I've decided to try my hand at writing something other than a Murder Mystery play. Being involved in theater for the past 20 plus years, I have learned many things about being on-stage and I realized that many of the lessons and things I learned were not actually taught to me. Yes I took theater courses and acting etc.. etc.. but the real rules of the stage were never taught in these classes. Maybe they were and I was absent that day. Anyway, I started jotting some these "rules" down over the years based on questions younger actors would ask me and finally decided to put it all down in an e-book. I am still smoothing this e-book out but I thought I would preview different parts of it. Right now I am calling it "The Basic On Stage Survival Guide".
Here is the first section and introduction. Let me know what you think.

Introduction

One of the main motivations for writing "Basic Stage Survival Guide -" is two-fold. The first motivation was born from a series of uncomfortable moments I experienced on the stage not long ago. These uncomfortable moments were caused by a fellow actor's lack of knowledge of the basic "rules" of the stage. Granted, this was an amateur theatre production, not professional, but most of these amateurs had phone-book-thick resumes of stage experience, therefore I took for granted they would know what to do when someone went blank or missed an entrance.


The other motivation was that I am one of those actors with a phone-book-thick resume and most new actors seek me out for advice such as "What's the best way to memorize lines?" ,"What do I do if someone misses an entrance" or even "What do I do with my hands?"


As I thought about it, I realized that I was never taught any basic rules of the stage such . I learned from experience or from the advice of experienced actors . To many, the basic rule of acting was a quote attributed to Spencer Tracy which is "Learn you lines and don't bump into the furniture." While this is a very good rule to follow, there are others I have learned that are as just important.

They guidelines are not rules in the sense of laws. If you break one, chances are you will not be arrested but you may get an earful from another actor. They are guidelines or common curtsies of the stage. Suggestions to help a performance flow along without crashing. So, it is from the 'hard way' that I impart the basic 'guidelines' I have learned from over 20 years of acting to help whether it be your first time on the stage or your 100th.

I learn and retain lessons when I understand them from the ground up, meaning from the most basic elementary information that gradually builds into something more complex. Having stated that, I will approach this guide as if you have never set foot on a stage before in your life. You will learn all the terms and in some cases the trivia behind the terms.

Know about Flow.

To begin this guide, I first have to introduce the concept of "flow" during a live performance, because "flow" plays an important role in surviving on stage. Simply put, 'flow' is a play moving along without distractions or interruptions. For an actor, they experience flow when their confidence and concentration is solid -this is also known as being "in character" or even "in the moment". For anyone new to the stage - it's similar to reading a book or watching a movie where you get very involved in the story and the outside world does not exist. Suddenly, someone walks up to you and asks you a question or just begins talking and you are yanked back into the real world. The same effect happens to actors on stage when their concentration is broken by something outside the flow of the play - such as someone saying the wrong line, not saying a line, missing an entrance or a sandbag falling on-stage. Many things can disrupt the flow of a performance. The audience also can become involved in the play and the same disruptions can take them right out of the flow as well.


Another way to define "flow" is everything moving smoothly from the moment the house lights go down, the first line is spoken to the final line of the play and the house lights come back up. Everything that is supposed to happen. Flow should not be confused with "pace''. Pace is the how quickly or slowly the play moves from beginning to end. Flow can affect the pace of a play. If the performance is not flowing smoothly, the pace can be altered by speeding up or slowing down.

How Do I Learn the Flow?
(Flow Learners)

You learn the flow of play by doing it over and over. This repetitive process unfolds during the rehearsals. It's only when you repeat the same action over and over, you get familiar with it. Once you are familiar with it, you have a sense of how it is supposed to be. In the rehearsal of a play, you speak the lines the playwright has written over and over along with the movements and you come to understand the direction your director wants the play to go. Let's now look at a basic step: the audition.

Audition
(crawl before you walk)

Before you make it onto the stage, you will have to audition for a play. An audition is process where a director or others, attempt to cast actors into roles that best suit the play. If the play is about a group of teenagers struggling with peer pressure it is doubtful they would cast middle age actors into the parts, therefore you may want to research the play first. In most cases, audition notices will tell you exactly what they are looking for and even inform you what kind of auditions they will be. Most auditions will be simple "cold readings from the script". Cold Readings means you will "read" out-loud lines for a specific character in a scene. "Cold" simply refers to the fact that you don't have much time to be prepare for the part. You may have a few minutes to read the scene to yourself and get familiar and a sense of what is happening in the scene and a good director will describe the scene for you, but you are approaching the material cold. Try picking up a book, turning to any page and just start reading out loud, you'll get the idea.

Other auditions may have you prepare a short monologue and perform it from memory prior to cold readings, because not every great actor is a great cold reader. Musical auditions will have you prepare a song. One audition I attended, the director handed out copies of a short monologue and gave everyone about 15 minutes to memorize it. Some auditions may have you participate in improvisational games. All of these methods help the director discover the best actor for the role. Hopefully it will be you. And if it is - welcome to rehearsals.

(to Be Continued)

Labels: acting, auditions, performance, rehearsal, theater