The Second Act - It's All an Act

I’m not acting in a play this spring. I’m not directing. In fact, it would seem that I’m taking something of a vacation from the theater. And with the resulting amount of spare time, I’m looking back at some of my thoughts and writings on what it means to be part of community theater. I ran across a manual I drafted sometime back, meant to be an introduction for someone new to community theater. Some of it, I thought, was pretty good.

For example: Community theater is amateur theater. The actors are amateurs, the directors are amateurs and the stage and technical crews are amateurs. It’s an honor to be an amateur, because to be an amateur implies neither a skill less than professional nor a drive less than earnest. It simply means that those who call themselves amateurs do what they do for the sheer love of doing it.

I’ve acted in several plays and directed a few. Acting is a transforming experience:

Actors perform onstage. As an actor, you are the primary vehicle through which the script reaches the audience, through which the director’s vision of the script transpires onstage, through which you transform from your real self to the self needed to portray the character.

If you want to act, be prepared to put in some time. A rule of thumb in community theater is that it takes an hour of cast rehearsal for every minute of performance. My experience is that we never get this much rehearsal time, but depending on your director, be prepared to spend 60-80 hours in rehearsal. And expect to spend a pro-rated equivalent amount of time outside of rehearsal learning your lines.

Lines refer to the words of the script. Lines with your character’s name are yours. Yours to speak, yours to act, yours to enjoy, yours to learn. But learning comes first. Learn your lines, or nothing else you do will matter.

I love that last phrase, “or nothing else you do will matter.” A missed facial expression may weaken your performance, but no one in the audience will notice. A missed line will create a stumble in the performance and the illusion you’ve worked so hard to create will be lost.

Movement onstage in a well-directed play, which we call blocking, is not left to chance.

Blocking refers to gross movement on stage, that is getting from here to there. Generally blocking will be provided by your director. Learn your blocking as if it were a part of your lines and make your moves consistently and with intent. Every move you make should be motivated by the action, should be natural and believable.

The stage is a big place, but the attention of the audience is generally focussed on one small part of the stage.

The audience cannot watch the entire stage at once, but most often will focus on the action taking place in a very small portion of the stage. The action at that portion of the stage draws focus. If you are in the focus, all eyes should be on you. If you are not, any eyes that fall on you should be directed toward the focus. Understand that standing still and remaining invisible at the right time is an important skill.

In other words: The play’s the thing, you’re not.

The director? Like the actors, community theater directors are amateurs. So as an actor, you have to make allowances.

Your director is not God, but it’s best that you don’t point that out too often. The director is responsible for the overall vision of the play, the integration of the characters that develop and a pile of management details that can be tedious and at times overwhelming. It’s important that you trust and obey your director.

And remember, as an actor, community theater exists for you, not because of you. The opportunity to act is a gift. Make sure you give something back.

Acting is a privilege and there’s a lot of invisible work that goes on behind the scenes to bring a production to life. Don’t just acknowledge that effort, be part of it. If you act in every play, make sure you also work as crew in every play. If you don’t have time to both act and crew in every play, then don’t act in every play.

Finally, remember that community theater is always a group effort rife with disagreement. That’s part of the creative process. It’s also why the manual I took these snippets from has never been adopted as an official guide. If the director is not God, apparently neither is the president.

David Vale is the immediate past president of the Bigfork Community Players.