Acting Professors Balance Performing and Teaching

They say those who can't do, teach, but for many acting instructors at the college level, the doing is inseparable from the teaching.

"I honestly couldn't do one without the other," says Northwestern University professor Cindy Gold. "I cannot image anyone teaching something that they don't in some way practice." Gold is the head of the university's acting department, and during her 15 years at the school, she and her colleagues have reshaped the program so that tenure-track faculty are required to work outside the classroom. "We try to make what artists do comparable to what scholars do," she says. "Instead of publish or perish, it's produce or perish."

Linda Kerns, a voice professor at the University of California, Los Angeles, says that her university follows the same model. "They're looking for you to always be doing research, if you will, in your field," she says, adding that the administration reviews her outside commitments every two years. "It's more that you are continuing to be active in the field. It helps you stay current so you're not teaching just the history of the thing."

For students, having a teacher who is knowledgeable about the state of the industry is a critical educational resource. "One of the stressful things when you're in school is 'Am I going to have success doing this?' " says Vika Stubblebine, a UCLA junior in private voice classes with Kerns. "And having somebody who is working currently and had had success is just invaluable."


Linda Kerns (Photo by Molly Hawkey)

Another perk of taking on outside projects is that teachers can bring their students in to watch how they work. Gold is in a production of "Show Boat" at Chicago's Lyric Opera through March 17, and her students were able to attend an invited dress rehearsal. "It's really exciting to see the person teaching me performing," says Northwestern sophomore Michael DeMarco, adding that he'd like his acting career to be similar to his professor's. "It was a new experience seeing my acting professor onstage."

Gold had not worked at an opera house prior to "Show Boat," and the experience has bolstered her teaching knowledge. "I've learned more in the past couple of weeks than I've learned in years," she says. "That's information that I'll figure out how to translate for my students."

New York University senior Constantine Lignos says the never-ending learning process is what really excites him about having teachers who are working in the field. "Obviously he's doing something right, so that's always nice to know," Lignos says of his acting professor, Paul Lazar. "He's also experimenting himself. He's still bringing new stuff into the room to teach us as opposed to stuff that worked for him a long time ago."

Balancing Act

Acting jobs can get in the way of teaching, which can be problematic. For Lazar, acting always comes first.

"The artistic offer has to always take precedence, because my teaching is only strong if I'm really professionally engaged," says Lazar, who teaches at the Experimental Theater Wing, one of seven studios that train students as part of NYU's acting program. "My vitality as a teacher is so contingent upon my being really active and busy in the professional arena that I can't turn down professional work or it will weaken my teaching."

For Kerns, teaching takes center stage. "I really am at the point in my life where I only want to do work that I want to do," says Kerns, who has been teaching at UCLA since 1999. "There's not a lot of satisfaction for me in being in the chorus, even if it's a big show.… It would be giving up a lot to be gone from the university."

Kerns says she has difficulty finding worthwhile union theater work in Los Angeles; however, she also directs and acts as musical director for productions throughout the city. Both Lazar and Gold feel the abundance of work in New York and Chicago makes their simultaneous acting-and-teaching lives manageable.

"I'm doing downtown theater and downtown teacher," says Lazar, who has worked at the Brooklyn Academy of Music and with the Classic Stage Company.

"Chicago is our laboratory," Gold says. "I don't think you can do this unless you're at a school that's in a major theater town, because where would you find the amount of work?"

Both Lazar and Gold say that working consistently can get in the way of their class schedules, which can be difficult for students. Sometimes Lazar's projects take him out of class. During Gold's rehearsal period for "Show Boat," a substitute had to cover her classes.

"There are times where the students maybe suffer," Gold says. Northwestern acting students remain with the same cohort and professor for three years as part of the program, so it can be challenging when a teacher is out. "Sometimes my students don't have me for a quarter. That's very difficult for both them and me." At Northwestern, any acting teacher on a tenure track is allowed a substitute for four quarters while he or she is away doing professional work. The school covers the salary.
Lazar says that sometimes professional obligations get in the way, and last semester, because he was directing a show at BAM, he wasn't able to teach. "It makes it a little bit difficult because it feels like stopping and starting," says Lignos, who adds that Lazar is dedicated and always on time.

For Kerns, who views herself as a teacher-actor, her creative energy comes from being around her students. "We're all sort of looking for that theatrical high that you get when you're in a really good production," she says. "I get the same kind of high off of teaching good students now. As much as I still love acting and would like to be acting more, the teaching becomes the buzz, and the acting high becomes secondary."

But Gold still can't do one without the other. "Sometimes I think, 'Am I going to retire someday? What would that mean?' " she says. "Well, then I would retire from everything, because I couldn't do one or the other. So I think I will never retire. I'll probably die in the classroom or on the stage."