Last night, I found out that the acting class I had signed up wasn't going to have enough students to go forward. We had four, we needed six. There had been six signups, but two of them never showed. Our instructor said that wasn't uncommon for this class. The problem for those people was likely the thing that attracted me in the first place: the class puts on a performance at the end. You don't just practice being an actor, you get to do it, live and on stage with no nets.
One thing I've hoped I might be able to do if I pursue the stay-at-home route is return to this long (delayed? sublimated? restrained?) love of mine. I got the acting bug back in high school, like a lot of people. I was in three plays (should have been in four, I'm told, but the director stuck his favorite in), got Best Actor once, All-Star Cast the other times. I also did other stuff on the Speech Team. Probably my finest hour came when I and three friends did a little skit in the finals of a tournament and got both a standing ovation and a encore! After, I had bit parts in college plays, made extra on a few movies, but nothing that really satisfied.
Any performer can tell you that a sincere standing "O" is pretty much the best feeling you can get short of marriage, births, or illegal drugs. Indeed, the one complaint I have about our otherwise excellent local theater is that the audiences are way too generous with standing ovations. Almost every performance I've seen has gotten one. Those folks are good, but not that good. Anyway, even plain old applause short of the standing "O" is worthy, and its been too long since I got to hear that. It's an amazing rush when you know the crowd is with you, and you can feel it on the stage. It's easier to tell with comedy, since you have the immediate feedback of laughter (or silence when there should be laughter) but even with drama you can sense what's going on out there most of the time.
Ah well, I've waited this long, I can wait a little longer for the next go-round. At least now I know I'm waiting for the opportunity to come by, not for the time to take it...
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2 comments:
That last sentence... Beautifully written. I think I'll take the next opportunity to take those art and sculpting classes I've been putting off for so long. It's nice to be reminded that we've got a great opportunity to take advantage of opportunities that come our way rather than being stuck waiting for the time to take them. Thanks. Hey, I hope you don't mind but I've linked your blog site from mine. If you do, I'll take it down immediately. Keep bloggin'.
--Alex
www.littleboxofbones.com
www.passionforparties.com
You're very kind, Alex. Thanks for the comment.
And thanks for the link as well, I appreciate that a lot. Someday, I hope to correct the wierd Blogger/Windows error keeping me from adding links and reciprocate with the kind folks like yourself who've added me to their blogroll.s
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