ACTING - it's not just about 'PLAYING'

Many people think acting is either really easy because all actors do is prance around a stage in silly costumes speaking with silly voices, OR, people think acting is really hard because you have to do and say things in front of other people.  There is so much more to Actors and the world of Acting.
Actors don't just 'play'.   "[Actors] remind people that things can change, wounds can heal, people can be forgiven, and closed hearts can be open again." - Larry Moss

Acting is about making people feel, think and question themselves, others and the world.
Acting is a means of expression.
Acting is an outlet for individuals to show others deep emotions and thoughts that are experienced.
Acting is a way to pretend to be someone else, live in someone else's shoes, have someone else's family, have someone else's dreams and go through someone else's experiences.
Acting is a vehicle to be used as a way of expressing ideas, concepts and physicality that would otherwise be "socially unacceptable".
Actors take nothing from an audience except for applause, tears and laughter.


It is hard work.  Rehearsing twice a week, every week for 3 months to put on only 5 or 8 shows.  It's a lot of lines to memorize.  It means a lot of research into people, places, societies and times in history in order to develop a character.  

There are people who do not understand why actors do what they do. Especially actors in community & alternative theatre as they do not get paid for their time or hard work.  To people who ask "why do you do it?" or "wouldn't you rather do something that pays?" I simply reply by asking them whether or not they have ever volunteered.  

Acting is volunteering and it is rewarding.  Though we do not usually get paid, though we sometimes must endure critics, notes from directors, ridicule from adjudicators and snickers from an audience, we as actors dedicate ourselves to the art of becoming someone else.  We live someone else's life, go through their trials and tribulations.  We survive the torment of thoughts in their mind, sometimes die as them or worse, experience a loss far greater than any death.  We do this so that YOU as an audience member can experience these, through us, from the safety of your seat.

This is the gift actors give to us all for the mere price of an applause.

Characters ALWAYS Care - Even If They "Don't Care"

An actor playing the role of someone who "doesn't care" has a lot of work to do.  A playwright will not always hand over the thought process of characters behind their look of disinterest.  If a character doesn't care - there's a reason for it, and it is your job as an actor to find out why.
The important thing to remember is - you HAVE to care.

If you are playing a character who appears not to care in the script or the stage directions state that "he is indifferent to what she says to him" you HAVE to dig deeper! Why does a character appear uninterested? Why is he sitting perfectly still and staring blankly out to the audience? Why does your character state in the script "I don't care."?  Characters, like people, ALWAYS care. They may be hiding their feelings, they may be embarrassed by how the feel, they may feel forced to hide their emotions so as not to be faced with the consequences or they may be yelling "I don't care!" to get someone out of their face because they feel threatened.  If you play this type of role without some kind of feeling or thought process behind your disinterest, the audience will also lose interest in your character and your performance will fall flat!

Some playwrights DO inform the actors of the thought process and explanations of just how the gears are turning inside a character's mind and THIS - is a gift.  If we take the role of Brick, for example in A Cat On A Hot Tin Roof by Tennessee Williams, at the beginning of the play.  His wife Maggie is reaming him out about the fact that they are yet to bear children and she pushes him (or tries to push him) into feeling and expressing some kind of emotion.  During her rants, the script states that Brick speaks "...with a tone of politely feigned interest, masking indifference, or worse, is characteristic of his speech with Margaret." and "...he is not looking at her but into fading gold space with a troubled expression."  and goes on to use words such as "wryly", "indifferently" and "absently".  I adore Tennessee Williams for phrases such as these.  On the surface, one might watch Brick putting up with Maggie's badgering and assume that he must be bored with her or that he feels nothing for her.  This is NOT however the case. Brick has been through the trauma of losing his best friend and has zero interest in taking his wife to bed.  Williams leaves so much room for the actors portraying these roles however, it is important for anyone playing the role of Brick to have a thought process going on in his mind onstage, he MUST feel something towards Maggie (positive or negative) and he must CARE.

Don't deprive a character you are portraying onstage the opportunity to LIVE in front of an audience
because you think it's best to play them as someone who doesn't care.

The Intent to Live, by Larry Moss

This Book CHANGED MY LIFE!!!

Anyone and everyone interested in Theatre as an Actor, Director or Producer MUST OWN THIS BOOK!

I was playing the role of Irma Kronkite in William Hinge's PICNIC at the Palace Theatre in London, Ontario when the director (Don Fleckser) recommended that each of us as cast members find a copy of this book, rent it, read it buy it WHATEVER...just get your hands on this book!  So I did :)

Larry Moss delves a bit into his own life experiences and the steps he's taken to get where he is today.  If you do not know who Larry Moss is - PLEASE view his interview on Youtube in which he talks about his book, "the Intent to Live"

In this book, Moss describes building a character from "the ground up", superobjective and objective (getting what you want), Obstacles & Intention (how you get what you want), Stakes (what is it worth to you), Inner Imagery "the Life Within", Finding your Triggers (Emotions on Demand), Defining and Redefining your character, back story and biography of your character and SO MUCH MORE!

What I have enjoyed most about this book was the lessons Moss teaches between the lines.  In chapter 5, Moss discusses a monologue in Maxwell Anderson's Winterset and describes it as a "vivid and disturbing monologue".  The monologue is actually given in the book however, Moss recommends that any reference used or touched upon to express an opinion, thought or lesson which the reader is unfamiliar with, should (for their own benefit) research it!  There are so many references in this book and his lessons are powerful.  Without researching the actual pieces he quotes, the reader will only get half of the lesson to be learned.

By reading "the Intent to Live", I have become more knowledgeable about playwrights whom I did not know existed, I've learned various approaches to creating characters and working with a script, I've learned how to respect the playwright by using the given facts in a script to create exceptional characters without losing the intentions of the writer, and I now understand that acting is NOT just about being funny and making people laugh and being entertaining - it's about bringing someone else to life and making people feel and care.

"Acting represents all that human beings experience, and if you want it to be 'nice', you will never be a serious communicator of the human experience...You can't stay clean and tidy and be an actor."

Thank-you Larry Moss for the wake-up call.

Now, I'm ready to work!