Check out this quote my acting teacher sent me:
"Basically, what you are doing out there is you. When it comes down to it, what the people see, what they want to see, is not a role or a character or a piece of work. What they want to see is you: your breath, your thoughts, your laughter, your violence, your pain, all of it. What you have to ask yourself is, Where am I in all of this and how am I going to communicate that? That's when you begin to notice that you flinch, that you duck and pull away from those parts of yourself that you are unwilling to have other people see. But that's where the gravy is, where your talent is, where the life resides. You have to keep going back there, to trust that the terrible has already happened, that you've survived and that you're okay, exactly the way you are. You have to walk toward the demons, not run from them. And you'll find that if you put out your hand, not as a fist, but palm up, you'll go right through them like tissue paper. That's when you can be in the moment, any moment." -- James Cromwell
29 October 2004
Be in the moment
Posted by MezzoCO at 12:15 AM
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3 comments:
Wow, Katy.
I love hearing about all the things you've been learning in your acting class. It seems like you're really starting to take your performance to a new level. I'd love to hear more about it when I see you next week.
me too! me too!
I am also a budding opera singer, but my path to this art form has been through acting. I have always studied music and singing separately (never musical theatre, though I did do "Fiddler on the Roof" in high school) and chose to be a theatre major in college. (I went to Smith). I did a lot of singing as well, and took several music courses, but for four years my focus was on acting. This was especially true during my year in London at the British American Drama Academy. It wasn't until after this experience and two summers spent working at Tanglewood in Lenox, MA that I realized how extraordinarily powerful opera could be when it was done right.
I say all of this because I wanted you to know that I appreciate your acting teacher's advice. Mr. Cromwell is absolutely right in telling you [and here I am using "you" as the collective, not you personally!] "that you flinch, that you duck and pull away from those parts of yourself that you are unwilling to have other people see. But that's where the gravy is, where your talent is, where the life resides." This phenomenon is even easier to see when one is doing a straight play because there is no music, no technical concerns like breaking the line, singing in another language, finding the right notes, etc. to hide behind. I might argue this point: "what the people see, what they want to see, is not a role or a character or a piece of work. What they want to see is you," but I can see what he is getting at.
Katy -- you found me earlier today at This Fish. I would be interested to hear your story (or perhaps you've already posted it and I just haven't found it yet :) How did you arrive at opera? Is your background more on the singing side of things, rather than the theatrical? It's hardly a career one enters into without some thought!
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