I often think of comedy like baking and tragedy like cooking. Tragedy is intuitive, fluid, and you can season to your preference and rework the recipe to suit. Comedy has rules, formulas–it takes skill and inventiveness to achieve good results, but stray from certain recipes and your comedy cake is doomed. While some actors […]
Happy New Year, one and all! A brand new decade is an excellent excuse to take stock of your acting career and make some resolutions. But if you’re anything like me, the idea of narrowing down your goals to something reasonable and specific can be tough. So here are some good starting points that every […]
Improv is an enormously valuable skill for any actor. You don’t have to be part of an improv troupe to benefit from being able to think on your feet, adapt quickly to your partner’s choices, and follow your impulses organically and fully. But improv can be intimidating to newcomers, even to those with decades of […]
If you’re like me or many of the actors I know, the phrase “work-life balance” might seem a laughable fantasy. But our culture’s romanticization of overworking is no healthier for an artist than anyone else. As we have discussed several times on this blog, an obsessive devotion to productivity will inevitably lead to physical and […]
Sometimes, we play by the rules, put in the work, and can still look around and feel like something is just missing. If your acting career feels inexplicably dead in the water, don’t panic. It’s not permanent. The important thing is to take the time to figure out what it is that might be holding […]
Especially in the whirlwind world of film and television, it’s easy to get into the habit of applying the lightning round scoring techniques of a cold read. But eventually you’ll book that project that requires a deep dive, and when you do, it’s important to have the skills in place to beat out a script. […]
Welcome, ghouls and ghosties, to this year’s Cast It Talent: Halloween Edition! It’s that time of year when actors and non-actors alike throw on their spookiest costume and step into the world of play-pretend for a night. Or several. Or all season. (I’m not here to limit your Halloween hijinks). For actors, the Halloween […]