Acting Naturally

Richard's Writings > Acting Naturally > Summer Odds and Ends

Synopsis of Summer Odds and Ends

I try to bring a well-rounded sense of what it is like to be an actor, including the way actors obsess from the sidelines while others do their work on the stage. One thing leads to another, and from a stage play I often found myself fielding offers to do different kinds of acting work. All this is before the era of You Tube, remember. I am sure my old cronies are now producing their own videos.

Excerpt from Summer Odds and Ends

There was time for some small work during the summer off, after Pride and Prejudice closed in June. Jim S., who played Mr. Collins, had a friend who was making a video that he hoped to air on cable television. It was a series of comedy skits, similar to Saturday Night Live. I was asked to play the father in one of the skits - the father of a family of serial killers ("Daddy, I'm tired of killing my boyfriends, and my school can barely field a team for football now . . ."). Pretty corny, but fun. It took all day to shoot the ten-minute skit, doing each portion of the scene over and over again while the camera captured each character from different angles.

I took a series of improvisation classes that were offered for free on Saturday mornings at the Actors Theatre. Richard S. bought a gritty two-person script called Chinese Coffee which he intends to produce, and we did a read-through together; it would be fun to do a small, very realistic drama for a change of pace.

 

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