#mentee update

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A rare glimpse of in-progress scene work during our weekly Saturday morning acting workshops. Every week we join Third Rail company members to get coaching and critique on everything from scene work, audition monologues, Alexander technique, improv, movement, Shakespeare, and much more. 

Alecia Gatlin and Tyler Andrew Jones explore the strained and unconventional relationship of Kayleen and Doug in Gruesome Playground Injuries by Rajiv Joseph. 

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Mentee Update: Ryan Mooney

Mentorship Company director Ryan Mooney gives us his thoughts on the first read-thru of Neighborhood 3: Requisition of Doom this last Saturday:

After weeks of production meetings, fundraising, and development, we finally had the chance to bring everyone together and read the play informally. It was well worth the wait. Our official “First Read” is in just under a week, so there was no stress or stakes in the read. For this production of Neighborhood 3, I’ve cast 8 actors to play 16 roles, in a play consisting of 9 two-person scenes and 8 “walkthrough.” Stitching everything together is going to be one hell of a ride – and this was the first step.

My favorite part of a table read is listening to the actors experiment. Since we’re confined our chairs and cups of coffee, the actors are left to express their given circumstances, desires and fears vocally. We’re only a few days into the meat of the process, and already the actors are bringing enormous offers to the table – making each character distinct and interesting. Over the next few weeks, we’re going to be working tirelessly to create and fill the world of this play. More as this story develops…

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A sneak peek at actors Christina Holtom, Jahnavi Caldwell-Green, and Alex Fox working during the Neighborhood 3 promo photoshoot. 

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Mentee Update: "I Get to the Mentorship...Eventually."

Mentorship Company member and actor Alex Fox shares with us this week a little bit about his thoughts on acting: 

Whether I want to or not, sometimes I’ll ask myself what business do I have being on stage. I think this is a fair, and fairly healthy question to ask myself. I generally don’t trust anyone who doesn’t take a dip into the pool of low self-esteem  at least once a month. That’s healthy too. Right? I need validation here. Well, I’m not that far into the pool. While it’s an important question, the hippy-dippy truth of it for me was that the answer didn’t matter, it’s been getting to it that does. Gross.

A few years ago I took a trip down to L.A. for an actors convention thingy. When you’re a bit lost, you do desperate things, like take weekend trips to downtown L.A. (which, just so you know, smells like pee) for a huge actor expo. It really was like the home and garden show for people who wanted to be paid to pretend to be other people. There were Q&A panels with producers and agents, workshops, I dunno…spray tans. I signed up for an auditioning workshop, mostly really curious as to how film and television auditions worked, a panel with producers and casting directors from various shows, and a panel with agents. I think I was looking more for validation that I could break in to the “biz” (gross) and not necessarily training in how to break into the “biz” (stop it!). Acting on a screen along with theatre, for a long time felt so distant, covered in a thick candy shell not even a former fat kid like me could chomp through. Up until a few years ago I might as well told people I wanted to be an astronaut, or a cowboy.

I’d never really flown by myself before, never needed to book a hotel, taxi service, any of it, and it terrified me. But before I knew it, I was kissing Christina goodbye at PDX, followed by longingly staring out the window of an airplane. I think that was when I realized I’ve never wanted to be able to fly, I’ve just always wanted to jump really really really high. Flying has always implied no rules, but I love rules. Being able to stretch rules and structure to their near breaking point has always been a thrill, it just took a while for that to reach my own thoughts and emotions. And flying into L.A. was defiantly breaking my own rules. Let’s not forget I still really had no fucking clue what I was doing there.

The mob of people waiting to get into the convention center was intimidating when I realized they were all there for the same reason, a desire of some sort, to act. Sometimes it’s fantastic to not feel alone, except when what is holding everyone together is deep hunger, all while near a limited food supply and everyone is armed with knives and musical numbers. I’m one OF a million, so why in the hell should I be here? I saw at least ten guys right off the bat who might as well have been my twin. I bet they could sell soap on TV, equiped with slightly better cheekbones too, so why am I still doing this? 

I was saved having to wait in line, I had pre-registered a month earlier, anyone waiting was just signing up then and there. There is no reason to, but it’s hard not to feel like a horrible person when you’ve got the okay to be a line skipper. I might as well been a holocaust denier to some of those people. The slight reactionary strut I added, I assure you, was involuntary. Emphasis on reactionary.

It was a small moment, but a long walk. It actually meant nothing,  and I am certainly the only person in the world who carries the memory of any of this, but it’s hard for me not to go back to it, and tie it into watching someone get ahead (in life and lines), and not fully understanding why. It made…makes, stand out the times I’ve watched something like that and just become angry. Because the story I wrote in my head to go along with it someone getting ahead, ended in everything going to hell for me. Others success not meaning my failure has been a long battle. But sometimes a line, is just a line. That’s been tough as can be to come to terms with. Three minutes of walking, look how much crap I jam packed into it. Believe it or not, I’m a very happy person. 

I picked up my badge, and walked inside.