Showcasing Your Work

I know I've been absent for some time, but I've been awfully busy, shooting digital video projects, going to classes, and generally working on my career, while anticipating a potential strike. Now that the strike has been averted and business is beginning to pick up again, it's time to hit high gear!

I have an industry showcase tonight for which I'm performing two scenes. One is a dramatic piece lifted from a play, while the other is a short scene lifted from an early 90's sitcom. Both characters are actually fairly similar, even though the pieces are quite different. Therefore, even though I'm playing two characters fairly close to myself, I will be able to demonstrate both my comedic and dramatic abilities. These scenes are a home-run for a showcase situation not only because they show my performance range, but also because they allow me to do so while effectively staying close to home, which allows me to keep it simple and to nail my scenes.

Playing with an impediment or an accent may be an impressive demonstration of your skills, but the more you can highlight what you bring to a script as an actor, the better, and an impediment or accent may nail you as too specific to stick in a casting director's mind when he or she goes back to the office tomorrow morning to cast "Dark Angel" or "Buffy the Vampire Slayer." Keep this in mind when evaluating your type and castability, particularly when mounting work in front of professionals. You often only get one impression, and that first impression is very important.

There's another actor performing a scene in this showcase that is completely not right for the part. He doesn't look it, and his performance betrays a general lack of understanding about the type of character he's playing. He doesn't make awful choices, but he's not believable. And, ultimately, when a bunch of good actors are going up for a specific role, it's the believable ones that get the call back.

One of the things I've done in preparation for this showcase is to videotape my rehearsals. If you can be really hard on yourself and not get mental about your performance during the taping, then I find this is a great way to direct yourself in the absence of a real director. If you watch yourself and at any moment don't buy the performance, ask yourself why, and make a choice to fix that in your next performance. Over time, you will have adjusted the scene to the point where there's no B.S.

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