Acting Classes

Acting classes don’t teach you how to act, they let you act. They give you resources to work with, most of all other willing and sometimes passionate participants. You can make a lot of your mistakes there instead of during a play or on a set, and you can watch other people mess up as well and avoid repeating some of their flaws too. You can experiment, try more, try less. Eventually you do need to go on the boards to get better, though. Not much in the world creates energy like walking out in front of hundreds of people waiting for you to show them something, but that energy has to be channeled, and nothing in any acting class will prepare you for what’s it’s like to steer that sort of chaotic force.

Some forego classes and dive right into the fray. That works too. There are about as many ways to act and train as there are actors. I took the road of starting on a set and in a play, and then began classes after. It wasn’t a great big plan, just how things turned out.

I read a good bit on top of that. Reading books about acting doesn’t make you a better actor in a practical sense by imparting some kind of skill directly. Books may give you context, or they can immerse you further into your own thoughts about acting, reinforcing and giving more perspectives from outside yourself. There’s a romanticism in it, but not one that’s available to all. Plenty of actors have found the most popular books useless, and some teachers have regretted even writing theirs in the first place after they gained a new outlook. Still, these works at the very least offer history.

The multitude of ways to refine acting is really a boon.

Learning Meisner technique or the method may feel like solid tools to some, while others see them as pretentious or convoluted distractions. The only question that matters in the end is “what helps me pretend?” That’s what it all is. Shaping yourself in your own way is part of the experience.

I don’t idolize the craft itself but instead look to the magic between people, the getting together and combining to a creative whole, and these to me are what’s worth feeling wonder about. That we tell stories and make people laugh, cry, and sometimes think, it’s a strange thing we’ve been doing for thousands of years. We humans clearly like exploring our feelings outside of their normal context, so we often seek out ways to make it happen even if it’s just for fun.

Being an actor is a great way to take part in that.