Performing arts theater

First, you want to make sure you are doing this for all the right reasons, mainly: Your child actually wants to be an actor. I see a ton of parents “pimping” their kids, and these children have no real interest in acting. This is no way to do anything, let alone deal with the harsh realities of trying to make it as an actor.

Assuming your child is motivated and really wants to act, get him into an acting class as soon as possible. Do research and find a class that suits your child. Look for classes that specialize in teaching kids and that have kids that are working all the time. I would shy away from a class that tries to teach “the Method.” It’s a bit too much for a child, in my opinion. Okay, maybe too much for most adults as well.

Once your kid has his chops and has a nice monologue prepared, get him some head shots. He will need two: one for commercial and one for theatrical. (Be prepared to get new head shots at least once per year, since kids grow and change quickly.) You will need to hunt for a photographer who works with kids and does not charge much more than $325 for the two looks. Sure you can spend more or even less but this is about the average for a quality shoot. Once the head shots are done, and your child has a good monologue prepared, start the process of finding an agent.

This is not that hard, most agents want to work with kids and most agencies have a children’s department. It’s best to sign with an agent that both you and your child LOVE! There are a ton of children’s agents out there, so do not be afraid to say no thank you if an agent wants to work with your sign your child and it doesn’t feel right.

You need to be in touch with your child’s agent on a regular basis, and make sure he is working for you. That is, getting your child out on auditions. Two auditions per week is a good rule of thumb. If it is once per week for a spell that is also fine. Sometimes it will be more, sometimes less. The point is that the agent is consistently sending your child out.

I have found much success in making the audition, the call back, and the booking a game for my daughter. For example, if she gets a call back, she gets some cash. If she books the gig, she gets a cool surprise or cash, in addition to her payment for the job. This way she is 100% involved and really self-motivated to do well, which I have found to be the most important thing!

To recap:

1. Make sure your kid wants to be an actor.

2. Get him or her into a kid’s acting class.

3. Get him or her to learn a good monologue.

4. Find a photographer and get professional head shots done.

5. Find a great agent.

6. Make a game out of the audition process.

7. Always involve your child, help him to become self-motivated.

8. Keep in touch with your agent, at least once per week.

9. Make sure to get new head shots at least once per year.

10. HAVE FUN!

And then, and then, and then…How often have you heard younger children retell an event or story as a series of facts punctuated by the dreaded “and then”? Having our students present an oral retell in the narrative form helps them to develop an essential skill and it is worth the time and effort to teach them to abandon the “and then” format since it is little more than a bare bones sequencing activity.

What More Do We Want in a Retell?

Even in the shortest, and simplest of stories such as fables and fairy tales, there are elements that need to be noted to flesh out and add interest to the recount. A more complete telling would include not only the events, but also details of the setting, characters, emotion and some in some cases, a hint of the reader’s / reteller’s personal reaction. How do we encourage a fully detailed retell?

Play Scripts to the Rescue!

I have noticed that the greatest use of descriptive language, and emotional response displayed by children is during the retell of a schoolyard event in which they and their friends or enemies (for the moment) are the main characters in the story!

Picking up on this already developed skill, we can encourage students to put themselves into “the story” by writing short play scripts, taking on the roles and performing their way through the events. This can encourage a more detailed account including information about setting, character and emotion. It often leads to an interesting revelation of the students’ reaction or point of view on the characters and events of a story.

Where to Start

Where to start with your students may depend on their experience with reading and writing play scripts. Provide examples of familiar stories (fairy tales work well) in play script format. Read through and discuss the differences between the narrative and play script versions. If your students are younger, it would beneficial to spend some time practicing the skill of writing dialogue.

e.g. change - Baby Bear looked at the broken chair and cried.

to - Baby Bear: (crying) Somebody smashed my chair!

Demonstrate for the students the different oral presentation of the two lines, the first as it would be said in a reading of the story and the second adding the emotion and voicing of Baby Bear. Give students the opportunity to read the two examples aloud and discuss the difference in presentation. Once you feel that students are confident in writing dialogue, give them an opportunity to write their own play script version of a short fable or fairy tale. Most students have little difficulty with this because television shows and movies have already given them an “ear” for dialogue.

As the students are ready and you wish them to do more formal play script writing, examine elements such as descriptive writing for setting and character notes, action and emotion cues etc.

When asking more experienced students to do a play script retell it is beneficial to have them use a chart to review and fill in pertinent information from the story. (Setting, Characters, Events) If students are ready, you could also have them include a column for their own reaction to specific characters, their actions and events, since this could effect how they write the descriptions and dialogue for certain characters.

Surface Versus Depth

From time to time, opt for the retell through student written play scripts. Encourage students to go a little deeper than ‘just the facts’. It will add another dimension to reading response, so dive in and have fun!

When you tell people that you are a ‘dancer’, they will often be polite and cordial about it. However, behind your back, they might ‘pooh-pooh’ it, thinking that it’s not such a big deal. There are plenty of people out there who simply do not take dancing seriously.

When it comes to dancing, it is often treated as it would be if you told someone that you were an ‘artist’ or an ‘actor’. Similar to many careers, such as teaching, professional dancing is not exactly a career that garners too much respect from critics who are quick to shoot it down every chance they get. What most people don’t realize or appreciate nearly enough is the fact that dancing is extremely difficult. After all, how many people do you know are coordinated or who have the patience to learn intricate dance moves? Look at ballerinas or even at tap dancers. Their dance moves are exceedingly difficult. Talk about being on your feet all day! People pay anywhere from a few dollars (sometimes none at all) up to thousands of dollars so that they can see someone else dance around on stage. But there is more to dancing than simply being able to remember a few measly dance moves.

Many children attend dance schools or are involved in dance programs only to later become professional dancers. There is a lot of pressure that is put on dancers. For example, ballerinas have to make sure that they maintain a certain physique as well as a certain weight. After all, if ballerinas weren’t skinny, do you think that their partners would be able to pick them up as easily? Do you think that ballerinas who were overweight would look as graceful ‘prancing’ around? Unfortunately, dancers (especially females) can and will often endure much ridicule and criticism from their peers. For men, it can be equally as difficult as they often struggle with questions of manliness as well as ridicule from their peers as well. For a male to explicitly state that he “dances” or even worse: that he chose to pursue a career in dancing is akin to giving out a social death sentence. Shouldn’t dancers be able to pursue the careers that they want without having to be on the receiving end of nasty, unwarranted commentary from others? The people who are the hardest on dancers, however, are the dancers themselves. Often times, they will get up early in the morning to train or go over some dance moves. They will then continue this pattern into the night in order to make sure that they have mastered the concept of the dance move that they were originally looking for. You see evidence of this all the time with dance shows such as So You Think You Can Dance as well as American Dance Crew.

What a lot of people don’t realize is that they will make fun of those who dance; meanwhile, they will be the first ones to sit down in front of the television and watch dance programs!

“The job of an actor is to reveal the life of another human being.” These are words that were instilled deeply within me, when doing my Method training.

Not being able to come by any decent work, I took it upon myself to provide work for myself. I wrote a one-man play called “Educating Charlie”, a piece about the early life of Charles Dickens and, of course, took the main and only part of Boz - the great storyteller. I had it properly produced and marketed, and I now tour it.

As I got into the project it became clear to me how Method was absolutely suited to such an undertaking. The job of an actor is to reveal the life of another human being - is exactly the requirement for successful prosecution of the piece! This is what the performance is about; just this and no more (except, possibly, a little entertainment value!)

Many people find it hard to describe what, precisely, “The Method” is and, perhaps, it is different things to different people. My, perhaps, rather simplistic understanding of it is, that it is called Method because, as Stanislavsky said, “If I aim for a result, the result will, inevitably, elude me” In other words, committing to a process, rather than forcing a result. And this type of theater cannot be anything else.

Stanislavsky also stated that a requirement of acting was the “Ability to be private in public”. Although Dickens was a great showman, he was very, very private about his personal life. “Educating Charlie”, apart from showing Charles Dickens as a master entertainer, also allows the audience to see the great man in private.

Another tenet for true performance is to understand that one “is the conduit”. How else, with a one-man show - no one else to share the scenes with - could it be?