377 Days - Blog #56, the first blog where I contemplate community vs. professional theater

Today I went out to lunch with my boss.  There was a soap opera on the television set (are televisions still sets now that they are flat screens?) in the restaurant… which got us on a tangent of soap operas.  At some point in my conversation, I acknowledged how it was one of the toughest jobs in acting… and I got a little geeky about acting.  She asked me (she’s cool like that) if that is something I would do if I could.  Act professionally (not necessarily in a soap opera).  

Without skipping a beat, I said no.

I told her about my abandoned London ambition of years ago.  I reflected a bit on my last job.  And I said quite honestly, I’d rather do something with a direct impact.

Now, yes, I know there can be impact in acting… if we want to argue about how the millionaires in cookie cutter movies have some excellent charities for which they champion.  (Brad Pitt).  But as I reflect on that conversation, I realize how very, very long ago that dream of being an actor faded away from desire.

Besides, I am an actor.

When I feel like it.

I don’t feel like it all that often these days.  The last two years I was very lucky and humbled to be asked to be in a play.  This year I will audition.  And if I don’t get the part, yeah, I’ll be disappointed… but I’ll probably have a glass of wine and then shrug at the fact I won’t have to be writing this blog at midnight after a rehearsal.

Am I an amateur?  You could certainly say that.  I am not union.  I haven’t trained in a long while (apart from my obsessive watching of National Theater interviews on the philosophies of acting).  I don’t keep score with what’s on Broadway or even in the fringe of Boston or any other city.  I also stopped going to shows and tearing apart other performances.  So, yeah, maybe I’m not a pro.

 

I have lived a bit more of life though.  I’ve had my heart beat up a bit.  I’ve learned I’m learning how to cry and face myself honestly.  I totally get the value of breathing now… and why getting in the practice of running is a very good thing whilst in performance.  But that doesn’t make me any more professional.  I do think I am a smarter actor now.  Especially because I know I still have much more to learn.  But I’m so completely okay learning at a snail’s pace.

Over the years, I’ve been involved in several conversations about professionalism of these actors or that director or this theater.  Brand an organization with the word community… and it silently cancels any association with the professional adjective.

What does professional mean anyway?

Really?  What does it mean?  Does it mean money?  Does it mean taking the art so seriously it overtakes my life and pre-empts devotion to family and friends?  Does it mean quality?  Is quality the best in the industry?  Or the best that can be done under an arbitrary set of circumstances and within a budgeted means?  And even then… is adhering to a budget professional?  Is going out and selling and selling and doing something that is more sellable than provoking professional?  Is it catering to the same audience?  Is it avoiding making the audience uncomfortable?  Is it taking care of and maintaining a building with sustainability in mind?   Is it trying to attract a bigger audience?  Is it building a relationship with the audience?  Is it… creating a community between the audience and the art?

Huh.

In truth, this is the sort of thing I’d like to sit on the floor in front of the wood stove and discuss with friends after dinner over a lingering bottle of wine.  (Beware, supper club).  But, dear Reader, you just get the privilege of my mental wanderings at the end of a Monday as I go back and forth to my proposal for next season and the spreadsheets I have put together to map out my understanding of the audience/business/budget.  

Because, while, no, I don’t want to be a professional actor, I do want to think of community with a ‘professional’ attitude.  Not as a classification that justifies looking down my nose.  As an attitude of doing the best I can possibly do.  For the community.

And that.  That has impact.