For this year's fall Spotlight on acting schools, we asked a variety of performers two related questions: "What kind of training did you look for when you were starting out?" and "What kind of training do you look for now?" That pair of queries led to several free-wheeling discussions‹ranging from what makes a good acting teacher to the value of learning on the job. Whether acting, singing, or dancing‹in the class room or on a stage‹these pros show real respect for the craft they continue to develop.
Robert Lupone
"A View From the Bridge"
Developing Yourself
Robert Lupone's acting credits are many and impressive. He was nominated for a Tony for his role as Zach in "A Chorus Line"; for an Emmy nomination for portraying another Zach (apparently a lucky name for him), on "All My Children"; and he received a Joseph Jefferson Award for "Tooth of Crime." Lupone has been playing Alfieri in the Broadway revival of Arthur Miller's "A View From the Bridge." He has held leading roles in many other Broadway, Off-Broadway, and regional plays, in films and on television. He also is co-executive director, with Bernard Telsey, of the MCC Theater (formerly called the Manhattan Class Company) and so is intensively involved with the process of professional growth. He is a strong believer in study and sees its goal as helping the performer grow in his or her ability to express a role truthfully.
Lupone graduated from Juilliard, initially studying to be a dancer. In class, he worked with such greats as Jos Limžn and Martha Graham. He turned to acting as a form of artistic expression after he suffered an injury. Looking back at many of the people teaching acting at that time, he feels their outlook was tainted by "negativism." He notes, "Many of them seemed to think that good teaching consisted of tearing the student's work apart. There were many separate individual teachers, each with his or her own philosophy.
"That situation is enormously improved today. I think the atmosphere and thinking of the late '60s and early '70s turned it around, which is an excellent thing. While there are many schools of acting, there is much more of a conservatory approach. There may be a certain style at each school but there is a basically standardized view of what people need to study to become good actors. I strongly recommend that a beginning actor select a school that he or she feels comfortable with. If you don't feel a personal connection, you won't develop as an artist.
"My own approach to acting was changed completely when I was in my 40s. I was reborn and it was thanks to an acting coach‹Fred Kareman. I had been very technique driven, but thanks to him I became more instinct driven. I learned that the most important thing in developing a character is to attain a spontaneity that must be based on the truth. The best way to develop as an actor is to develop yourself, to draw upon your own observations, emotions, experiences and bring them to the character in a way that is truthful. It's important to find a teacher that lets you do that, that will guide you without being destructive. The first performance in which I felt that happen for me was in a showcase, 'Winter Lies,' after working with Fred Kareman. At this point in my career, I turn to coaches when I am looking for something very specific‹help with a difficult transition or another aspect of a character or perhaps a dialect."
Lupone was, in fact, teaching acting at New York University when he met Bernard Telsey, his collaborator at MCC. In addition to encouraging the development of new plays (the season's opener is the Long Wharf Theatre production of "Wit," by Margaret Edson), the MCC theatre provides one-on-one mentorships between experienced artists and students. Lupone teaches a weekly acting class there, in addition to producing and directing plays. He emphasizes that the company seeks to "develop and nurture the artist, the play, and ultimately, the vision of our humanity and our souls." MCC's mission statement declares that a world of attention and imagination is the only world worth living in. "Truth is the key word throughout," says Lupone. "In developing plays, and in studying acting‹finding and expressing one's own truth through the play's vision is what every actor should aspire to at each stage of his or her career."
‹Esther Tolkoff
Karen Ziemba
"Chicago"
Getting Back to Basics
Karen Ziemba is now starring on Broadway in "Chicago" because she was, well, too talented to become just a ballet dancer.
"I was a very serious ballet dancer in junior high and high school," says this beautiful Michigan native. "When you're that age and have danced your entire life, you pretty much keep at that; and you either become a professional ballet dancer, or a modern dancer, or you decide to branch out. I branched out into theatre because, in dance, I wasn't able to use all the skills I had. I come from a very musical family. I sang and acted in plays as a young kid."
Ziemba graduated from the University of Akron at Ohio with a degree in dance and, ironically, wasn't involved at all with the theatre department there. "I wanted to be a professional ballerina; that was my goal at the time."
It wasn't as dramatic as a biblical lightning flash knocking Saul off a donkey, leading him eventually to become St. Paul. But something inside Ziemba told her that ballet "wasn't where I was meant to be." And that something led her to New York, to take a stab at professional musical theatre.
At first, she relied on her tremendous talent alone. After a year of pavement-pounding, she got a job in the chorus of a summer touring production, which led to her Actors' Equity union card.
"I was able to break in because I could sing and dance," she recalls. "But I realized, working with different actors and leads in shows, that it took a lot more than kicking a leg over my head and hitting a high note" to really shine as an actress in musical theatre.
At first, she took classes at the Actors Institute in New York City. "I was playing opposite Jerry Orbach in '42nd Street', and I realized there was still so much more I needed to learn. Somebody recommended Wynn Handman's scene study class at American Place Theatre. It was a fantastic class, with really fine actors."
And she was humble enough to accept perhaps the most important factor which has ensured her success today: "I realized I didn't know what I was doing," she says bluntly. "I had to go back to basics."
Her study under Handman and then Fred Kareman, who advocates the Meisner technique, has shown her, more than anything, to raise the character from within yourself, and be open to other actors.
"My own instinct and natural qualities were there," she explains, "but I wasn't sure technically how to make it work and sustain it. You're not talking about one take when acting for Broadway theatre. You're talking about eight times a week; and sometimes it's going to be with an understudy, or with a different leading man. And you have to continue the scenes the way they're supposed to happen."
Which leads this performer of many talents back to the basics of Meisner. "I think the Meisner technique taught me about really listening to the other person, and reacting to them in kind," reflects Ziemba. "It's not like acting in your own little space. It's more about everybody being involved, and reacting to what you're given. It's not always what you want, but you have to deal with it."
She notes that, even in "Chicago," in which she has starred as Roxie for nine months, "I've had three different husbands and two different lawyers. You have to adjust, and put yourself in that situation at that very moment" rather than perform by rote.
She feels the stage itself is the best acting school because, "I've grown so much being with better actors than myself, and learning from them. You have to have a good, solid technique, and allow yourself to be open and to fall on your face, to take risks, to allow people to affect you. It's scary sometimes, to allow people on stage to affect you. Each actor has a different life experience, and will bring that and give it to you; and you've got to be ready for it."
Ziemba feels that the Meisner technique is the solidifier which can make the young actor "ready for it." In fact, she believes an aspiring actor should, first, find education through a conservatory; and, second, rely throughout one's career on a solid technique.
"Anybody who wants to be a serious actor, go get a dramatic education at a dramatic conservatory," she emphasizes. "It doesn't have to be Yale or Carnegie Mellon, but a college with a good drama department where you can perform, get involved in regional theatre, and also see really good acting. You have to not only do good acting, but learn to experience good acting."
Then, when you come to New York, "If you're starting out, and even if you've had a great conservatory education in acting, I think the Meisner technique is a great way to let yourself go and be very open."
‹Roger Armbrust
Hal Linden
"Visiting Mr. Green"
Quality of Choice
Tony- and three-time Emmy Award-winner Hal Linden is currently starring on Off-Broadway as the title character in "Visiting Mr. Green," but he is perhaps best known to stage audiences for his award-winning musical success in "The Rothchilds." This engagement led to Linden being cast as Barney Miller, a television character considered such a part of American pop culture, that in 1982 the Smithsonian added to its collection memorabilia from the show.
Beginning his career as a clarinet player and big-band vocalist, Linden went on to garner the numerous stage and screen roles that have made him a popular speaker for acting departments on college campuses. He believes strongly in the need for both academic and theatrical training and graciously spent his down time between a matinee and evening performance sharing his thoughts with Back Stage.
Linden first decided to explore the theatre while in the army. "I got involved with performing while working with special services," he remembers. "I watched a lot of soldier shows and enjoyed the skits others were doing. I used the G.I. Bill to study two terms at the American Theatre Wing. Because I was also a working musician, I couldn't stick through a full class schedule, but I got background there doing scene work."
He admits candidly, "My first shows I was working by the seat of my pants, figuring it out as I went along." When asked about his early goals Linden laughs and recalls, "Life was simpler then; maybe I did it to meet pretty girls." Returning to a more serious note he adds, "My goals really haven't changed. I've always wanted to do more of what I've been able to do already‹good roles working with fine actors‹that's why it was such a joy to find this script."
As Linden moved from Broadway chorus parts and understudying to starring with Judy Holiday in "Bells Are Ringing" in the late '50s, he was able to train privately with Paul Mann and Lloyd Richards, who allowed him the freedom he needed as a working performer to come and go in their classes. Since these teachers had a background in Method acting, they used sense memory exercises that developed how an actor's choice of objectives and actions could enhance a performance. "You can learn how to select and execute choices," he observes. "The difference between a good actor and a fine actor, however, is the quality of the choices you make. It's a lifetime of awareness and observation. I've never known training to be a negative and you can always adapt to the training other actors you work with have had."
Other tools Linden values include being able to do your homework: Read biographies and have a knowledge of history, politics, current events, and economics, he advises. He elaborates, "Sometimes you don't have the playwright there to talk to, so you need to be able to understand their life. These tools will tell you about the worlds and lives you'll be living in." He recommends English courses because, "They'll help with understanding play construction, where your character fits in the script and how you can best serve the playwright." When considering a fine and a great actor, Linden is quick to point out that unfortunately that difference can't be taught. "It's the unthought-of choice, the tinge of madness, risk, and imagination, that's God-given to a rare few."
When asked about the change from stage work to television, Linden replies that he didn't train to prepare for his TV role and admits that at first his education consisted of "learning on my feet." He believes, however, that adapting from one medium to another is a skill that can be taught and offers, "As you change mediums, recognize the change in the proscenium arch you're working with. On stage it might be 20 or 30 feet, but in TV it could be the width between your ears." He confides, "At first I did everything wrong. I was used to facing the audience as a fourth wall, but in television it's all about understanding camera angles. Don't ever be afraid to ask questions and learn as much as you can, so you can decide what level of internal and external work is needed."
Linden also believes in the importance of vocal training and continues to study voice. While he has never aspired as some actors have to working in the classics, he hopes for more roles like his current one and continues his concert career, looking forward to performing Oct. 11 at Brooklyn College, and to singing with the Philadelphia Pops in January.
‹Amelia David
Julyana Soelistyo
"The Golden Child"
Remembering the Audience
When Back Stage caught up by phone with stage actress Julyana Soelistyo, she had just learned she'd been cast in the new Martin Scorsese film "Bringing Out the Dead." Considering how to prepare for her on-camera debut struck the actress, who has only been performing professionally for four years, as a perfect time to reflect on her past training and goals.
Originally from Indonesia, Soelistyo is best known as "The Golden Child," having played the title role in all six productions of that play, from New York City's Public Theater and Broadway, to as far away as Singapore. She has spent the past 10 years living in the United States, studying for three years at Oregon State University as a piano and French double major, then completing her last undergrad year at Universit de Lyon in France. She decided to change her studies to theatre, because she found her musical training "a lonely experience‹it was always just the piano, the composer and myself, while I discovered that theatre only truly works when the work is about the other person. I love the collaboration and when all the pieces and people's contributions come together."
Returning to the U.S., she was accepted by the American Conservatory Theater, where her first goal was "to use the two years of training to learn how to do better work." While her professional training may have begun amidst "the exciting streets of San Francisco" (that was one of the reasons she chose ACT‹as well as its reputation), the actress believes her eight years attending an English boarding school really began her preparation.
"Boarding school provided me with many important tools. It encouraged my curiosity and love of reading," she recalls. "Learning how to study gave me the life exposure and resources to do research, and I enjoyed the drama classes."
She feels that one of her teachers at ACT, Jack Fletcher, has had the greatest impact on her work. "He's one who doesn't just tell you; he asks you good questions that help you make your own discoveries about yourself. He's also very articulate and available." Her studies introduced her to speech, dance, and Alexander technique, which she has continued along with yoga, advising, "It's helpful for your breathing and relaxation on stage." While Soelistyo believes that studying acting is very valuable, she's quick to point out "Training gives you tools, but using them is when the real discoveries start."
Just like her favorite teacher, the soft-spoken actress is very articulate herself, this time about the drawbacks of her studies: "There are no long runs when you perform in a training program. When I began working professionally in regional theatre I was doing four-week runs, and in children's theatre it was seven, and I'd never had that experience in school." She observes, "There's something wonderful about the repetition of a longer run. I've learned wonderful lessons because of the changes that repetition can bring. I've also been fortunate to work with actors who've taught me lessons about inflection and how actors keep things fresh. Even accidents on stage can propel you to new discoveries."
She especially feels that training can do a disservice to the actor by "not teaching more about how the audience fits into your work. Just as the actor across from you helps you keep fresh, so does your audience," she confides. "It's pretty cold out there if they aren't willing to take the journey with you," she continues, explaining further, "It's like a town meeting. A performance is the most lively when the audience is as willing as you are to invest something in the time you'll be spending together. They are an important question mark in your work and are also your scene partners."
She also stresses, "I appreciate that they work hard to be very much present and familiar with the world we create for them. Discovering where they come in is never addressed in school, where they are just thought of as 'the fourth wall.' " Experiencing the change in audiences through six productions of one show was also invaluable.
Soelistyo's goals are now to keep working with actors, writers, and directors she respects, knowing that they will continue her on-the-job education. Although she hoped readers wouldn't think her too corny, she felt it was crucial to add "always keep an open mind and an open heart."
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Adriane Lenox
"Dinah Was"
Learning to Stretch
Award-winning actress Adriane Lenox plays five very different roles in the Off-Broadway hit, "Dinah Was." She makes it clear that "The best acting training is on the job." Still, she's had her share of formal acting schooling and is by no means dismissive. Indeed, at both Lambuth College in Tennessee, where she majored in theatre arts, and, more recently, with American Place Theatre's Wynn Handman‹with whom she has studied privately‹she got exactly what she wanted.
"When I went to college, I was hoping to get some basic background in theatre. Up until that point I had only performed in church and I wanted to act professionally. At college I got the basics." She stresses, "At that time I was in no position‹I didn't have the experience‹to know what I wanted or needed beyond that." And she adds, "I also got the chance to perform in the community [at large] and play roles that would not ordinarily go to an African-American."
Years later, after a host of impressive credits‹including Broadway appearances in "Ain't Misbehavin,' " "Dreamgirls," "The Buddy Holly Story," and "How to Succeed in Business Without Really Trying"‹she wanted to stretch, to hone the skills needed for those roles she suspected she'd never play. That's why she chose to train with the New York City-based Wynn Handman, who has a reputation for giving actors the chance to experiment with unlikely roles, as she notes. "I played upper-crust characters in Noel Coward and I loved it. With Wynn Handman, I got to do a lot of character work and that's very important for someone like myself who is so deeply identified with singing. Acting work helps in my singing and also when I'm not singing, just acting."
The freedom to perfect whatever skills the actor wants‹from audition material to monologues to far-fetched scenes‹is what Handman offers, says Lenox. "But one of the most valuable things he taught us was how to approach a character and a rehearsal process where the director is not very helpful. He taught us how to do all of that‹script interpretation, character development‹on our own."
Over a period of four years, Lenox has trained with Handman for approximately five months‹"I can only do it when I have some extra free time, so it's not steady"‹and she is not studying with anyone now. Lenox offers some caveats for the acting student: what to look for in a class and teacher and, conversely, what to avoid.
"Get recommendations; if possible audit classes. If the teacher is mean and nasty or if the class looks like a pity party‹group therapy‹I'd say avoid it. No one has to be abused in an acting class. There should be a tone of common sense."
Beyond that, the most important consideration, she says, is recognizing your own level. "If you are a beginner, you don't belong in an advanced class. Similarly, if you're an advanced student, don't waste your time in a beginner's class. At whatever level you're at, the good acting class [teacher] allows you to do what you do naturally and also helps you get beyond the usual roles you'd do in your sleep. The acting teacher has to be able to recognize your strengths and weaknesses‹build on the strengths and address the weaknesses honestly without being harsh."
‹Simi Horwitz
Daniel McDonald
"High Society"
Exploring and Connecting
Even though Daniel McDonald has an active performing career, with brief breaks between projects, he regularly studies with dramatic and vocal coaches. Constant exploration and absorption are vital to him‹not surprising for the son of a doctor of education, whose love of theatre inspired several of his children to become singers and actors.
An Upstate New York native, McDonald went to Ithaca College and Cornell University for his dramatic training. Both were "full of theory but not full of experience," he recalls. "The most valuable contribution of formal training is that it offers an historical overview of world theatre. The greatest gift at Ithaca College and at Cornell was the openess of the department heads to bring guest artists in for a short time. The guest artists were teachers, directors, technicians, and alumni from New York to Poland. I found that those who were involved in the business, who would actually take time out to do some teaching at the college level, were the most helpful. Those teachers also guided me to what I am really connected to today, which is the studio system in New York, where many teachers have their own private studios.
"When I finished school, I went to Los Angeles just to see what it was like before I came back to New York." He was planning on returning to New York to take advantage of Ithaca College's alumni-student networking program. Ithaca College alumni met with students for two weeks, making introductions with their colleagues and agents, trying to find jobs for the graduates. McDonald never made it back to New York, because he got a part in a play, found an agent, and stayed with his sister, a rock singer, in Los Angeles. "I got enough jobs to make me feel I was on my way," he recalls. Through small roles in good movies with top directors, such as John Schlesinger, and through conversations with those directors, he absorbed their knowledge about film acting.
"During the time I was in Los Angeles, I was studying at the Actors Studio West. Prior to getting in, I took a class at RADA‹Royal Academy of Dramatic Arts in London‹the summer program." The scene study and movement classes at RADA, McDonald discovered, "were very technical and wonderful, but the truth of the matter was that Stanislavski was here to stay, and that's what the scene study classes were. They were a mixture of both inside-out and outside-in. I thought that the British school would be very much the outside-in, working from a character's shell and then finding the interior, whereas the American system always seemed to be finding the interior first and letting the outside discover itself. The schools have basically married, and if you see great British actors‹Anthony Hopkins, Daniel Day Lewis‹they're trained through the British system but they're connected in an emotional way [with American acting]."
But it was his training at the Actors Studio West in Los Angeles, and the invaluable lessons he learned from his teachers Salome Jens and Manu Tupou, which brought McDonald to the next level of his development as an actor. "When you're working at the Actors Studio, there is a roomful of your peers, [yet] there are actors of various ages." At the Studio, as opposed to university theatre, where the actors are mainly in their 20s, "you're dealing with an entire panorama of actors who are anywhere from the teens to the 80s." Star actors offer keen insights into the top reaches of the theatre and film. The Studio "made the transition to be able to work with certain actors much easier," such as when McDonald worked with Robert Mitchum on a movie during this period. Joining the Studio "became my bridge to come to New York."
SUB-SUB-HEAD: A Potpourri of Classes
McDonald's own perfect posture and extremely lean physique are evidence that he considers physical fitness a paramount concern for an actor. Last year, audiences saw his stamina and agility in his Tony Award-nominated role in "Steel Pier," the dance marathon musical in which he competed with professional dancers. He was prepared for that already. "I took ballet in college KEVIN‹IF WE NEED LARGE CUTS, THIS INTERVIEW COULD BE CUT FROM HERE TO THE END OF THE OPTIONAL CUT SUGGESTED BELOW. BUT!!! I'D NEED REWRITE THE END OF THIS SENTENCE so that whenever I take a dance class or a martial arts class, or even an areobics class, if I realize that the teacher doesn't have dance training, I thank God and fall back on my own knowledge of the body so I don't hurt myself. I don't turn my knees in, I don't arch my back, I don't do various things that can hurt me. When I see a teacher who has had classic training, and they really explain the proper placement of the body, and what to look out for and how to do it properly, that makes a huge difference."
The Alexander Technique has enabled him to elongate his spine, and stretch his muscles. That ability "translates into all the other mediums, all the other disciplines. That's why football players are taking ballet to align themselves into making the full use of their legs. There's a science to the body that has to be honored." Proper body alignment affects vocal quality and the health of the throat, continues McDonald. In "High Society," for instance, he performed on a raked stage. "There's a whole other set of disciplines that are required to compensate for the damage that can happen from working forever on a raked stage." Exercises and yoga, he finds, balance that problem. "For me, it's been this potpourri of classes I've taken," sums up McDonald. At one point, he also studied briefly with Sanford Meisner. "I now know when I walk into a class whether the teacher has had some basic classic training, and I feel I'm willing to surrender to their technique. If they just have raw talent and are basically winging it with their own technique, then I'll leave."
With dramatic coaching, he admits, it is more difficult for the performer to discover whether the match is right, and a few sessions are needed to determine this. McDonald's own drama coach is Alan Savage who, like McDonald, is sympathetic to the Actors Studio approach. At midcareer McDonald's experiences have taught him to know his strengths and limitations, how his body reacts to certain movements, and what he must do to achieve his artistic goals. "I need immediate results. I need less hand-holding and an honest critique."
‹Kevin Lewis
Brenda Braxton
"Smokey Joe's Cafe"
Asking Questions
Watching, listening, and asking questions have been the most effective training approaches for the woman who brings much of the smouldering smoke into the hit Broadway musical "Smokey Joe's Cafe," for which she received a 1995 Tony Award nomination. Brenda Braxton has largely learned "on the job," so to speak. Born in the Bronx, as a child she first took lessons at Ruth Williams Dance Studio, a local school in the neighborhood. Her early training was geared towards a career in dancing and she considers herself a "Martha Graham dancer."
Braxton's most intensive formal training took place starting in the ninth grade, when she arrived at New York's renowned High School for the Performing Arts‹the school on which the film and television series "Fame" were based. "It wasn't like 'Fame' at all, really," she laughs. "We never danced on cars. I went to the older, smaller school. Today's Performing Arts High School is much larger. We were very serious and worked hard. I studied ballet, character, Martha Graham techniques. We were taught how to audition. My teachers there were excellent. I remember one, Mrs. Bruggerman, who helped me a great deal."
The lessons on auditioning served her well, as Braxton got her first big break almost immediately after graduating. 'I tried out to be a swing in the all-black version of 'Guys and Dolls' that was on Broadway in the '70s, and out of 400 people auditioning I was picked. I've been lucky. I've been working ever since and so I really haven't had that much time for classes."
That work has included performances in the regions and in New York‹where she played Too Tight Nora in "Jelly's Last Jam" and roles in Broadway's "Cats" and the original Broadway productions of "Dreamgirls" and "Legs Diamond." She received a Joseph Jefferson Award for her performance in the Chicago production of "Smokey Joe's Cafe" and an NAACP award for the show's Los Angeles production.
"I watch closely what other performers do. I learn from them. I ask a lot of questions. Early on, I took part in workshop readings in the Urban Corps' theatre in Manhattan, run by Vinette Carroll. I watched her direct. She never accepted less than 100% of what a performer could do. I listened to what she said to each person. Watch and listen. Keep your eyes open. That and trial and error will teach you. When I became a swing in 'Dreamgirls,' I knew that singing was expected, but when I saw these people at work I realized, 'They are really singers.' I just went out there and did it. Other performers laughed at me 'cause I missed the mark a lot of times at first, but I learned.
"I realized I needed to know a lot more about vocal warm-ups. So I watched other performers. I asked questions and I worked on it. Try to stay aware of areas in which you need improvement. I will consult people if I need to work on a specific skill, but mostly I've relied on observing directors, choreographers, other performers, and working as my 'classes.'
"One area in which I think I would like to look into some sort of formal training, be it a class or a coach, is on-camera work for commercials. When I've auditioned for that I've realized that the skills involved are really different than the ones I've developed as a singer, dancer, and actress in live performance. This didn't just come naturally to me as the others did. I think I may need some pointers. Mainly, I'd say get out there and just do it. Take part in readings and workshops‹that's how I learned to act. Keep your eyes open all the time."
Although she has relied so heavily on natural talent and instinct, Braxton does run a school‹Leading Ladies Just for Teens. "I don't teach performing skills though," she says. "The emphasis is on seminars to show young women positive role models and give them self-esteem, confidence, and poise. That's the basis all the rest is built on."
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Anthony Rapp
"Rent"
Going Deeper
Long before he ever had to pay his own rent, Anthony Rapp was performing in Broadway shows. At age nine, he appeared in the Chicago leg of "Evita" 's national tour. He soon found himself on Broadway in the brief run of "The Little Prince and the Aviator." When most guys were stumbling in dirty from the playground to celebrate their 11th birthdays, Rapp was touring with Yul Brynner in "The King and I."
So it shouldn't be surprising that this 26-year-old veteran‹who originated Mark Cohen in the '94 production of "Rent" at the New York Theatre Workshop and carried the role to Broadway, and now to London‹took his first acting class when he was "around eight or nine years old, in a suburb of Chicago. It was a children's theatre class, where we played theatre games, improv, and stuff."
His next education came "at Interlochen, which was once a national musical theatre camp, and now is a fine arts camp. I took a technique class for a summer"‹which included his first taste of Stanislavsky.
"I did that right after I had done [Broadway's] 'Precious Sons,' with Ed Harris and Judith Ivey. I was 14," Rapp recalls, "and I felt I was really starting to learn what it meant to be an actor. Before, I was sort of going on instinct and natural ability. But with 'Precious Sons,' I started to discover that there was a whole lot more to it. My whole world opened up, and my understanding of acting deepened. Then, going to Interlochen, I felt like this would continue to open the door; so I went with no specific expectations and to just keep exploring. That whole year was about realizing there were places in myself I could really start to go deeper into and draw on rather than just getting up on stage."
The learning process that year involved even more than activating his craft on stage and at camp. He began to value the role of actor as audience member. "At the same time I was performing in 'Precious Sons,' I saw 'House of Blue Leaves,' with John Mahoney and Swoosie Kurtz. Seeing those performances in such a wonderful play really blew my mind open to the possibilities of being an actor and doing theatre," Rapp says. "It became, not just something I loved and was fun doing; it became so much more meaningful."
SUB-SUB-HEAD: Teacher Turn-Off
Rapp, raised in Joliet, Ill., near Chicago, notes, "There wasn't anything around where I lived" as far as acting-class offerings, but he kept working at his craft. Then he decided to move to Los Angeles.
La-La-Land did not endear the acting school to him. "I audited an acting class and found it so ridiculous," Rapp steams. "I said to myself, 'Any acting class is a sham.' The teacher didn't seem to be helping these actors at all. Hardly any of the actors got up and did any work. The teacher just talked on and on about himself. It was in a little hole in the wall, and just seemed a total ridiculous sham."
That was in '89. But what difference a year and an opposite coast can make. Rapp moved back to New York, and found an acting teacher who fit him like the glass slipper hugged Cinderella's foot. "I met Sande Shurin's husband, Bruce Levy, and he gave me her card," Rapp remembers. "I kept it, but I waited a couple of months. I don't know what it was that inspired me to call, but I said, 'Okay, I'll try again.' Maybe part of it was meeting Bruce. I got a good vibe."
Rapp decided to audit Shurin's class, and he immediately began to be beamed up. "The second she started talking, I felt electricity in my body," Rapp explains. "I knew it was right for me. She was onto something, speaking from a place of passion, creativity, and dedication to students which I hadn't seen before. She talked about the power we as actors have at our disposal to tap into. I had an audition for 'Six Degrees of Separation,' and in my audition, I took what she had said in that class and kept it with me; and I got the part. That was affirmation that her teaching worked."
Rapp and Shurin‹who runs the Sande Shurin Acting Studio New York/L.A.‹have collaborated for eight years. How else has she helped him?
"One of the first things, for me specifically‹and it's part of the trap of having acted since I was a little kid‹was that I had become very 'professional'; there were things I knew how to do 'the right way.' She kept saying, 'I want you to go deeper; I want you to explore.' She knew where to go with me, sort of tailored her eye to what I needed.
"From there, it's just been more and more about exploring; finding new colors, new approaches; trying to help transform into new characters, and broaden my scope and horizons. And it's all been nurturing and challenging."
Rapp's exercises in exploration and going deeper have led to, he feels, his successful character portrayal in the Pulitzer Prize-winning "Rent." He's been able to "pour myself into singing in a way I'd never done before, and maybe even inspired people in the way I've been inspired" by his own heroes.
Rapp took singing classes briefly with Shirley Calloway. But once "Rent" began, he admits, "I didn't want to sing any more than the eight shows a week. Still, working with Tim Wilde, the musical director, I've learned so much more about the technique I already had."
With his valuable experience, what advice does Rapp have for the young actor breaking into acting classes in the New York performance scene?
"Shop around and audit," he counsels. "You should only go with a place you feel really comfortable in, because acting is such a delicate, personal adventure to take. Some classes cultivate an environment of being very harsh, and come from a philosophy of tearing down to build back up. I challenge that notion. It's more important to feel nurtured and supported. And also challenged, which is very important‹but not demeaned or degraded."
‹RA
Ruben Santiago-Hudson
"Deep Down"
Looking for Confidence
Ruben Santiago-Hudson sees much to be gained from formal study. But "the best class," he says, is working as much as possible. It was a teacher who inspired him to become an actor‹his second-grade teacher, Miss Patton, in Lackawanna, N.Y., where he grew up. She coached him and other young children as they performed in a school play, and Santiago-Hudson realized at that young age, "I had the talent to make people laugh. I knew that I wanted to be an actor."
He and Miss Patton were certainly correct. Santiago-Hudson went on to win a Tony Award for Best Featured Performer in August Wilson's "Seven Guitars," and he is now starring in "Deep Down," which just opened Off-Broadway, at INTAR. In "Deep Down," he plays a black ex-convict whose relationships with his white employer and the employer's daughter bring out a complex range of personal and larger societal emotions in the South in the early 1960s.
Santiago-Hudson made his Broadway debut in "Jelly's Last Jam," as Buddy Bolden, supporting actor to Gregory Hines' Jelly Roll Morton character. He has made his mark in film as well, most recently co-starring opposite Al Pacino in "Devil's Advocate." On television, he is known as Chief Investigator Eddie Diaz on CBS-TV's "Michael Hayes," and appeared regularly on "Another World" and "Dear John."
But before acquiring these stellar credits, Santiago-Hudson acted in community theatre in Western New York, where Lackawanna is located. Once his decision was made, he obtained a degree in theatre from the State University of New York at Binghamton, and a Master's in Fine Arts in theatre from Wayne State University, in Detroit.
After acquiring his MFA, he started his own theatre in Detroit, the Afro-American Theatre. After a while, he decided to come to New York and has been working in major roles ever since. He called Back Stage from the set of the remake of the film "Rear Window," airing Nov. 22, on ABC.
"Once you've gotten an MFA in theatre, you've done a lot of formal study," he says. "You don't really need acting classes per se. But you're always learning. You learn from working. I will seek out a coach if there is a specific skill I need to develop.
"Workshops do a lot to help you continue to grow," states Santiago-Hudson. He has participated in the Sundance Theatre Lab and in classical workshops at the Brooklyn Academy of Music, led by John Barton of the Royal Shakespeare Company, as well as in other workshops which allow experienced working professionals to "have a ball" as they seek "artistic growth." These workshops allow an actor to "explore the text in every possible direction," he says, "examining every aspect of a character, every way that character might be interpreted."
In these workshops and theatre companies, exploring the text in depth is the focus. They allow him to apply that approach to his own work, with the goal always being "authenticity," and are a superb form of sharpening one's skills. Also, he notes, "When you're working, you can learn a lot from other actors. If someone has more knowledge in a given area or more experience in an area of life than I do, then I will talk with that actor and observe him closely. In 'Deep Down,' for instance, my character is a blues man. I think of myself as a blues man, but a musician I'm working with, Bill Sins, Jr., is much more of a blues man than I am. I have absorbed a great deal from him."
Santiago-Hudson frequently lectures at colleges and universities, and works as a private coach guiding other actors, and so he can see acting study from both points of view. "I find what most people look for from classes is confidence," he says. "Once you have that the rest falls into place. You know you have to do a lot of hard work, but with confidence you can do it. Everybody's needs are different and a good teacher or coach should be able to help an actor pinpoint those needs and find the best way to work on them. It's important to learn your craft, but you must also keep working on the areas that you as an individual know need work."
‹ET
Florence Lacey
"An Evening With Jerry Herman"
Getting a Rounded Picture
When Florence Lacey plotted her college drama studies, she was highly practical. Her parents, who had no connection to show business, couldn't advise her, and her Pennsylvania home was far from the theatre world. She enrolled in Point Park College, which was allied with the famed Pittsburgh Playhouse. Thirty years later, she still looks back with fondness at her student days. "I really liked the college because there was an Equity company involved in the theatre, so I felt I would get more truth about what it was to actually, really be an actor and make your living out of it than in some university program where you don't have the touch with real actors."
The college and the playhouse offered one combined dramatic arts program. Classes were held at the college in the morning, and the acting, dance, directing, and stagecraft courses were at the Pittsburgh Playhouse. Two teachers, Tom Thomas and Lilliane Mansel, were especially valuable to her. Students worked either backstage or onstage during the performances. "Another extremely valuable element was that you had to go through the same [audition] process as the actors did. There was an acting company that was hired for the year to do whatever plays were produced that year, but besides that, for any roles that we did, we had to go through the same audition process. The terror of all that was real."
Though she was studying voice in college, and privately with Edward Michaels from Carnegie Mellon University, she felt compelled to hide her vocal brilliance because she looked forward to appearing in dramatic parts, especially those in Shakespearean plays, but believed she would be confined to musical comedy or operatic roles. There were very few musical dramas conceived in those days, and she preferred drama to musical comedy. Despite the success of "West Side Story" and "Carousel," "musical comedy was what everyone thought of when they thought of musical theatre. Yes, I wanted to sing, but I really wanted to be an actress."
A classmate caught Lacey vocalizing one day, and encouraged her to sing "Ribbons Down My Back," from "Hello, Dolly!," a song which has been important thoughout her life. She was soon cast in several musicals at the Pittsburgh Playhouse. Though this determined the course of her career, her dramatic training made her ideal for the dark and complex musical dramas of the 1970s and '80s, such as "Evita" and "Les Mis rables."
This narrowness in training is thankfully gone, Lacey believes. "Students today are getting a more rounded picture of acting. That's how it appears to me when I see the young people that I work with. They are allowed to tap into their own dramatic abilities even if they can sing and dance. They are challenged to sing and dance even if their strengths are acting or comedy. The talent pool nowadays is much more well rounded in all of those aspects. They're not as pigeonholed as they were."
After college, in 1972, Lacey went to New York with "Sweet Feet," a musical that originated in Pittsburgh; then she moved to Los Angeles. She had a "survival job," she says, singing with a nightly rock 'n' roll lounge act. To save her theatre voice, she studied with Justine Weidoff. "I would never sing a song; I only did exercises. Once a week I would go to her and [I would do] incredibly difficult, almost operatic, stretches. It wasn't really coaching, it wasn't really interpreting a song; it was really stretching the technique, trying to hold on to the technique, while I was using just one portion of my voice and kind of abusing it."
SUB-SUB-HEAD: Hello, Jerry
Her life changed when she was cast as the singer in John Houseman's touring production of "John Brown's Body." Its star Rock Hudson, who became a close friend, asked her to sing at a party, and the pianist was none other than Jerry Herman, who told her that if he had a show, she'd be in it. When "Hello, Dolly!" was revived in 1977-78, on Broadway and national tour, Lacey was cast as Irene Molloy, starting her continuing association with the composer and with the musical. She was the new person in a well-established company, but, "Luckily, I had Jerry Herman and Lee Roy Reams on my side."
Besides her teachers and coaches, she considers Harold Prince, her director on "Evita," an invaluable teacher. Prince told her to "find all the love in the character, not all the anger." She considers "Evita," whose lead she played more times on tour than did anyone else, the most challenging role of her career.
When she was cast as Fantine in "Les Mis rables" on Broadway, long into its run, she didn't work with a director, but with three stage managers. She advises one performer who is replacing another to "keep your mouth shut and find your own voice."
In "An Evening with Jerry Herman" Lacey has to interpret in a "quick, simple way a taste of each of the characters," and not necessarily in the way they were originally defined in the original Herman musicals. She had "to find in each of those women some story within myself which propelled that story. I tried to find a different color, a different shade, from each song, which had to come from my own emotions, my personal story." The greatest compliment she received during the run was from a woman who told her, "You have so many voices."
‹KL
Linda Emond
"The Dying Gaul"
Always Learning
When an actor is constantly working, finding time to train tends to be difficult. Such is the case for Linda Emond, who could be considered one of New York's busiest actresses since moving to the city only a few seasons ago. This year on stage she has played Abigail Adams in "1776," on Broadway, and Elaine in Craig Lucas' "The Dying Gaul," soon to re-open Off-Broadway, at Century Theatre. She just completed a Dan Sullivan-directed run of A.R. Gurney's latest play, "Far East," in Williamstown, Mass.
Even though her schedule has been too full to permit her to take classes, Emond asserts that she has not stopped learning. "I certainly agree with the idea that an actor never stops learning his craft. One of the reasons I haven't been training is because of great opportunities I've had to work on projects with extremely challenging directors who have continued to help me learn."
The education one takes from working on a show is, naturally, different from that which one gets in a classroom. Emond is familiar with both, having been an acting teacher and coach, a student, and a successful actress.
As a teacher, she says, "I think I learned far more than I taught my students. As a teacher, you are in an objective position. It gives you the luxury of being able to see your students' development and struggles up close. That is enlightening. It shows something about how we learn as human beings, and why we sometimes fight learning. There is such joy in seeing someone learn something for the first time. Teaching is in itself extremely educational."
Emond believes that vocal training is among the most important aspects of schooling for actors. "When I look around as an audience member, I am often disappointed with the lack of decent vocal skills on the most basic level. It seems to be a really basic misunderstanding of how the voice must be used on stage," she observes. "I'm surprised by the distance that is put between an actor and the audience because of weak vocal work. Sometimes the problem is with the voice not reaching the audience. Sometimes it's an unevenness in the vocal skills of the cast. Some have those basic skills naturally; they have the ability to control it naturally. But it is a skill that can be learned, and all actors should do so. Since we deal with the spoken word, the way we use our vocals is extremely important."
Emond's training has been eclectic, and she believes this has helped her acting. Her three-year professional acting training at the University of Washington left her with a Master's degree, and a strong foundation, but her education did not stop there. She is a certified stage combatant, and is well versed in techniques from Shakespeare to the Greeks.
Emond believes that training is essential for actors, especially those who work on the stage. "I think that the whole idea of education is the fact that there is knowledge outside of your own. In theatre, there are so many skills that must be learned, regardless of how talented you are."
"When I decided to go to graduate school, I was working at the Colorado Shakespeare Festival. I was working with people who were my peers, but had had more training. I didn't necessarily think I was less talented, but I was certainly less facile. It was easier for them to build their characters. They had a toolbox‹not in an artificial way, but because of their education, they had an ease which I didn't have."
Emond continues, "When you've taken classes, you gain a confidence in the sense of realizing that it really has slipped into your body, that it's in your bones. Everything you've learned is now at your disposal, and it becomes second nature. There is liberty in that discovery."
The training that Emond has had since that summer has left her with a toolbox of her own, from which she draws a different technique or method of character development for each role she takes on. "Do I have one way of approaching the characters I portray? I do not. Every time I approach a script, it's different depending on the piece.
I don't make those decisions until I start working on the script. It's pretty instinctual; once I'm in the situation I do what comes naturally. It does tend to be different from play to play."
Emond embraces her ability to be so flexible in the artistic process, and credits her education with allowing her to be that way. "Working on a play is extremely collaborative. You must be able as an actor to be open to different methods of working. There is always such a wide variety of personalities. The greater your background, the greater ability you'll have; you'll be a hell of a lot more comfortable stepping into a role."
‹Peter Shaughnessy