"It's going to be a bumpy night"

Think of acting as being in a game.

There are certain guidelines, principles and rules to follow… the rules of the game.

Each actor lives by  their own code in the game. Our code defines us. It dictates what we will or will not do, how we feel safe, the conditions we need in order to create. The game is sacred.

If we look at patterns, we can recognize the game, the rules or lack thereof, the integrity or lack thereof… if we watch closely we can predict how the game will unfold.

Watch the game of life and art interplay… and stay alert.

Stay aligned with your principles. Know when you’re out of alignment. When you’ve become usurped by someone else’s game.

When you are aligned there is an experience of balance and centeredness—no extra energy or second guessing required.

You are with yourself like a nurturing mother and protective father. The inside and the outside feel safe.

But keep watching the patterns…

Watch how the game is being played as you’re acting in the play. Watch how the game is being played backstage.

If the drama backstage is overpowering the drama onstage, as Bette Davis says, “Fasten your seatbelts, it’s going to be a bumpy night.”

You will lose the play if you don’t tune into this phenomenon. Once the cable that holds the play together begins to fray, it’s too late.

You’ve crushed the jewel.

You’ve sacrificed art for life.

Recognize the distortion.

In the blackness those figures keep arguing.
Like a wanderer with no face. 
[Rumi’s poem, Smoke]

Don’t fall prey to life’s drama and sacrifice your art.

Don’t let “reality” steal your dream. You will lose the path to the essence of the art that brings supreme joy and clarity and meaning.

Find your way back into alignment.

Rise above.

Acting is hard work.

Life is easier than Acting because we can just let life wash over us and then piss and moan about how it sucks.

We can blame and blame until the cows come home but we will still not be free as creators. We will be imprisoned by acting out—our own and others’.

The only way to be essential is to live in what you love, to hold it and protect it from being compromised.

Go back to the meaning in your dream of being an actor.

Acting takes discipline or it slips away.

Acting is daring to live on the edge for truth. It is to choose precision and intensity rather than wallow and wash in the mud slides of cyclical arguments and circular strife.

“Hello death!” my friend used to say… as if something had crossed over… a shadow…

This is not the life the artist wants to lead.

Know when you’re bated into life’s game with rules that don’t sustain your truth.

Take in the lessons that knock you to your edges, and now, right your course. 

Join us!