July 4, 2022

Hey, again, it's me your new pal Tom. So, how to rehearse at home? Today's question is how to rehearse at home? Well, here's how not to rehearse. Never rehearse in a mirror. People come to me and they go, "You know, I've been working with a mirror". I go, well, in past videos we said the key to relaxation is taking and keeping the focus off yourself by fighting for something in a scene. If you look in a mirror you're going to say, "Wow, I like when I raise that eyebrow", and then you're going to do very self-conscious work, right? So, don't do that. Create what I call the rehearsal buddy. One of the benefits of our studio and now that it's all around the world in the privacy of your own home and we make house calls like a country doctor because you're in your own home or on your phone somewhere maybe you're on a beach watching this. It takes a village to become an actor. So, how do I practice by myself? Well, you can do your monologue work on your own but you ultimately need to show it to somebody whose opinion you trust. How about this? Many of you I pray most of you know who Henry Fonda and Jimmy Stewart were. When they were starting out in New York City long before they had been in movies right they were broke starting out they were roommates and they encouraged each other. Isn't that interesting how that happened. Years later, Jude Law and Ewan McGregor when they were starting out and they were broke they supported each other. It worked out for them. Jumping back in time a little bit Dustin Hoffman and Gene Hackman were roommates in New York when they were starting out and then they had the idea that they could lower the rent and they moved in a guy named Robert Duvall. Look how it worked out for all of them so it takes a village. Many of you know the Steppenwolf company it was John Malkovich, Joan Allen, Laurie Metcalf, Terry Kinney et cetera... They were a bunch of folks who went to school together in Evanston Illinois and they came to New York on mass in the autumn of 1984 in a play called bomb and gilead which I saw at the minetta lane theater which shares a wall with our studio in New York in the west village and it was visceral and it was physical and it was vocal. I was in my middle twenties and it really profoundly influenced me. When you're auditioning, when you're rehearsing at home. When you have an audition create a crew go with a pal to the audition. They're not gonna actually walk in the room with you but they're gonna keep rehearsing you much like you're a fighter and you're used to you know you don't warm up in the ring you warm up beforehand.

So, you know, when you go in to actually perform you've been rehearsing at home with your pal who's going to come with you to the audition and for doing this for you you're going to buy them lunch and maybe you're going to go see a movie. So, now, it really creates a positive reinforcement to get up and perform. Now, when they have an audition you're going to do the same thing for them but it's critical and I find that for actors. This is the most challenging thing is to have a daily regimen, right. You don't prepare on the day you've been in constant preparation like a firefighter. You're always ready to slide down the pole and you never know when you're going to get that call and when you get that call you're excited because you've been working at home. So, what can you do at home/ Everyday voice work, work on your back, lie on the floor put your hands on the lowest part of your abdomen. First five minutes of just really deep breathing. Do you feel your hands right into your thigh sockets? Do you feel your belly moving up and down? That means your diaphragm is dropping and expanding. After five minutes of that, let that turn into five minutes of...You'll do that for five minutes and then allow that after five minutes of that total 15 minutes, right, that'll evolve into...You will find it deeply meditative but you will also feel connected emotionally, right. I mean, it's really amazing folks please write down that the main course in the curriculum of life is to fully feel all your feelings. Before I talk about why it's important to know what you're feeling. If you have loved this click and subscribe below. folks you know we've identified slightly in excess of 80 human feelings. Most people lay people and an actor is something else to write down. An actor is a professional human being. Your average person can identify three feelings, I'm happy, I'm sad, I'm pissed. That's it, okay. But a professional human being needs to identify more of those. You know with beginning actors a lot of times after you do a piece of work I'll ask you well how did that feel for you and the the answer that jars me the most is when people say, "what should I be feeling?". you shouldn't be feeling anything. You feel what you feel and being true to that. So, and this is another one folks when people are working you know they're going well this is a comedic scene and I'm feeling really sad today comedy is born of pain more than it's born of joy and the reason we laugh is it's not us that's in that painful situation. So, always begin wherever you are, right, emotionally. One of the great gifts of the theater is you get to do a show eight times a week and I can guarantee you they're all different. Emotionally you will look back at the matinee and go wow it felt completely different than the evening and each scene had a little bit of a different color because you're a different person.

In film, you don't get the luxury of doing it again. The days of 20-30 takes those are long gone even though we don't have film stock anymore, right. Now, it's pretty much all digital. In addition to your audition pal your rehearsal pal you know it's critical that you are in a constant state of training. I was very happy one of the last films I did six films as an executive producer for CBS and the last one I did I got to hire the great Doris Roberts whose work I admired for many years. She played Rey's mother on everybody loves Rey. And in getting to know her and she wrote me a beautiful note that I know right where it is on my desk that every Saturday she was in acting class for her entire life even when she was on a show working on the great parts. Because she said that you know most of the stuff on the sitcom use about seven or eight percent of what she's capable of but the thing about re,hearsing Tennessee Williams, Arthur Miller, John Patrick Shanley, Sam Shepard is they will work you out and there is no shortcut. If you want to be a truly powerful actor you have to work on the most powerful writing and that takes the community and then you know when I later I got to study with Kristen Linkletter who wrote freeing the natural voice. Sicily Berry who was a great palomino got to produce and direct what was the culmination of her life's work called working Shakespeare. But I when I was a kid before I had access to coaching. You know in a voice book it'll say ahh without a coach it might be. That's too nasal. Now, I didn't know that as a kid or it might be that's too far back, right. That's the one we're looking for. It took teachers to reveal that to me. But folks, don't think that you ought to know how to do this all alone. It really does take a village, it takes a community. You didn't learn to walk on your own, how to talk on your own, how to cut your food, make your bed tie, your sneakers somebody showed you how to do it. So, coaching is a very powerful thing, right. Keep learning, learn as though you will live forever and live as though you'll die tomorrow. Everything is coaching folks so come and prepare with us on Saturday. We welcome you to join our community the first class is free. Please click on the link below.