“With Talent, Comes Responsibility!”
Defining Your Dream
by Grant Kretchik
 My first year of high school I met a brilliant woman named Joan Schneider. She was my first real acting coach and I’ll never forget how she hovered over me and said in her larger than life voice: “With talent, comes responsibility.” I remember her being angry with me from nearly the first minute we met. I suppose I seemed cocky and self-absorbed. The first time I asked her a question she bellowed at me: “Get over yourself, kid. Theater is bigger than the individual.” Lucky for me, her anger turned to love as I did my best to prove that I was willing to accept this “responsibility.” From her, I learned not only to love the hundreds of years of tradition that the theater is, but I also learned about the impression an educator can have on young actors.
My mother wasn’t exactly performing cart-wheels over the notion of a career in the performing arts. She went into labor umpiring a little league game. Years later, I would gravitate toward the dramatic elements of the story of my near birth-behind-home-plate rather then to the game of baseball itself.
When college came, mother and I struck a compromise. I moved to New York masking my theatrical aspirations behind a degree in Communication Studies. After completing my four-year degree I knew more than ever I wanted to be an actor – if I couldn’t, I needed to have theater in my life in some capacity. Having devoted my time and energy to Communication Studies reaffirmed my passion for theater, but it also affirmed the value of education. Surrounded by New York talent left me feeling inadequate, uneducated, and under-trained. I remembered Joan Schneider's words: “With talent, comes responsibility.” Instead of joining the thousands of aspiring actors in the audition line, I decided that anything worth doing is worth learning about first. I applied to graduate school for theater and began three years of intensive training.
There is perhaps no greater place to be as a performing artist than immersed in an acting program. You are given the freedom to examine your boundaries as an artist. You’re in an environment where artistic exploration is encouraged without the pressures of commercial success. You’re working with talented passionate actors, directors and writers. You’re performing some of the greatest dramatic literature ever written. However, when the program is over, you enter the real world where these same luxuries are not lavished upon you. You realize you may never have the opportunity to work in this capacity again. Outside the confines of your artistic haven is a world where artistic creativity has little to do with critical acclaim. Commercial viability vs. artistic integrity is something most artists struggle with. I know I do.
Upon graduation, auditioning became a full time job. I felt unfulfilled, not as a professional, but as an artist. Because of the profound impact educators had on me I discovered academia to be a place where I could be artistic and maintain a role in the business. I wanted to be what Joan Schneider was to me.
As a teacher of the arts, it becomes imperative to express the importance of education and training. I find most of my students arrive in New York City ready to become famous. They haven’t thought much about the classics. They were in a high school production of “A Midsummer Night’s Dream,” and therefore they think they know Shakespeare. They have never even heard of Ibsen or Chekhov.
This is the major challenge and goal I have as an educator: to get them to think realistically about a career with out killing their dream; to encourage their desire to work and explain the importance behind the history. I want them to think like an artist, but never to apologize for making money by doing something they love.
As a Professor at Pace University I cultivate a studio setting where artistic exploration is encouraged, but I advocate a business environment as well. I strive to simulate a professional rehearsal and employ the rules and terms of the Actor’s Equity Association, when appropriate. Then they become familiar with that process.
Often schools discourage or prohibit their students from auditioning while they are training. I understand but disagree with this practice. I find students who are not already in the habit of auditioning find it difficult to make it a habit later. I want students to be out in the professional world and bringing their experiences back to the classroom to use as a vehicle for dialogue regarding the audition process.
It is difficult to teach an artist to be a professional. So much time and energy is spent cultivating creativity and talent – and then what? No one ever prepared me for professional opportunities. I was taught to create the arch of a role and develop a character – but how do I get a job, or more importantly, how do I work in the business while I am looking for a job?
As a teacher, I avoid playing casting director. I am not in the business of taking money and telling actors they'll “work.” Nor am I in the business of taking money and telling people that they should give up. I am, however, in the business of making students aware that if they truly love the theater, hundreds of jobs exist and their degree will aid them. I want students to understand that a degree in theater is useful and vital.
If you love it, and you want to be a part of it, you can. There are careers in this profession: from actor to agent, director to playwright, stage manager to house manager, and teacher to technician. I'm not suggesting that actors give up on the dream of performing all together, but I am suggesting that students of the arts redefine what the dream can mean. For me, any job in the theater is better then one that's not, and that's what I ask students to consider.
What am I now, a performer or a teacher? At this point in my career, I am not able to separate the two. They both play into each other brilliantly. Teaching makes me a better performer, it keeps me aware, keeps me reading, keeps me using my skills. Performing makes me a better teacher, how could it not? Moreover, auditioning gives me more material for my class – I can share stories with my students about the business as it currently is, compare it to how it was and together we can imagine what it will be like in the future. That is precisely what our “responsibility” is: to continue this tradition as artist, as professionals. •2007
Written exclusively for “The Soul of the American Actor.”
GRANT KRETCHIK Guest Lecturer at Pace University, Off-Broadway with The Globe Theatre, he has appeared in O'Casey’s “I Knock at the Door” and Pictures in the Hallway;” Goldoni's “The Servant of Two Masters;” and an adaptation of Hawthorne’s “The Scarlet Letter.
|
|
