 "I like to think of our school as an institution that puts the students on roads to self-discovery." The business of learning to act is special. It's practical. You can't learn it from a book. Not even Sanford Meisner's book, "Meisner on Acting". The actor-in-training learns by doing, doing it wrong, several times wrong probably before he or she finds the way that works best for him or her. Intimacy and Hard Work The relatively small size of the enrollment, 100-110 total, allows for an intimacy and immediacy not often present in educational institutions. We all see each other every day -- staff, faculty and students. The work energy level is incredibly high. We don't have anyone taking a course just for credit or just out of avocational interest. The students are here to experiment--to grow--to find out about their acting instruments. We try to create an atmosphere in the classrooms--a place where trial and error is acceptable. You see, when you're performing for an audience, it's got to work--you make choices of things that are going to allow you, as an actor, to deliver the goods when "the bums are in the seats". However, if you do nothing but perform, then you are stuck with what you know works and there might be other parts of your instrument that you could use. But, you daren't take a chance on them because you're not sure you'll be able to deliver the goods when the audience comes. This is where our experimentation comes in. I like to think we give you something you never get in performance. We give you the opportunity to go out on a tightrope saying, "I don't know if this is going to work, but I'd like to try it." Perhaps it's a disaster, but, no sweat. There's no audience in the classroom--just a sympathetic teacher and fellow students who are falling off tightropes as often as you are. Perhaps it's not a disaster. Perhaps you end the exercise or the scene and you say to yourself, "I didn't know I could do that. Wow!" Now you have discovered something quite new, quite uniquely you that, just maybe, you might take to the next rehearsal. Your discovery is but one of a number made in the course of the two years of professional training. You are expanding your artistry from a limited actor or actress to a creative artist with a full set of tools with which to express your form in a wide range of ways. You are becoming a consummate professional. Taking Risks Learning to act is about stretching yourself, venturing into areas where most people are reluctant to reveal themselves. Most times, when you get there, they are not such frightening places at all. What is it that actors do? They reveal themselves in public, every night. If that idea doesn't appeal to you, then perhaps acting is not for you. Tyrone Guthrie, the great director, once said, "In the soul of every macho truck driver, there exists the companion soul of the timid lady librarian. In the soul of every timid librarian, there exists a macho truck driver". It is the artist's function to reveal both sides of this soul in his or her work. Accomplishment You can't go through this program without a complete personality change. Because you are looking at yourself and the world around you in such a different way. No longer are you trying to be what you think other people want you to be, but you're being yourself. The process is unique because the nature of the work reduces everyone to his lowest common denominator. As the Neighborhood Playhouse School of the Theatre begins its 80th Year, I am sometimes asked what personal imprint I would like to leave here. To continue the principles that the founders developed, Paul Morrison's contribution and all the early teachers--Sandford Meisner, Martha Graham--all of them who really filtered their artistry into the school, keeping that alive and that sense of experimentation and the sense of risk ...if I can keep that going and strengthen it, what more would I want? For further information from Mr. Baldridge about the Acting Program at The Neighborhood Playhouse, see the book Acting Now: Conversations on Craft and Career by Edward Vilga (Rutgers University Press) 1997. |
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