Acting Class Diaries, Part 1

I had my first "Principles of Realism" acting class at the Studio Theatre last night, and it was awesome. I've been looking forward to it for months - per some of my earlier posts, I've been craving training in creating real characters, and based on last night, I think this class is going to be just what the doctor ordered.

Our teacher, Nancy Paris, who's been teaching for "120 years" (her words), emphasized the difference between being and indicating - being sad versus indicating to the audience, "Look, I'm sad." That is exactly the area I want to hone in on. I did a pantomime exercise and sure enough, she called me out on over-indicating things to the audience.

I was looking at the nutritional contents of a carton of yogurt and using my finger as I looked at the calories, then fat content, etc. She asked if I'd really do that, and I realized, no, of course I wouldn't. But I'm so wired to communicate that way - to make sure what I'm expressing gets across clearly. In my work as a Web consultant, part of what I do is help companies make things more obvious: coaching clients to be more clear about the purpose of their Web site, having that translate directly into the content they offer, and having the design clearly indicate (there's that word...) all of the above. But in my acting, I've gotten the feedback before that my characters are more like caricatures - and I think that's because I've been communicating as an actor the way I communicate as a consultant, and that's no good.

Very revved up about this...I'll keep you posted as it moves along.