Those are the
words that a wizened actor and
comedian once said to me during
a rehearsal for one of my very
first professional theatre jobs. I’m sure
I nodded in agreement and probably gave an encouraging
look of gratitude to this "sage" as he imparted
this invaluable nugget of wisdom, but in my head I
was thinking, "This loony has lost his marbles."
The gig was an equity summer stock
job that I’d
accepted between my junior and senior years in college. I’d
taken the internship mainly for the chance to get a
couple of credits under my belt. Upon graduating,
my intentions were to head to New York and become a
Broadway actor. I figured having a few professional
credits on my resume couldn’t hurt, but I never
expected to get anything more out of the job. I
certainly never expected to learn anything.
You see, the professionals working
at this theatre were people who had done numerous
shows there previously
- "regulars" or "locals",
if you will. A group of people who had many,
many years of show business experience but who had
never
felt the lights of Broadway on their faces. In
my book - my very immature and youthfully arrogant
book - I somehow thought that that made them inferior
actors.
I couldn’t imagine someone wanting to be an
actor in professional theatre and yet not wanting to
work on Broadway. If a person weren’t trying
to act in New York or had never been to NYC, I guessed
the reason must be that that person couldn’t
hack it or that they weren’t good enough. Either
way what could I possibly hope to learn from someone
like that?
Looking back, the only excuse I
had was naiveté,
ignorance and an almost spiritual reverence for the
idea of Broadway. Fortunately I was able to get
beyond my myopic predeterminations and open myself
up to the edification opportunities around me.
It didn’t take long to see that
the "locals" knew
exactly what they were doing –and that they did
it very well. What they had to teach wasn't
something that you could learn in a classroom. It
was the timing of a particular comedic bit or the way
a line was delivered for maximum impact or the ability
to read an audience’s reaction and sculpt a performance
accordingly. It was the experience of a life
lived on the stage.
In the end I learned a lot that
summer - a lot about comedy, acting and myself. I learned that the “K”sound
is funny. Don’t ask me why, it just is. Maybe
it has something to do with its percussiveness. I
learned that great acting doesn’t come from the
credits on your resume but it comes from who you are
and what you bring to the stage. Finally I learned
that I still had a lot to learn, and the minute that
you start to judge people or a situation is the minute
that you close yourself off to the opportunity to learn
more. And in this ever changing business, that’s
a mistake you can’t afford to make.
