commitment to the craft: will you love it enough when it doesn’t love you???

I won’t lie to you. Being committed to an art form can be hard. Being committed to acting can be harder. Our society as a whole has decided that a career in the arts is something to be ashamed of unless you are at the Oscars or on Broadway. They equate our success to such a high level that anything less than the very best is unacceptable and they look at you as unsuccessful.

My response to that is “Are you at the very top of your field??”

Why is it less respected because it is creative?? I still use critical thinking skills. I have to be able to problem solve, be able to work well with others, and adapt to change. On top of that I have to remember material word perfect via memorization in very short periods of time, Lock in physical blocking to the level of details of head placement and where my eyes are looking. As if that wasn’t more than enough, I also have to be in touch with my emotions and share them in front of others, which yes is a choice, but doesn’t make it easy.

The people in your life will not understand it, they will tell you that they are concerned. They will tell you to grow up and that you need a real job not a passion. I feel sorry for these people.

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These are people who either don’t have passion, which is sad. Or they have had a passion and decided for some reason or another, to give up their passion and dreams for comfort or an easier life. This is heartbreaking to me personally.

I can’t blame them. To those people, their choice was justified in their reality to make that decision.

You have to use the self as context.

I respect their choice, but it is not my choice. I’m realistic, I know that I need money to survive and I understand that sometimes (a lot of the time) that money may need to come from other avenues that aren’t performing. But I cannot justify for myself anything but the path I have chosen and I wish I was given the same respect back.

I find myself asking if it’s me or them. I think it’s both. They can have genuine concern based on their own experience, though I don’t think it is valid to share unless that opinion is asked for. They can be jealous of the fact that we are still dreamers who haven’t given up and are still committed. We can also still be dedicated and incredibly driven to the point of being stubborn and we can have blinders that can cause us to be reckless. It’s about being a realistic dreamer. This means we may have to work jobs we don’t want to for a little while. That’s okay. The point is that it is your decision and you have to live with it.

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It’s important to remember what it is we do and why we do it. Remember when you had the “I am going to do this for the rest of my life” feeling for the first time. That irreplaceable feeling of purpose and passion. The rush of energy and catharsis. There is also the joy of performing at large and the sense of community and chosen family in the arts. It is truly like no other industry in the world.

Don’t forget it is just fun to dress up in costumes and play.

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For me, and I realize that my commitment story may not look like yours, there was a moment when I was training at acting school in New York. I will say that it was a ballsy move to go to acting school without being 100% committed to it at the start.

I have no regrets, I like to jump without knowing how it’s going to end.

Anyways, it was early on in the process. We had just learned about emotional preparation and substitution, common tools in Sanford Meisner’s acting technique. We were working on repetitions and structured improvisation through the use of activities and justification. I was still at this time attempting to muscle through my acting (unsuccessfully obviously).

Although I wasn’t consistent at this time, I found some moments of success in my acting.

Those are moments you learn to cherish and hold onto, because especially in the beginning, they are few and far between.

Acting didn’t come easy to me. I didn’t have a natural understanding of it the way I did with singing, music in general, or academics. Everyday was a challenge, to be honest, it still is now sometimes, but that is what makes it incredible.

In this class I was taught that I could give myself permission to explore through the lenses of an author’s interpretation of emotion regardless if I had felt that emotion in my life outside of acting or not.

I fell in love with the act of telling the stories for those who do not have a voice, those who don’t feel like they can have a voice, or those whose stories need to be more widely represented.

It is bigger than us. We have the ability to represent.

There is also a side of this that let me fall in love with the act of cathartic release. Telling stories and expressing parts of myself that I have yet to discover and not being judgmental to the self (still working on that one). In this Meisner class I was able to realize that I was allowed and in fact encouraged to bring every part of myself to the work at hand.

Acting is one of the only careers where all life experiences are valid and will only help you in your journey. There is no irrelevant work experience. I learned that the more life I lived, the more rich my acting would be because there was more I could draw from.

It is this sense of expression and discovery of the emotions that I fully found my purpose. I was lucky that I never needed to be persuaded to do the framework. I love details. Being meticulous is my favorite pastime.

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I very much believe in the constant challenge of the work keeping me accountable and more focussed. Now the longer I have worked in this field, the more I understand it of course. It is consistent now and I can perform without having to be incredibly confused, I know my personal process and approach.

It is an active process however and it is not like riding a bike. It is much more like driving from one point to another with 100+ ways to get there without using a map or gps. I know where I am going, I know what is required to get me there, but I may not know the exact path to get there at that specific time. There could be construction or accidents, roads can be closed completely or detours may lead you somewhere else entirely. Sometimes you will run into potholes or hit every red light in between. It is in these moments when met with obstacles and frustrating circumstances where you need to remember why you want to get to your destination. What is on the other side?? Remind yourself why you got on this road. I promise the destination is worth it.