Put Me In, Coach

I have always maintained that most of us should and do wear more than one hat, and should not think of ourselves as being defined by a single skill, talent, or activity. An accountant is more than an accountant, as he or she may also be a writer, or a gardener, or a volunteer for any number of activities, or an expert on a particular subject not associated with accounting, or may possess any number of talents at either an amateur or professional level. Past that, and never to take a back seat in our lives, all of us are husbands, wives, fathers, mothers, brothers, sisters, and so forth. We all are the sum of all these parts, and I am no different there than anyone else.

In the course of my life I have worked as a professional jazz musician, a computer programmer, a systems analyst, a hospital department head, a technical field salesperson, and for the past fourteen years, an actor. Additionally, I have been a writer for years, writing short film screenplays, articles, essays, short stories, and two radio dramas which have been performed nationally on commercial radio. All of this has played a part in who I am.

I have given a lot to acting in time, money (private lessons, classes, workshops), and dedication and acting in turn, has given a lot to me. It has been and continues to be a good professional marriage.

This past couple of weeks, I opened a new chapter in the book known as "Who I Am". I taught and conducted two cold reading workshops for actors. The first workshop was for intermediate actors, the second was for a group of advanced actors. These workshops were scene study workshops (two person scenes), which gave each actor a few minutes to prepare a scene with their assigned acting partner, and then do their scene, and re-work that scene in front of the entire group. I subscribe to the simple, yet important premise of famed acting coach Tony Barr, who said, "Actors should act." All private lessons, workshops, and classes that I attended while in LA were designed that way....scene study, scene study, scene study. Both workshops went well, and I found that assuming the role as an acting coach was almost immediately comfortable for me.

While, like all of you I am the sum of many parts, after family I am still an actor first, with any acting coaching, writing, etc. coming after that. Still, I found I greatly enjoyed the workshops I conducted. I believe I do have something to pass on to other actors, and I look forward to holding more workshops in the future.

Otherwise, it's going to auditions which either my agent finds, or that I find, and continuing my own studies as an actor. Towards that end I will be spending a few days in LA in the first half of April, attending three casting director workshops (including casting directors who currently cast Criminal Minds, Leverage, and Modern Family), and (schedule permitting) a long private lesson from my Hollywood based acting coach.

I cannot stress too strongly my belief that any actor can benefit from spending a year or two in LA. I now have contacts there which I never could have formed any other way. Living and working in LA will change the way you look at acting, and it will change the way the acting profession looks at you. However, obligations being what they are, I understand that many either cannot or will not make that move. It's a highly individual decision to move to LA, but to all serious actors....if you can, you should.

Here's a fact about actors. Most actors have a built in and pesky self critic, which tells them (the intermediates) you are not good enough to find work, or (the advanced actors) sure you can work in the Northwest, but you are not good enough to work in LA. From what I observed in the two recent workshops I conducted, nothing could be farther from the truth. All the intermediate actors I worked with are good enough to work in the Northwest, and all the advanced actors I worked with would have just as good a chance in LA as any other new actor. Perception is half the battle, and it's the old story of if you think you can't, you can't, and if you think you can, you can. I am no better an actor than any other Northwest actor, and certainly not as talented as some. However, I went to LA convinced I could find work, and I did.

Now that I'm back in the Pacific Northwest, the cold facts are that there are not as many gigs for actors here as in LA, which I'm sure, comes as no surprise to anyone. However, there are good opportunities for actors in both Seattle and Portland, with Portland currently holding a slight edge. I have not yet really investigated the Vancouver BC market for American actors.

So, life goes on, auditions happen, actors get cast, films and commercials get shot, actors classes and workshops get held, and it all happens in one of the most beautiful places in the country, the Pacific Northwest. "Ain't" life grand?

Home Again, Home Again, Jigity Jig

Somewhere in my childhood, I heard the nursery rhyme phrase "Home again, home again Jigity Jig", and for some reason I still remember it. I have absolutely no idea what it means. I've also heard most of my adult life, that "You can't go home again." I'm sure ninety nine times out of a hundred that is probably true, as the place you left is usually not as you remembered it when you return. Still, that leaves the one time out of a hundred when it is true, and fortunately, that one time applies to my return to the Seattle area from LA.

We left on January 25th from LA, with bad weather having been the norm up and down the entire west coast. The week before I left LA we had four days of rain which made the rain in the Pacific Northwest look like a spit bath by comparison. Sometimes you just get lucky. We left LA in the sunshine and remained in sunshine for the entire two and a half day trip, and with the exception of a one hour long hard rain just north of Fresno, California, all mountain passes were bare and dry, with the sun shining brightly.

Once home again, I quickly settled into Northwest living, both as a resident and as an actor. I had lunch with my Seattle area agent just before attending the first day of the "Leverage" (TNT) workshop in Portland. I next had an audition in Seattle, followed by an audition in Portland. The one in Portland bore fruit and I was cast as a prison medical director in a film for the U.S. Prison system. That film was shot in Portland just last weekend (Not so lucky with the weather on that one, with rain all the way down and most of the way back....oh, well). And yes, my wife and I really did stay in a Holiday Inn Express the night before the shoot, which means I can legitimately say, "I'm not a real medical director, but I did stay in a Holiday Inn Express last night."

The film shoot itself was great fun, and the Portland media production company that was running the show was first rate and quite professional all the way around. For the film I had to learn thirty one lines in two days. Then, on the second day there were a few revisions of my lines, as well as the lines of others. This was a challenge which I welcomed, and is not an uncommon occurrence, as shooting scripts are usually in a semi-liquid state for most productions, right up until the camera begins to roll. The shoot went well with a good group of actors to work with, great crew, and a wonderful catered lunch. We had a ten hour shooting day before we wrapped, coming in only 30 minutes over schedule.

Now it's March 2nd and already I am planning my first return trip to LA, where I will be attending several casting director workshops and taking a private lesson from my acting coach in Hollywood. That is planned for the first half of April.

Other irons in the fire? I'd like to do some teaching, as I feel I have some worthwhile techniques to pass on to other actors in the Northwest. I am just doing some preliminary work to look into that.

Also, while I have written a number of short film screenplays, I have my sights set on something bigger. I have the first 27 pages of a feature length script written. It's been on the shelf for awhile and I want to get back to working on it. If you think getting work as an actor is hard, that's easy compared to selling a feature length script. Still, nothing ventured, nothing gained, while an overused phrase, is still true.

I'm still determined to check out the acting scene in Vancouver BC, and now that the Olympics are over, I will need to get serious about that before very long. I will either find out that there is work for U.S actors in Vancouver, and how to go about it, or I will find there is not a possibility of work there and why. Either way, I'll pass on my findings in a later entry in this blog.

So, in my case, you can go home again, and I sum up my year in LA this way. I'm glad I went, and I highly recommend it for all serious actors. Even if, as I did, you decide to leave LA at some point, you will have made contacts that will serve you well, long after you have gone. I'm also quite glad I have returned to the Pacific Northwest, and I am happy to be back.

More later............