications a year going to each of those people. Every audition you have should add 3-4 people to that list: The CD, plus the writer, director and producer of the project - regardless of whether you met all of them personally. And don't underestimate the value of handwritten notes.

X to 1. Everyone has their own personal X, so solve for it. And whatever quantitative effort you're putting into casting workshops and breakdowns, another 4 times that amount should be the effort to communicate with writers, directors and producers. For those who might actually have read other entries here and say, "Wait a minute - in Reel Thoughts you stress the quality of our promo, in Do The Admin You Like you say we should blow off random mass admin that we don't believe in, and now in X to 1 you're saying it's about solving for X on a quantitative basis - WTF?!" Well - owning your own business is hard work. So yeah, I'm asking you to develop quality promotion and communication skills, target specifically to people you want to work for as well as the broader marketplace, and do this on a consistent basis, solving for your own X to 1. Hard work.

Got a text the other night from a friend of mine the other night. He had seen a one-act festival that the BHP had produced: "Saw one-acts this weekend. Yep. I want my money back... Hope life is great."

Oh, my. What possesses someone to send a communication like this? I mean - it was 9:30pm on a Tuesday, and he picked up his damned phone and wrote that thing. Pressed "send" and all. Now, this is not about defense of the BHP or of a one-act festival. I actually had nothing to do with the festival night he saw, so this isn't a personal beef.  And even if it was, people are free to have their opinion, they're free to broadcast it however they choose. No law in the arena, and all that. But it made me think of this idea of using "honesty" as a cover for being a dick. 

I think somewhere in this guy's mind is the idea that his "honesty" about his opinion becomes some sort of hard-boiled tough love, and he's holding up some sacred standard of work in his mind and anything that doesn't meet it deserves to be criticized. The reverse vector kicks in: If I don't tell them what I really think I'm being dishonest.

Meanwhile, on my end, I get this text and I think to myself - "What a dick." In that moment I don't give a shit about his opinion, because the means and style of its expression completely alienates me and makes me want to punch him in the face. There are plenty of opinions I seek out as a means of improving the work, and not one of them would ever deliver communication like this.

You can encounter the same "honesty" from casting people, agents, friends & family who say the darnedest things about you, the business, the career, etc. "If you aren't reading for series regular parts on a consistent basis by the age of 30, you should pack it in." That's special - that's a recent one an actress repeated to me, quoting her manager, as I tried to scrape her off the sidewalk. I don't care how true the statement may be to that manager, it simply a completely shitty thing to say to an actor, and it's demonstrably false. When I told this actress I thought it was a shitty thing to say, she replied, "But he was just being honest. He told me he wants an honest relationship." Yeah. Right. Here's an "honest" reason you should fucking pack it in and assume you'll never succeed. Awesome. Just what the world needs. (And then wait for it.... And now that I've weakened you, let me tell you how I can lead you to the promised land. Sign here, let's have dinner.)

So don't let yourself be shat upon by those who come to you with their unsolicited, unvarnished "honest" criticism of your play or your career or your age or your current station in life. This "honest" bullshit is often just an accepted cover for acting like a suppressive dickhead, and is reflective of self-criticism within the originator. 

If you see a friend in a show and you think it sucks.... And look:  one of the early posts on this blog is entitled "Doing Shit Theatre" - the phenomenon whereby we've all gotten sucked into doing total crap plays or projects despite our early perception about it. So I'm fully cognizant of bad quality and I'm not trying to whitewash or defend it. But if you think something sucks then keep it to yourself and spare the performers and creators your "honesty." No one has a perfect record here, certainly not I. I remember once seeing something I was horrified by, and apparently the friend I was there to support could see my eye-rolling pain-wracked face from the stage. Ooops. (Now I sit further back just in case I lose discipline.) But we can at least aspire to be more supportive of the creative efforts of our friends and colleagues. Find something positive and acknowledge that. Or, if it was such a disaster, say, "Look, this wasn't my cup of tea, but I'm here for you and I'll be there for you whenever you perform." That's honest, too, and frames it in a positive, friendship-enhancing way.

The place for potentially harsh critical honesty is when it is solicited. Students pay for class to get an honest appraisal of their work, so teachers get to be honestly critical - but I would hope it's critique in the name of growth not just destruction. And if you earn your friendships well, you'll here this from them: "Listen - I respect your viewpoint and I want to know what you think. Really." If you're burning with something to say and aren't asked about it, you can offer, "Hey, if you want, I have some thoughts about this as an audience member / someone familiar with your work / someone who cares...." And then it's up to the performer to sign on or not. 

So: Honesty does not give a license to be a dick. Withholding your harsh critique does not mean you are dishonest. 

And watch out for indulging your "honest" negative appraisals of your classmates or fellow actors on a project. Such honesty brings down the morale of many a group on an hourly basis worldwide.

(For the record, I called my friend and gave him hell about the text - and we had a great conversation about it, he admitted it was a dick move, and we've moved on from it.)

Note to Performers: You need to be smart and considerate as well. Don't robotically ask people what they "really think" without being able to handle an honest response. If you go past the first level of acknowledgment to get to a "really think" level - you can't then throw a hissy fit when they tell you and it's negative. Also: If you receive  a polite acknowledgment of your work after a performance, don't jump on that with followup emails asking people to promote your show to their friends and industry contacts - this can be highly annoying and makes the person having acknowledged you think they should have just been a dick. If they liked your show enough to promote it to their friends, they'll do that without your pleas to do so. You can get away with, "Thanks for coming - so much appreciated, I hope you spread the word." But don't get into: "Thanks for coming - much appreciated. Listen, can I ask you to talk to your agent about seeing it? Call me and let's discuss!" 

It's financial.

I have a lot going on right now.

I've got a lot of personal shit I'm dealing with. 

I'm heading out of town.

I've got a wedding.

I'm on a diet / cleanse / etc.

I have a medical thing.

I'm depressed.

My dog just died.

I feel as if I should just concentrate on my admin for now.

I'm not feeling inspired.

I lost my sponsor.

I'm blocked on my creativity.

I have been floating some ideas.

I'm gearing up for tour.

I live in the Palisades.

You said we should create our own thing, but I don't know what to do.

I think I need a PR person.

I need new pictures.

I'm getting my website up first.

Everyone I know in the business is dead.

I'm known at the BHP for having a stronger point of view than most on the issue of certain material that I feel reduces the chance of good training getting a bite into the actor. So I thought I'd finally write something about it, and hopefully by so doing, shorten a few of the talks I  have with the class after I court dirty looks by dismissing a scene with little critique. First off, here's what I wrote about this issue for the FAQ section of the BHP website:

     How do I choose material for scenes?

The best training occurs on the best material. Boxers don't spar with partners who are weaklings – they train with partners who challenge them. Musicians don't train on easy music – they train on the best. Actors should seek out the best writing, writing that is interested in humanity, rather than in cleverness or glib emotion. Many actors think that because much of the writing for their contemporary auditions is subpar, they should train on subpar material, as if there is a specific, learnable way to pull off subpar material that will get you more jobs on TV. Don't think this way.

Many actors are simply not knowledgeable about scripts from the theatre and film history available to them. This is a shame, and indicative of the deterioration in education and the work ethic of actors. Imagine the aspiring pianist who didn't know the work of Chopin, the young writer who'd never read Tolstoy! And yet many young actors do not know their own history - the actors, directors and writers who have shaped everything we do today. The history of theatre and cinema is filled with challenging writing that is interested in human beings and real communication. This is what you should be interested in for your career, and so seek this material out, educate yourself while doing so, and turn down class requests to work on Elf and Wedding Crashers.

So let me dive in a bit more. Training an actor is a very tricky activity for many reasons, among the most important being that an actor is both the instrument and the musician, and you need a minimum of two actors working together to really assess either one's ability. As the teacher, one has an infinite combination of potential issues to address with the instrument, the musician, and then the material and/or the actor's approach to it. On the actor's side, just getting to the moment of critique is more challenging than any other art form. As a pianist, I have two pianos staring at me in my living room, and one of them is digital and can be used late at night without disturbing anyone - it's me versus the piano, it can happen any of the 24 hours in a day, and the practice and the progress on any piece can happen quickly and intensively with my work alone. With scene study training, you need to get at least one other actor in order to do any work at all, there's no solo or digital option for work, you have to rehearse, and at the BHP we expect you to bring in a finished product, something you've sweated over and thought about. 

It's best if all that effort went into material that helped us make you better, right? So follows is a list of the kind of scenes I feel are counter-productive, and a final note about The Grand Exception that gets you a pass on any of it: 

Coffee Shop Naturalism: Two people sitting in a coffee shop (or its outdoors variant, the park bench), chatting. Nothing much happens, little is revealed -  some story history or character biography, perhaps. Or maybe a weak romantic pass is made and deflected. No one gets particularly upset. No one gets particularly happy. One of the characters leaves, aaaaaaannnnnd scene. Just avoid all this stuff - if you're at the level of work where you can believably listen and have a conversation, then these scenes do little to challenge you, and the material will often fray when you try to apply bigger choices to it. (Included in this genre is the famous DeNiro-Pacino scene from Heat. Zero happens in that scene - its purpose in life was to get those two actors acting together for the first time in history. I've seen it performed a dozen times in class and it never works.)

Avant-garde / Dreamworld: Study requires material that has rules, logic, discernable conversation, a sense that these characters inhabit a known world here on earth. So I'm not knocking avant-garde work and experimental theatre, etc. - but it just doesn't make good training material. Ditto for its first cousin, the dream sequence. No good. I once went to a "piano recital" where the pianist had hung beer bottles from the strings with varying levels of liquid in each bottle, and he hit a felt mallet against the side of the piano while holding down certain keys, and there was some weird sonority that resonated through the beer bottles. Okay. I just don't know what that had to do with a piano, and there was little pianistic skill involved - it was mostly a compositional exercise. If I brought this piece to my teacher for a piano lesson, I'd be dismissed with a grunt in about three seconds. 

Science Fiction / Action / Fantasy:  I love The Matrix as much as the next guy, but it's no good for training. This Sci-Fi / Action / Fantasy combo has produced some massively popular entertainment, and it's not as if there isn't any good acting in some of these movies, but generally the world inhabited by these characters is one that needs huge production value, and it's tough to extract scenes that have any meaning or excitement outside the context of the experience. 

Persona-Driven Glib Comedy: This goes to the mentions of Wedding Crashers and Elf on the FAQ. Again - there's great cinema entertainment available in this genre, but they are generally highly reliant on the persona of a known comedic actor, rather than real acting. Some of these comedians are actually really talented actors (Steve Carrell comes to mind), but the persona driven glib comedy is generally incredibly stupid from a script standpoint, and absurd from a logic standpoint - and neither problem matters because it's about the comedic persona coping through all the madness. Not good for training. 

Smoldering Chemistry Film Scenes:  The ultimate example of this is the pick-up scene from Body Heat. Never works. It always comes off as a very flat conversation about chimes. A lot of smoldering chemistry film scenes are just coffee shop naturalism that is followed by a sex scene. The pickup scene in Fatal Attraction is another. They are greatly  assisted in the originals by the presence of movie stars shot in closeup, sound design and scoring. Without all that, and in a class setting, we're watching two actors doing coffee shop naturalism and thinking to ourselves about William Hurt throwing that chair through the window, or Douglas and Close in the elevator. Avoid, unless by Grand Exception below. 

High Concept Scripts: Amongst the most popular here are works by Charlie Kaufman and Christopher Nolan: Adaptation, Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind, Being John Malkovich, Memento, Inception, etc. As screenwriters go these guys are hugely imaginative, but I've never seen their work translate well to a scene study training environment. It's possible - but a tough job for sure. 

If you're thinking, Well, what's left after what you listed above?, then I would submit that you're operating from too narrow a frame of reference. It's easy to note that all of the above are most prevalent in film scripts rather than stage plays, and a snob could easily just ban screenplays from acting training and they would have a point. But we're in the 21st Century, the BHP is headquartered in LA, and many people enter acting with small and large screen aspirations and these dreams were often sparked in a movie theatre. There are countless terrific, actable screenplays that have real meat on their bones, so bring 'em on. There are countless terrific, actable stage plays which, by their very theatrical DNA, avoid many of the pitfalls above. 

And here is the the Grand Exception that gets you a pass even on all of the above. (It's an "exception" in terms of getting past my considerations on the material, but is certainly a "rule" of good acting in general):

Imagination. With some imagination, and its siblings creativity, passion, interest and originality, you can bring any scene to life in a vibrant, exciting way. Last year some students brought in Tolkien's The Hobbit, and killed it. They were fantastic, they had lighting design, sound design, they completely committed to the characters of this fantasy world, and we were all captivated by it. The only time I saw Body Heat work was when one of our teachers teamed up with a choreographer to create a very different and vastly more expressive experience from that depicted in the movie - and the actors responded beautifully. I've seen exciting and original adaptations of James Bond scenes, coffee shop naturalism scenes that have taken off and moved people, smoldering chemistry scenes that have burned hot. Milton himself assigned such scenes as Airplane! and 101 Dalmations (the Cruella part) to actors (so they would stop taking themselves so seriously), and they were hugely entertaining. But all of them involved a heavy dose of imagination, a boldness and originality that acts in direct opposition to the idea of acting training as a rote form of (non)artistic dictation: transcribe the film scene and act it essentially the same way those stars did. If we can derive from this discussion at least the idea that actors should stop taking dictation, and that their imaginations are a huge and often untapped force, then that alone would be worth it to me. 

I've had occasion to see a bunch of demo reels recently - mostly from BHP students but also a few on the outside as well. I include in this "demo reel" grouping the video auditions that many actors are doing as part of their effort to be considered for a role. Some random thoughts that come to me, completely separate from the acting - this all assumes terrific acting.  (The terms "tape" or "reel" are themselves a little obsolete, but will be used as synonymous with the video product in all its current forms):

Two Communications: Two elements are being communicated with these reels - most people seem to be aware only of one. The obvious element is that of "how is this actor acting?" But the second element is equally important - and that's the subtextual communication being delivered via the quality of the video. And that communication is very important. You simply cannot afford to act well in a video that sucks, quality-wise. Don't know how else to say it. Because the suckiness keeps me from really observing the actor - it becomes a simultaneous communication that is discordant with the acting (assuming a good actor). And quality is easily achieved - there's simply no excuse for sucking. Any excuse you think you have for poor quality is being crushed by the fact that tapes are being created that look and sound great, and your butt is being kicked. You need to make the effort not to suck simply because someone else is out there not sucking.

Quality 1: Please make sure you look good. You can help yourself a lot by ensuring a makeup person is with you - sounds dumb, but several of these videos had attractive actors with either overdone or zero makeup. It's a balance - I don't presume to lecture on the matter - I'm not a makeup expert. Some actors need very little. But I know when I'm looking at too much or too little - and I'm observing both of these too often on these tapes. I know we live in a superficial society, and the society can be condemned for its superficiality, but you simply do yourself a major disservice by not looking as good as you can on these tapes. I suggest bringing another person because it's just better to have someone you trust in charge of this matter, so you can focus on the acting part. Also - gentlemen, make sure your suit jackets, shirts and collars are checked!!

Quality 2:  I'm seeing too many completely static shots, camera on tripod, with waist-up framing - the aesthetics of a police interrogation video. Conversely, one of the audition tapes I saw was a full-on short film in the style of the "Batman" films, conceived and shot for the purpose of the lead actor being considered for any role in the upcoming sequel. This thing rocked. It was a fully-realized piece, written by the actor (see more on this below), shot by a talented director, the camera moved, it had some visual effects, it was scored with Danny Elfman-style music, and regardless of any nitpicks you could dig up, here's what it communicates: These people are serious people. They have a love for this kind of film. They had the intention and dedicated whatever  resources they had to making this look impressive. They have esteem for themselves and respect for the work that goes into making a good film. I believe that subtextual communication is extremely important. I knew the actors, but right away I asked all sorts of questions about the director and how they pulled this off (in a single night of shooting, apparently). It immediately grabbed your attention from its high quality alone. 

The medium-shot waist-up static tripod police interrogation video communicates this: I know I need to submit a video for this project. Besides, my teacher said I need to "create opportunities for myself." But I don't have any money. I don't have time. I don't really know how all this shit works. I have some desire. What I really want is simply to be cast because.... Well, just because. Please like me despite my poverty. I don't know if I have what it takes for the long haul. Frankly, I'm a little depressed. This is not a good subtextual communication, and it reads loud and clear no matter how well you think you're acting. 

There's an easily achievable middle-ground between the Batman short and the police interrogation video. It involves a single camera move, emphasizing closeups, and not shooting nine minutes of stuff. More on that below....

Sound: Don't shoot in echo chambers. Too many people are using small rooms with hard surfaces and the camera mic. It's going to sound like shit. Sound has to be good - get a location that absorbs sound and don't use the camera microphone.

Length: Don't shoot nine minutes of material. Part of the quality problem is that people are simply trying to shoot too much, and the quality goes down as a necessity of too much length and too much time wasted getting all that material in some kind of usable condition. Set up a simple shot, move the camera slightly during the shot, have it be a MCU or CU if at all possible, and act the shit out of it for about 2-3 minutes. Done.  

Material 1: This gets tricky, since I am guilty of having told a number actors who did a great scene in class to shoot it for their reel or for casting in a project. But look - one of the reels I saw had a scene from Pretty Woman on it. I mean... No way. No. You cannot think you're going to compete with Julia Roberts in the role that made her career. Why would you do this? No one looking at that tape is looking at this actress - they're looking at their memory of Julia Roberts and that's that. Another had the Walken/Hopper scene from True Romance. Forget it - no way. So if you're going to shoot something from very famous material - I'd seriously question that. If it's 2-3 minutes from something not as well know, sure - but stay away from Streetcar, Forrest Gump, Pretty Woman, Raging  Bull.... Anything where the original performance or scene itself is famous.

Material 2: If you do have a famous scene or role that you feel strongly you want to shoot for your reel, I would suggest you write a variation that is original, so you're not competing directly with lines that people may be referencing to the source script. The "Batman" riff I keep referring to was a completely original script designed as a short film, but nailed the tone, cynicism and dry humor of that franchise. I think there's a lot more freedom available to you with an original script, and everything is based on everything else anyhow - just write your Raging Bull scene sideways and you'll have the tempermental relationship between brothers, jealousy, all of it - without competing with that script. You don't want to give people watching your video an excuse to have their minds wander through cinema history figuring out where they've heard these lines.

Distribution: Do not distribute your video via your personal Youtube channel. One person sent me a link to her audition video this way - carelessly. I won't comment on the other videos that were there next to the three minutes of serious career administration - but it was not a good juxtaposition, let me tell you. So create a separate professional channel for online videos related to career administration. And honestly - I would question putting up personal videos that have you looking foolish or drunk or ridiculous. Almost every applicant for any job is being Google-searched for criminal records and the like, but wanton stupidity captured on video is not something I would want a potential director or producer to see if I could help it. This is the world in the 21st century. 

One of the most frequent complaints about the study of acting, across all schools and all approaches, concerns the issue of scene partners. Fill in the following sentences:

"My damned scene partner just _________________!" 

There is an infinity of options to fill in that blank, right? Right. So having heard just about all I would ever not want to hear concerning scene partners, I thought I might offer some ideas on what I would love to hear about in a scene partner:

The Professional Scene Partner....

• Has decisively agreed to participate in the scene. Don't do scenes without a sense of passion or real interest. Doesn't mean you have to like your partner - that's a bonus. Much of your career may be spent working with people you may not like personally. What it does mean is you have a sense of purpose about the scene and ability to work together toward the common goal of killing the sucker. 
• Is not late. Period. 
• Is not high. Or drunk. Period. 
• Does not cancel because of apocryphal "last minute auditions." Real auditions - well, okay, but the proportion of real last-minute auditions to the number of fabricated "last-minute auditions" is a very small number. Get honest. The use of white lies to evade confronting that you don't have your shit together is a corrupting, soul-sucking, esteem-lowering habit. 
• Has his or her lines down cold ASAP. 
• Has read the entire script and/or seen the entire film ASAP. 
• Endeavors to read other scripts by the same author. No one would realistically expect knowledge of every other script by the author, every time out.  But if you read this and think, "You know, I've never read other scripts by the author as part of my specific work on a scene," you should make more effort to do so. 
• Does not use rehearsal to make romantic advances. Make romantic advances after the scene has been performed. 
• Does not "improvise" violence or sexuality in the scene without agreement up front. 
• Allows multiple points of view and willingly investigates them. If there is a disagreement about any aspect of the scene, a very effective solution goes like this: today let's do it with your ideas, tomorrow let's do it with mine. 
• Does not string a partner along for weeks before pulling out of the scene. If you're going to cancel, then cancel fast and let that person move on with their life.
• Does not direct the other person, nor allows himself/herself to be directed. Except by willing cooperation.
• Does not come into rehearsal with a bad attitude relating to events of his or her personal or professional life. Leave your crap outside. 
• Does not "wonder why this scene was assigned." If you don't know - ask the teacher, not your scene partner. 
• Has showered recently. 
• In summation, the professional scene partner shows up on time, alert, energetic, with a good cooperative attitude, knows the lines, knows the script, knows the author, doesn't flake, doesn't cancel, doesn't make passes, has heard of the term "breath mint," and works with the same professionalism and passion they would (presumably) bring to a big money job.

They're baaaaacccckkk! 

The holidays. Visible on the horizon. Now personally, this is my favorite time of year - the sun gets lower in the sky, the temperature falls (mostly), my fond memories of New England autumns stir, and I'm sort of a jacket guy, so I get to wear those jackets and sweaters. Normally I'm preparing my annual piano recital and, after 20 years of doing so, the changing light outside has its own associations with intense practice at the keyboard. (No concert this year, though - with a newborn at home, there's no possibility of 4-5 hours of daily practice!)

But I probably speak on behalf of all administrators and teachers of acting schools in Los Angeles, (or for that matter, private artistic workshops everywhere) that the Holidays can spell impending disaster for the psychological health and artistic commitment of our students. It's as if the entire last 8 weeks of each year is written off under the umbrella mass justification: "It's the holidays." 

He has to take off for a few weeks - it's the holidays.

There are no scenes on the books - it's the holidays.

I'm in and out of town for the next couple months - it's the holidays.

Or the all time classic: The business is slow - it's the holidays. That's kind of two whoppers in one sentence, but that's how you get to all time classic status. 

And then in January, it's not as if everyone is hot and ready to go. There's the new justification that January is the charge-up month, get back into town, collect yourself, pick up shifts to make money that you lost by giving up shifts to travel.... February. February I'm gonna fucking rock! 

I imagine the BHP is not the only place where in January we're in an entire cycle to "recover" students - the ones who have gone just completely MIA, and those who have returned, but who are bleary-eyed, disoriented, mentally wrecked by too many questions like How long are you going to give it? and When will we see you on TV? and Did you hear your brother just made partner?! and Why don't you come home and work in the store?

So beware the "It's the Holidays" justification. If you find it creeping maliciously from your brain to your tongue in preparation for its escape from your lips and into the physical world of excuses, please stop. And don't just stop saying it, but stop living by it. 

"It's the holidays" is an entire mechanism designed to slow you down, check you out, ice you cold. This doesn't mean you don't go see the family if that's what you need to do. But I know I started out at 7-10 days out of town during the holidays, and before I finally had my own family here (the ultimate excuse for no travel to see family), I'd weaned it down to 3 days.  So just look at how much time is really necessary and be honest about that - Milton would often tell the story about how he realized his last trip home for the holidays had occurred when his mother asked him two days in to take out the garbage. If I remember the story correctly, he was gone the next day (or was it the same night?) and that was his last holiday visit home. 

I looked in on an Orientation class last week, and a young actress who had just done a terrific scene talked about how passionate she was about the play - Shanley's Danny and the Deep Blue Sea. She said she had just visited home in NYC to see friends, etc., and turned down most offers to go out so she could stay home and read the play again and again - she was so jazzed by it. I thought this was an unbelievable statement. I mean, how many actors are turning down social this-and-that to stay home and read a play? And then read it again?  Not enough by a long shot. And it can be easier when you're feeling inspired for sure, but inspiration isn't always the state of affairs, and when that's the case you have to seek it, create it, hunt it down and fire it up.

So if you're checking out of town for the holidays, don't check out of your artistic life. Don't ease up on the gas pedal, but floor it instead. Use that time to re-inspire: read plays, see great movies (not just the ones in current release), come up with a list of scripts you're passionate about, roles you dream to play, develop a new line of attack on your career and your development. That way you hit 2011 running hard, running fast. 

So - Happy Holidays in advance. Happy, Productive, Passionate, Recharging Holidays. May any Holiday Hiatus before you not derail the train. 

And yes, have some spiked eggnog, too.