Pros and Cons of Professional Acting

Cons

• Most actors don't make it onto the red carpet in designer clothing.  Even some of those Hollywood celebrities will have another source of income, from producing, to working as a musician, to working in restaurants. If you enjoy Starbucks, the chances of an actor serving you is excellent, as they are a very actor-friendly business.

• The average acting income is only $10 000 annually (including people who only book one gig per year). Plus it's unlikely you'll have benefits of any kind. 

• This isn't necessarily a con, but actors must learn to leave their ego behind during auditions, and to take rejection with a grain of salt. Acting is a business, and your body and mind is the product being sold. Actors need to market and brand themselves, in order to make connections and stand out from the competition. Since there are so many actors and so little acting parts, often most people are just not right for the part. 

• There are many false people in the acting industry who will stab actors in the back by talking about them behind their back, and taking jabs at flaws, especially the physical appearances of actors.

• It's difficult to date or be married while being a dedicated actor. Actors will often have two-three weeks where they're working to the bone every day, and then will have 2-3 weeks with no jobs. In film, usually callbacks will be the day after an audition, a wardrobe fitting will be the following day, and the scene will be shot on the fourth day. Often casting calls are given at most 24 hours before an audition, so actors are often required to cancel plans, even funerals and family events at the last minute in order to make it to the audition.

Now you're probably confused as to why anyone would want to act after discovering those cons. Fortunately, acting can be extremely enriching and rewarding for those who are absolutely passionate.

Pros

• Fortunately, according to Kenny Bania, a film actor, out of the multitudes of aspiring actors, 60% of them aren't good, 35% don't show up to their audition, are under-prepared, or are rude. That leaves a good actor in the top 5%, while there is work for the top 3%.

• You can start at any point in your life to become an actor. Ken Jeong from Community was a full-time physician who eventually morphed into a stand-up comedian and then a full-time actor. He still updates his skills and medical education in case he wants to return to that practice later. Lisa Kudrow from Friends started out as a biology major. An acting degree is not necessary. Scarlett Johansson for example, didn't get accepted into the New York University film program, and look where she is now.

• Actors have lots of opportunity to pursue other interests, which helps make them more well-rounded actors. The more experience and education an actor has, the more they're able to contribute to their role and character development.

• You're getting paid to dress up and play pretend, while most people are sitting in boring, stuffy offices all day spending most of their time unproductively on Farmville, or interacting with customers that don't say thank you.

Think about it.

"Anti-theatre"

What is the point of life? Where did we come from? Is there no God?

These are some of the questions that absurd theatre tries to provoke its audiences into thinking.

     The idea of absurd theatre has its roots in philosopher Albert Camus' writings of existentialism.

This style of theatre was thought of after World War Two.  The senseless killing during the war made people recognize how precarious and illogical life can be, and playwrights wanted this reflected in their work,  in order to reflect the current reality in life, but also to inspire people to evaluate every part of their lives.

     The purpose of absurd theatre

     To represent the notion that life is absurd, and meaningless or unknown, and this in turn troubles man. Therefore, since humans have no known purpose:

- Logical arguments and dialogue becomes nonsensical and cliched as well, and are often used just to create noise onstage.

- Long silences are often used to convey meaninglessness as well.

- Plot structures aren't realistic; they focus on the idea of anything logical or illogical being able to happen to a character, instead of character development (characters often have little depth, and are stereotypes of some sort).

•  An example of this illogical dialogue is in Harold Pinter's, The Homecoming (A man brings his wife home to his family for a visit after many years. His brothers and father lost his mother when they were younger, so they've been deprived of a mother figure for a long time. She proceeds to seduce each of her husband's brothers, and she begins filling their empty role of mother. The whole family decides, without asking her, that she will live with them and not with her husband, and will earn her board by selling her body. This is also my favourite play). In this scene, the wife and a brother fight over a glass of water:  http://youtu.be/nv4-XI1hD9o?t=2m4s.

• Another example in the Homecoming is when one character drops dead in front of them, the family barely acknowledges the body's presence, even though it would be logical for them to express shock and grief.

    Absurd theatre usually has a cyclical plot, where the ending ends at the same place that the play begins. This is to represent the idea that change isn't reality, but only an illusion and that life is repetitious.

    Even though absurd theatre is nonsensical, it always has a theme or point that it is trying to get across.

   Absurd theatre is my absolute favourite. It's interesting to watch, and if you watch it with friends, then absurd theatre can provide a really great theatre discussion afterwards.

   The downside is if you have to analyze the text of an absurd play without having seen it, and that can be really difficult when you're trying to understand a character while they're talking about the most random things and having the weirdest arguments.

     If you want to see some absurd theatre, one of the most well-known examples, Waiting for Godot by Samuel Beckett, is performing in the Stratford festival in Ontario this year. If you like Stratford Festival on Facebook, they regularly offer discounts to different performances.

The Bard of Avon

     William Shakespeare is so widely debated. Some people hate Shakespeare, and some love his work. It's even believed by some that Shakespeare didn't write all of his plays and sonnets. I personally love reading and performing his plays. You have to admit that Shakespeare has a lot of value in and of itself.

• One of the things that can't be denied about Shakespeare was how much he understood about humanity, and how he managed to incorporate these themes and ideas into his plays. For instance, Macbeth is one of the many plays that reveals key weaknesses of humanity, such as man's desire for power, and how man can easily be corrupted so that we act with only concern for ourselves.  

• Shakespeare contributed so much to the written word. The plot lines of his stories are often replicated and modified in more modern literature. Shakespeare also invented new words and insults that are still used today. For instance, "your mom" jokes originate from Titus Andronicus, as well as Timon of Athens, both plays by William.

• Shakespeare is not only invaluable to the studying of literature, but also to actors.  Shakespeare is useful in that since sometimes the meaning is difficult to comprehend at first, that actor is forced to dissect every word in order to ensure understanding. Then when it is performed, the actor is forced to put meaning into every word in the play, in order to make the sometimes hard to understand lines very clear to the audience. This is an excellent skill to have, as it aids the actor in giving more and more authentic performances.

• Shakespeare is also great to memorize.  If I memorize lines for a modern play, I usually forget most of the lines within half a year. I still remember Shakespeare that I memorized from two years ago though.

• One difficulty about Shakespeare is that if an actor does happen to forget their line, it's more difficult to improvise Shakespeare than to improvise more modern English. There's always many possible solutions to an actor forgetting their lines on stage though, so this is only a minor drawback.

     Most schools in North America teach Shakespeare throughout high school. The students sit through monotone re-enactments by students at the front of the class, and all students are advised to take copious notes on the plot and quotes that support different themes, and these notes are tested with quizzes and essays. I suppose this is fulfilling the purpose of curriculums to teach students to identify themes, and effectively explain their ideas, but this study of Shakespeare is certainly not inspiring any love for his work in most students.
    No play comes to life until it is read aloud by committed actors, or even better, seen visually.
       I think if students were required to put on a full length Shakespeare play and go through the process of exploring and developing characters, they would come out with a deep understanding of the play, as well as a bigger appreciation for Shakespeare's art.

     Most people that I talk to haven't seen a Shakespearean play performed. When you have a chance, go see a Shakespeare production. Hopefully you'll notice the power and magic that can harnessed onstage. 

Antagonizing Audition Anxiety

     Your heart pounds. 
Your throat squeezes your breath so hard that you can't get any air out.
     Your hands and legs start trembling so hard that on the Richter Magnitude Scale, they would probably rate a 6. 
     Your hands rain sweat.
You don't need to look in the mirror to know your cheeks are turning red.

     Most people have to endure auditions at least once in their life. Whether it's for a sports team, a play, a music competition, university, or an acting agency, it's possible to get nervous in all of those types of auditions.
     I. hate. Auditions. So far I've managed to weasel my way into four plays in the past year without having to audition...but sometime, real life is going to hit me again, and I'll have to attend another audition.  Every actor I've talked to loves performing. 100% of them also hate auditioning. Now why, would actors of all people, be afraid of an audition? We're playing characters all the time, aren't we? Aren't we used to being in front of crowds? Don't we like being in front of crowds?
      There's more pressure in an audition. In a show, unless you're doing a one person show, you often have other cast mates around to save you if you mess up. In an audition though, you've only got yourself to count on.

I think I have some of the biggest stage fright of anybody I know. It's ironic.  From performing since I was little though, I've picked up a few tips that don't necessarily have to be applied to an acting audition, but any type of audition.

• Know your material solidly. Even whatever you have to memorize is easy technically, you still need to know it so well that you'll remember it five years later.  Recite your material backwards, and by running through the material really fast without any pauses between words.

• Bananas and chocolate make me less nervous, as well as being well hydrated. I could be imagining it though. Who doesn't become more content while eating chocolate?

I refuse to recognize any other food group other than chocolate.

• Prepare your outfit, any necessary materials, snacks and water, and transportation the night before your audition. I'm a lot less stressed when I'm not rushing around frazzled at the last minute trying to grab everything except the kitchen sink.

• Don't focus on why you're at the audition, or what role you desperately want. Use the audition as an opportunity to practice in front of an audience.

• If you're in a group audition, remember that everyone is at different stages of audition and performing experience. If you mess up, there will be other people there who sympathize, who have committed the same mistake as you.  Don't be afraid to perform.  Everyone has their own style of singing,  or acting, or expressing themselves, which is so wonderful. You can't be someone else. You've just got to work with what individual potential you've got. When you compare yourself to others, usually strangers, you're comparing a spaniel to a poodle. They both have their own positive attributes and weaknesses.  

• Most importantly: The more you audition and perform, the less nerve wracking it becomes. There's no way around it. After a decade, I've finally gone from all my limbs shaking and my voice undulating  95.6% of the time to that only happening 7.8% of the time.

"Use what you know. Don't worry about what you don't know."
-Michael Shurtleff