Some thoughts on teaching acting . . .

Teaching at a university whose MFA program that is focused on pedagogy raises lots of interesting questions.

Without a doubt it makes me a better teacher as I have to constantly and consistently answer “why” and “how” in relation to every conversation I have with my graduate students.

Every day is a new examination of the actor training process.

I realize there are three kinds of programs:

1.) Those that teach a technique, adhere to that technique and live in the philosophical world of that technique.

2.) Then there are those programs that teach outcomes. After semester X you will be able to do Y. They don’t care how you get there as a teacher, simply that you get the students there.

3.) And lastly, we have what I call “patchwork” or “hodgepodge.” They teach a bunch of different techniques and approaches and the connective tissue is the performance opportunities and the faculty.

After having been educated in or taught in all three kinds I’m not sure which I prefer.

There are pros and cons to all three.

I will say that having a “technique” allows one the safety of working inside a philosophy or values system that one can always go back to when in doubt about a situation. It shapes an aesthetic. It shapes the artist not only as a student but also as a teacher.

When I was younger I refused to adhere to the aesthetic or philosophy of my teachers and over time I now cling to it. After a decade and a half as a theatre practitioner I have found myself coming back to my roots, embracing the amazing master teachers I have worked with and I have fully realized my value system as an actor and educator.

I was listening to Anne Bogart speak the other night and she said something that stuck with me.  “Actor training in this country has become too easy. It needs to be hard, it needs to take work. It doesn’t matter what you study as long you study it in depth, takes effort to learn it and is hard.”

I couldn’t agree with her more.

That thought should be applied to all of higher education, not simply theatre or actor training. We must stop inflating grades and hold them to a measure of perfection or success. And we must stand by that measure, stand our ground and know that we are serving them.

It’s why I talk to my students about “being excellent.” Excellence is a habit that must be cultivated like love, kindness or compassion. It takes effort to be excellent and it must be practiced.

I challenge them with the idea that why would one choose to be mediocre? Who aims for that? Who wants to simply get by? Why would one choose to be an artist and then aim for enough, aim for passable? That makes no sense to me. I want my students to aspire to be brilliant, to be hungry for it and to never be satisfied with just ok.