The Secret Of Theatrical Space

Question: What's the relationship between the audience and the actor?
Answer: People sitting around watching other people pretend to do things.
~ observation attributed to Bart Simpson, but I can't find the ref.

The observation is funny because that's essentially the relationship, and it raises the question: how can we (the audience) be sometimes so captivated, so drawn into a story or a particular character?

The answer has to do with what actors call "being in the moment."

Most actors reading this will know what I mean by being the moment, but non-actors might be puzzled about this means and why it's important.

Basically, it's the ability to experience a play, what a character says to you, what you're going to say as if it has all never happened before. Everything you say, you say it as if it's just occurring to you now. Everything is NOW — you don't know what's going to happen next (even though you do).

This is why audiences are captivated and so drawn into a story or a particular character. It's the distinguishing trait of a great actor and great acting.

In order to both better understand what it means to be "in the moment" and to get a better handle on how to do this, rather than consult a top acting teacher or coach (though they are the best source) I decided it might be interesting to go way outside the traditional box and pose this question to a leading neuroscientist, Dr. Larry R. Squire (Ph.D), director of the Memory Research Laboratory, part of the Functional Magnetic Imaging Center in the School of Medicine at UCSD.

What could I possibly ask this guy? Well — this:

Godspell (1970) is a powerful musical, though it is somewhat overshadowed, I think, by the more controversial (but excellent) Jesus Christ Superstar which opened in New York City the year before.

It started as a college project performed by students at Carnegie Mellon University and moved to La Mama in Greenwich Village. It was then re-scored for an off-Broadway production that open in the Cherry Lane Theatre (New York City's oldest, continuously running off-Broadway theater). Godspell moved from the Cherry Lane Theater to the larger Promenade Theater on August 10, 1971, where it became one of the longest-running off-Broadway musicals, before moving to Broadway in June 1976, where it ended its run in September 1977 after an additional 527 performances, for a total of more than 2,600.

Starting a sequence of powerful and moving scenes that continue until the end of the story, Katie Hanley (who, simply, does a wonderful job throughout the film), in this scene comes to "Jesus" with love and strength at the start of his darkest hour, when he sees what's going to happen to him:

I have four overall goals: 1) get better at auditioning. This is a perennial goal. 2) Keep working in good non-union off-off- . . . -off Broadway productions. 3) Start working in high-end off-off Broadway and off-Broadway theater productions and 4) audition for and start booking professional paid work in film, television, and commercials.

Whenever I get called to audition for something, I read the scene and visualize what it would look like as I'm reading it. Like moving images in my head. Like I'm watching a movie.

Of course I factor in the genre and medium when doing this. I don't look to put on a performance. I simply bring myself to the character (be myself). When an actor tries to give the CD what they think they are looking for, it comes across as bad acting.

I make the best choice I could make in my opening line/moment and use internal pause. I also make sure my instrument is free.

Before I went to audition, I read the scene and it was hilarious! The show is a straight comedy. Most actors would play it very comical but you have to be realistic and logical. My character is not part of Alec Baldwin & Tina Fey's little click. My character is a police officer so I should play it straight and real, which makes the scene even funnier.

Below, you can see a clip from a film by Ric Burns (American Experience: New York: The Center of the World), a clip that I’ve been looking hi and low online for -- and I finally found it.

Watch the clip and think about acting, or any art you do. Ask: Why do we do it, really? What draws us? What is “it” -- what’s its value? Answer: It is everything -- it is priceless.

Shakespeare was right -- life is a stage, and a stage is life, our life, our larger life, and we rise to meet its possibilities. The heightened words and text take us there:

HOW IT BEGAN: 8:45AM, Tuesday, New York City, September 11, 2001.

8:45AM. I woke right up.

My eyes just opened.

I didn't know why.

I had just lost my job, the beginning of the long long unwinding of the late 20th Century technology bubble.

Of late, I had been waking up more or less on my own - but usually an hour later.

My bedroom was cool, gently breezy, late summer morning peaceful. I felt fully relaxed, but surprisingly awake. Lying on my side, through my 5th story window, I was looking west, at the river, at the hills of the shoreline, New Jersey right across the Hudson from my apartment on the upper West Side.

A perfectly morning.

OK, I thought, I'm up, so let's get up. I had some calls to make, so I plodded into the kitchenette, sunshine and green, to make some coffee, and while it was brewing, I called a company somewhere in Nevada.

8:55AM. I needed a replacement part for something - I can't remember for what now. I remember describing the problem, convincing the woman on the other end of the line, on the other side of the country, to send me the part, and she asked for my address. I told her, and she immediately stopped me: You live in New York City? I said yes.

Pause.

Do you know what's happen at the World Trade Center?

She didn't sound alarmed, but time stopped - it was an ominous, out-of-the-blue question, from someone somewhere in a little town in Nevada, so early on a perfect late summer morning . . . I said no, and she said a plane has flown into one of the towers . . . it's on fire . . .

A few weeks ago, Christopher Stadulis wrote a post about why actors need be meeting agents and casting directors at network houses, commonly called "meet-and-greets."

I thought it was a great example about why actors should be doing this, but then it led the question about how does actor go about doing "meet-and-greets?" What's a good strategy or plan? I asked Christopher the follow questions based on his experience as an actor who is just starting to break into the business at a professional level:

How much $$ can one expect to pay for meet and greets? (This is an important question because it has to do with ROI, something all actors with professional ambitions should be doing (because producers calculate ROI) -- even though when you're just starting out, it can be painful calculation because numerator is probably low if not zero. Yet tracking costs is a great habit to get into -- and an essential habit if you are or want to be a professional actor. In fact, a simple way to do this with mailings and meet-and-greet is to use this Marketing ROI Calculator. For meet-and-greets, just enter the number of meetings you've been having instead of the number of pieces of mailings you've been doing). So, the question again: How much $$ can one expect to pay for meet and greets?

It all depends on a persons budget, but I would recommend to do a package deal since you will see a good amount of industry professionals and will save money by going that route.[At Breakthrough Studios] it usually costs $32 per meet with a CD, Agent or Manager of your choice. I recently signed up for the $599 special at Breakthrough Studios, which I love, to meet with as many industry professionals as I can within 1 month. I met with 35 total. A combination of CD's, Agents and Managers. If I were to see each other and pay individually, it would have cost me $2,000. So I saved $1,400 which is huge! (Christopher Stadulis).