Hey everyone,
Today’s blog is on the topic of acting teachers. A participant in a recent webinar shared, “It seems to me that most acting teachers want to keep you in class and dependent on them, kind of like monitoring my fishing to make sure I fish correctly instead of teaching me how to fish.”
I couldn’t agree more and it’s what the genius of Sandy was. The Meisner Technique is a brick-by-brick, step-by-step process. It’s a two-year program and then you’re gone. I love that model. It’s a bad business model. But that’s the view of most acting classes. In order to make more money, it’d be better to keep saying nice things about people to keep them coming back.
Most acting classes, the day you first join, they give you a script or some material right away so you can “throw some acting at it,” so you can pretend you’re an actor, so you can get the feeling of being an actor. It’s incredible.   And it’s designed to have you have this experience that it’s “happening.” We have beginning students in studying with us right now and sometimes you can see something in their eyes, wondering “where this is going” because it can seem a little tedious right now (I don’t think it is).
But they wonder that because they don’t know where this is really going. And some of you that have finished the training, try to pull yourself back to those first few weeks where it’s very basic back and forth and it doesn’t seem like this is “acting,” it doesn’t seem like much is happening. A lot of people don’t have that patience to understand that this is a foundation that this all is going to rest on.
But once we get that foundation in place and once we get these other bricks and pillars in place and once that training is complete, now it’s your job to grow into it. Could you stay at our school and continue to grow? Of course you could, but we don’t want that either. It is time to go figure it out, fall down, screw up, break rules, find other classes and see if something else works for you.
That’s the other great thing about Sandy, he wasn’t autocratic. He didn’t believe that his way was the only way to work. Like any great parent or great teacher, your job is to not tie them to you, but to get them ready to go out and go after it.
 
I HAVE A GIFT FOR YOU
I’d like to invite you to check out my Artistic Family Newsletter. These newsletters are for any actor in the Bay Area, Los Angeles, New York, Europe, and beyond because my goal every week is to empower, inspire, and educate any actor living anywhere who has the burning desire to really do this.
I believe these newsletters are the best of what I do as an acting teacher and it’s free to you, so join our family today by going here and signing up.
 
ANOTHER GIFT FOR YOU
When you register today I’ll also send you the link to my Q&A Webinar that was held a few weeks back. This hour long video Webinar was a wonderful exchange between myself and dozens from our Artistic Family members so I hope you’ll enjoy the information as much as I enjoyed sharing it.
Ok, see you next Wednesday so until then my very best to you,
Jim