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How do you become an actress?

How to become a better actress? Should I leave school? Please help!?

  • I am 21 and currently attending community college as a theatre major in NYC and will be attending a 4 year college that has a theatre program and puts on alot of productions so I can start somewhere. I also have zero acting experience not even from high school cause we didn't have a drama club. To get to my point I have been studying acting for about a year and I feel I am not growing as an actress. I don't know what it is, but I feel a VERY important component is missing in my training that I feel I am not growing as an actress. Last year I had an Acting I coach who never gives much feedback or criticism she would leave it to the class to critique my performance and most of it was filled with mostly inexperienced performed and the other small percentage were expereinced. I think its fair to say she had favoritism and would spend her time working with more experienced actors than those were beginners. It was VERY obvious to the other students that us beginner actors did not matter and she didn't even bother to work with us to get us a decent level. Currently, I'm in an Acting II class and my passion for acting is beginning to die down (not where I want to quit its more frustration), because I feel like my acting professors do not take their acting classes seriously. I'm VERY serious about learning how to become a better actress, but I feel like no one cares as much as I do. I even feel like the other students don't care because they tend to show up late alot, but in my opinion I think they are really good and better than me here I am on time EVERYDAY, never absent and always reading the script and I'm tying to become as good as them. I have yet to reach that "acting zone" and STAY in it, but I know its inside of me because I think I've felt it once before and its feels like an unstoppable experience and the only people that exist on that stage at that moment is your character and the other actors character that you are talking to. It's like only the actors reality exist and it feels amazing! I don't know if this helps, but I consider myself to be a more hands on learner and once I read a full script and perform a monologue for that character I'm in THEIR world. For example I read the play The Crucible and had to perform a monologue from it and got ALOT of positive feedback because I am familiar with the play and I know what's going on with the character and what she wants. Could that be the problem? Most of the work that he's given us to practice are excerpts from plays and we just have to randomly imagine how the scene might go. Should I just start going out and auditioning for plays? Should I leave college and attend a professional acting conservatory. It's just I don't feel worthy enough to even go to an audition and waste the directors time. There are actors that are better than me and I don't want to hold the production back with my inexperience. I don't expect to get lead right off the bat, but I don't feel like I am on a decent performing level. What should I do? I really do love acting and would love to pursue it for the rest of my possible if possible, but it's just I feel like no one is meeting me halfway and realize how important this is to me.

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    Hi, I'm a very long way away from you on a small and cold windswept island with one small town and a few villages and a lovely Victorian theater, beautifully preserved. http://www.haylesandhowe.co.uk/images/9%20gaiety%20IOM.jpg http://corinsands-art.de/Data/commissions/trompe%20loeil%20-%20Gaiety%20theatre%20ceiling%20Isle%20of%20Man.jpg http://www.charleyboormanlive.com/_assets/img/live/DSC2824_small.jpg We have productions by local people, sometimes with professional touring companies and local people combining to put on the bigger shows, like musicals and we have local productions in other halls in the town and in village halls. I can be on a stage every week if I want and I've never had even one day in acting school, and we have a film industry too with jobs for extras and even a bit more.It's fun and there's a bit of money. Not a lot. http://www.gov.im/ded/iomfilm/ http://uk.answers.yahoo.com/question/index?qid=20100309124124AAfEC9s You are in NYC No experience? None? Zero acting experience????? You've got more halls and other venues than we've got space on our little island to put them on! You've got all sorts of theatrical clubs, singing clubs, dancing clubs, recital clubs, poetry clubs, studios, street performers, idiot performers, crazy performers, gorgeous performers, wonderful performers and some of the best venues in all the world. Where have you been? Get outside and see a local company or club or enthusiast group or something..... You can't get anything out of schoolwork if you don't get anything from real life out of school. You have enough going on in NYC to spend very evening of every week for years on end doing nothing but rehearsing and performing. So where's the love? Are you finding, enveloping, grasping, holding that dream of performance close to you or thinking about it and wondering where it is? Halfway is less than you've got so far with the experience bit. Not a step of the way compared to where you could be with all there is around you. But get some proper examination results too, in a subject that's good for a decent job and not a maybe job. You gotta live, eat, take care of yourself, so you need an income and a steady job. Until you are in with the acting well enough that you can have no worries about getting a salary every month, you need to worry about getting a salary every month. So you need two things. A steady income and experience toward another one, not pity.. Go hunting and with a poetic mind sail bravely on the seas of New York City And the dramas of a hundred halls with flags 'a'flying and tops'ls all unfurled And ride the storms of high endeaver with a heart of steel and gold together curled Till joy and paradise are thine and audiences entwine their hearts and souls with yours As crushing in with expectation they await your entry from the backstage doors Arry the Mope 1642 or 43 was it? Oh no.....Alf Grubshuvell 1026 about London and then it got changed later and Arry said it was his Don't matter anyhow. Anyone can do those......actually I just did..... Go out and live...have fun..xx EDIT @ROAR...I totally agree, and the places I mentioned for performing are all outside of the school system. We get the same. There is some funding but not much so for most of the arts whether performing or visual or whatever is what people can do for themselves in organizing theater companies and choirs and any other arts group. NYC has lots of outlets for those outside of the schools and colleges. I'm not returning the TD. We don't get trigger happy over here. Too busy having fun. NY can be fun for performers too. Enjoy it.

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First of all I STRONGLY disagree with "Jonal". As someone who lives in NYC the arts is rarely to never funded in the public school system. Anytime there is a budget cuts the arts is ALWAYS the first to go. I would know as I was born and raised in NYC and have gone to school here and know that your talking about. Secondly, I'm glad I ran across this question because this is something that is usually posted in the "Theatre and acting" category. But no worries your lucky I ran across this. To get back on topic I'm sorry to hear that your school and your professors are doing this to you. As "Harry"(the first answer) mentioned it's possible they are just tired or a little frustrated and would rather work with "obvious" talent than try to "find" out who does. I don't think you should leave school per se because those teachers are awful, but maybe look into a school with a better theatre program that is to your liking and will offer you what you need. Look into schools like NYU, Julliard, PACE, Brooklyn College, American Academy of Dramatic Arts. Look into conservatories like Stellar Adler, Circle in the Square, etc you just gotta do your research. These schools will not be easy to get into as you will have to audition, have good grades, need recommendations etc. Plus they are expensive, so be SURE you want to attend a professional acting school. That's the most I can tell ya as your in a tough situation and its hard to tell what's going and why.

Monica

Some instructors (of any field in academics) can be a result of them being 'frustrated' professionals and then can only relate to those who have more obvious potential or represent an 'easy' student. They don't feel that they (have to) want to work that hard at their job or be so dedicated. Which is wrong, in any teaching as in being 'professional' about a career, as an instructor or mentor to those who want to follow in a field as they once did. But besides serious schooling and specific academics that are suppose to help in the process, there are alternative if you have the time to adjust your lifestyle to fit a different approach in your training and hands-on experience. And good experience is as valuable as any education when it can improve the individual at their chosen career or occupational endeavor. Get out and find those already (at any level of concern, performance or business activity) into the stream of things and can then relate to your short falls and inexperience to further find outlets and members of performing arts or stage/film entertainment venues. Even, low-keyed and amateur acting groups that have established programs that usually schedule for community events, or entertainment centers in cities and even, at the campus and colleges you may be already familiar with. Find those who are independent of the academics, or from agencies that help their own career goals or just those in it for the personal rewards of being accepted entertainers by the locals, and have become recognized in their own right.

Harry

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