1. Your castmates will fuck up
And you will never be prepared for it, so you just gotta shit your pants and dive in and swim. My most memorable incident like this occurred in my middle school musical The Music Man. I was playing Tommy Djilas, and the scene called for me to run out onto stage, get caught and held back while the Mayor chews me out, then get inadvertently introduced to the Mayor's daughter to go on a date, resulting in a wacky misunderstanding that gets young Tommy into trouble down the road. Here's what happened instead. I run out onto stage from the wing, I'm stopped by other cast members. The kid playing the Mayor approaches me for the one-sided screaming match. "Tommy Djilas!" he begins, "...What are you doing?" This was not his line. He stopped speaking altogether. There was silence. Nobody was stepping up to save the scene. I did the only thing I could think to do. I replied, "Jeely Kly, I don't know!" And that was the extent of my improv skills. Following my brief but brilliant added-on-the-fly line the scene continued with 10 second stretches of silence interrupted by a kid saying something, ANYTHING, just to stop the awkward. Finally the kid playing Harold Hill managed to fumble his way to one of his actual lines and allow me to run off to the other side of the stage where he would then call me back to him. I hear no line signaling I should return so I just keep going off into the wings. Meanwhile the Mayor's daughter had walked onstage, stood around awkwardly, and then left. Those on stage dispersed, and despite nothing being set up, or even actually happening in the scene, the kid playing a cop still finished the scene with his line, "Well Mr. Hill, you did make one mistake. That was the mayor's daughter." Audience silence. Can't blame them, I'd be wondering what the fuck just happened too.
2. You will fuck up
And you won't be prepared for this either. If there's one part in your dialogue you know you always forget and so focus on getting that right, chances are you'll forget some other line that you remembered every time. The first time I had ever forgotten a line it blew my mind. I had been flawless up until that point, but it was during junior year of high school in the drama production of Rest Assured, a shitty little "comedy" that rips off It's a Wonderful Life, only the protagonist discovers that everyone is actually a lot better off without him. I couldn't care any less about this show than I already did, and maybe that's why the line just fell out of my head. I was supposed to tell someone that the protagonist is "walking in his sleep." Instead, I keep silent, waiting for whatever idiot was late on his or her line. The protagonist's wife, after a brief pause, says to me, "What's he doing, George? Is he walking in his sleep or something?" Alerted to my mistake, I use my acting genius to cover myself as if there was no mistake at all and reply, "He's...walking in his...sleep." See? Like nothing ever happened.
Another time, in the same goddamn play I couldn't give a shit about, I was supposed to enter a scene with a girl as soon as I heard a cue line. The only thing was, all of this guy's lines sounded the same and I entered on the wrong one. I walk on with the girl but before I can speak I see another cast member step forth to say her monologue, you know, 'cause she actually knows what she's doing. I mutter a curse under my breath, turn to the panicked face of the girl I dragged on with me, and then start miming that we're talking...for 10 goddamned minutes until my line actually comes up.
3. Your family is only there to watch you
Whenever I'm in a show, that show and the people I'm acting with are the best things in the world to me. If I'm really into the show, everything we do feels like Broadway. My co-stars are Daniel Day-Lewis and Robert Downey, Jr. The choreography is spot-on and beautiful. The orchestra is worthy of playing with John Williams. Needless to say, unless you're actually in a professional show, this is almost always not the case, but I love it regardless. Whenever I'm in a show, I'm excited for my family and friends to come see the show. Not just to see me, but because I want them to see how great the show as a whole is, and how amazing and talented everyone else in the cast is, or see how hot my female co-star is. It's making the show as whole entertaining to watch that helps me perform as well as I do. Then after curtain call and when the cast goes out to meet the audience, I make a beeline for my family. I get loads of "You were so great" and Congratulations hun" before I ask them back, "Did you like so-and-so?" or "Wasn't that dance that I wasn't in awesome?" I get nods and "Uh-huhs" as a response before they delve into more compliments meant just for me. My favorite has been "I wish you hadn't died so early," which I've actually heard more than once. At this point I just don't need a shower of compliments for myself, I'm confident enough in my abilities that I no longer need constant reassurance. What I want is for them to enjoy a show I was a part of aside form the fact that I'm in it. The ultimate test of this was when I directed my college production of Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street, where I wasn't in it at all. I know my family enjoyed it, I just didn't hear it vocalized enough as if I had been in it.
4. Funny shit will happen
It is inevitable. Whether it is a result of you or others messing up or just a wacky happenstance, you will come away from every show with a hysterical memory that you will tell everybody you know twice. In Romeo & Juliet I was legitimately stabbed by Romeo, on 3 different occasions. On a show night for R&J a tech member was still onstage when the lights came up. He stood perfectly still in his jeans and t-shirt while men dressed in tights and petticoats walked around him speaking in Shakespearean dialect before making his escape to the wings. During a practice sword fight for I Hate Hamlet I accidentally stabbed my sword straight through the wall. On opening night of Deathtrap the lights came up on me typing but there was no paper in my typewriter, but I committed to typing on nothing throughout the entire scene like a pro. Yeah, people noticed. In Grease the car got caught on a curtain and nearly tore down the backdrop, leading to us jumping in with gems like "Nice driving, Kenickie!" and "Dude, you hit Marty's house!" Also in that show the girl playing Sandy, when asked how she was liking her new school, answered with a line meant to be used when asked about coleslaw and said, "It smells kinda funny." And during a rehearsal a guy's pants split in the back at the end of a huge dance number. Actually, there is an endless supply of hilarious instances from that show, especially that time a girl got dehydrated and was throwing up in the bathroom between all of her scenes. Hmm, actually that wasn't funny at all. She had to go to the hospital after.
5. You will kiss someone in a show
Whether you're the romantic lead type or not (I'm certainly not) there will come a play or musical where you will lock lips with someone. I stress the word "someone." Your makeout partner will not always be your ideal choice. You may get cast as the love interest to someone who you would much rather kick in the eye, or someone who has a crush on you who you'd rather didn't. In rare cases, you'll have to kiss someone of the same sex. I have. It was weird. But ever once in a while you'll get cast as a co-kisser to someone you've only dreamt of getting to first base with. I have. It was awesome.
6. You will work with people you hate
2. You will fuck up
And you won't be prepared for this either. If there's one part in your dialogue you know you always forget and so focus on getting that right, chances are you'll forget some other line that you remembered every time. The first time I had ever forgotten a line it blew my mind. I had been flawless up until that point, but it was during junior year of high school in the drama production of Rest Assured, a shitty little "comedy" that rips off It's a Wonderful Life, only the protagonist discovers that everyone is actually a lot better off without him. I couldn't care any less about this show than I already did, and maybe that's why the line just fell out of my head. I was supposed to tell someone that the protagonist is "walking in his sleep." Instead, I keep silent, waiting for whatever idiot was late on his or her line. The protagonist's wife, after a brief pause, says to me, "What's he doing, George? Is he walking in his sleep or something?" Alerted to my mistake, I use my acting genius to cover myself as if there was no mistake at all and reply, "He's...walking in his...sleep." See? Like nothing ever happened.
Another time, in the same goddamn play I couldn't give a shit about, I was supposed to enter a scene with a girl as soon as I heard a cue line. The only thing was, all of this guy's lines sounded the same and I entered on the wrong one. I walk on with the girl but before I can speak I see another cast member step forth to say her monologue, you know, 'cause she actually knows what she's doing. I mutter a curse under my breath, turn to the panicked face of the girl I dragged on with me, and then start miming that we're talking...for 10 goddamned minutes until my line actually comes up.
3. Your family is only there to watch you
Whenever I'm in a show, that show and the people I'm acting with are the best things in the world to me. If I'm really into the show, everything we do feels like Broadway. My co-stars are Daniel Day-Lewis and Robert Downey, Jr. The choreography is spot-on and beautiful. The orchestra is worthy of playing with John Williams. Needless to say, unless you're actually in a professional show, this is almost always not the case, but I love it regardless. Whenever I'm in a show, I'm excited for my family and friends to come see the show. Not just to see me, but because I want them to see how great the show as a whole is, and how amazing and talented everyone else in the cast is, or see how hot my female co-star is. It's making the show as whole entertaining to watch that helps me perform as well as I do. Then after curtain call and when the cast goes out to meet the audience, I make a beeline for my family. I get loads of "You were so great" and Congratulations hun" before I ask them back, "Did you like so-and-so?" or "Wasn't that dance that I wasn't in awesome?" I get nods and "Uh-huhs" as a response before they delve into more compliments meant just for me. My favorite has been "I wish you hadn't died so early," which I've actually heard more than once. At this point I just don't need a shower of compliments for myself, I'm confident enough in my abilities that I no longer need constant reassurance. What I want is for them to enjoy a show I was a part of aside form the fact that I'm in it. The ultimate test of this was when I directed my college production of Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street, where I wasn't in it at all. I know my family enjoyed it, I just didn't hear it vocalized enough as if I had been in it.
4. Funny shit will happen
It is inevitable. Whether it is a result of you or others messing up or just a wacky happenstance, you will come away from every show with a hysterical memory that you will tell everybody you know twice. In Romeo & Juliet I was legitimately stabbed by Romeo, on 3 different occasions. On a show night for R&J a tech member was still onstage when the lights came up. He stood perfectly still in his jeans and t-shirt while men dressed in tights and petticoats walked around him speaking in Shakespearean dialect before making his escape to the wings. During a practice sword fight for I Hate Hamlet I accidentally stabbed my sword straight through the wall. On opening night of Deathtrap the lights came up on me typing but there was no paper in my typewriter, but I committed to typing on nothing throughout the entire scene like a pro. Yeah, people noticed. In Grease the car got caught on a curtain and nearly tore down the backdrop, leading to us jumping in with gems like "Nice driving, Kenickie!" and "Dude, you hit Marty's house!" Also in that show the girl playing Sandy, when asked how she was liking her new school, answered with a line meant to be used when asked about coleslaw and said, "It smells kinda funny." And during a rehearsal a guy's pants split in the back at the end of a huge dance number. Actually, there is an endless supply of hilarious instances from that show, especially that time a girl got dehydrated and was throwing up in the bathroom between all of her scenes. Hmm, actually that wasn't funny at all. She had to go to the hospital after.
5. You will kiss someone in a show
Whether you're the romantic lead type or not (I'm certainly not) there will come a play or musical where you will lock lips with someone. I stress the word "someone." Your makeout partner will not always be your ideal choice. You may get cast as the love interest to someone who you would much rather kick in the eye, or someone who has a crush on you who you'd rather didn't. In rare cases, you'll have to kiss someone of the same sex. I have. It was weird. But ever once in a while you'll get cast as a co-kisser to someone you've only dreamt of getting to first base with. I have. It was awesome.
6. You will work with people you hate
This is unavoidable, unfortunately. Even in the most perfect casts there will that one or two that you just hate being closer than a stick's length to. Even worse, this can affect your performance. Oh yes. For an example I was in a show once where my character was supposed to hate two other characters. One of the actors I got along with really well, but the other I legitimately despised. Funnily enough, my fake-hate towards the one was more believable while I wanted absolutely nothing to do with the other. You would think actual disdain would translate well through acting but it doesn't. You can't work well with someone you don't like, and it's no different when it comes to acting. I was once cast as a romantic lead opposite a girl I absolutely could not stand and...well, you can imagine our onstage chemistry translated very well. I don't have any real advice for this dilemma, as I've yet to overcome it myself. And so I wish us both luck with that.
And so I hope most of this was helpful, or at least entertaining. As I'm only just getting into serious acting I'm sure I will be learning more and more lessons along the way. So good luck to you all as well, my fellow actors! As I once said in a play, "You already learned everything that is important. You've tasted glory -- Now, reach skyward!"
Until sometime,
Tyler
P.S. If you ever wanted to hear Tywin Lannister narrate Fifty Shades of Grey, it is indeed on Youtube.
Question I Honestly Need an Answer to:
What song(s) should I audition for The Voice with?
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