Dedicated To The Craft podcast

Grounding & Honest Perspective

It's time to get struck! … this is the Electric Secrets Variety Podcast.

Demystifying the theater profession, offering a foundation for creative life, and reinvestment

in the creative process. This is Dedicated to the Craft.

I'm Scott Leon Smith, and I'm your host.



Let's flip the script.

Hello everybody. Welcome to the inaugural episode of Dedicated to the Craft. I'm excited to talk to you about acting and directing and to share my knowledge and my experience with you. But here's the thing, you do not have to be an actor or a director or a theater professional or even consider yourself a creative person … if you have an interest in expanding your creative life, you can use these philosophies in any part of your life, at your job, with your family.

Acting is the study of humanity, our struggles, what we want, what's in our way, and the truth that comes out of those struggles. So, those things are useful anywhere.

My main hope is that you return to this podcast to get some grounding and honest perspective and that you can use my perspective however you need to, to provide some growth or clarity to your creative self.

My goal is your empowerment, however, you see yourself as a creative person, which I believe we all are. It's just part of being a human being.

Talking about this stuff is how I stay grounded and grow in my artistic life, and I will always encourage my students to reflect on what they've learned by talking about it in a social setting, going to a café, or a restaurant, or just sitting around somebody's apartment or somebody's home, just talking about the craft and talking about a role that you're working on or a role that you've always wanted to play. Make the craft part of your socialization with other artists and other people who are practicing a craft. 

I believe this helps solidify the craft as a foundation for your creative life.

Now, the one thing I will never do, consciously anyway, is throw a bunch of creative dogma at you. I do not believe that there is any right way to do something. I believe you do what works in the context of collaboration. We all have different levels of education, experience, and different schools of thought that we may come from in terms of the philosophy of performance, but in the end, this group of people has to produce something that's going to make sense to the audience. And because everyone's coming from a different place, we individually have to be wary of those absolutes that we've been taught.

Yes, there are certain things about theater etiquette that theater people need to follow in terms of professionalism. But within the creative process, we've got to be dedicated to possibilities.

That's what being dedicated to the craft is. Not clinging on to the absolutes of what you've been taught or what people have told you, but the possibility of creating the character that you have to play.

Now, I'm going to be very specific and very passionate about the topics that we cover in this series. I have a very clear, strong point of view. But remember, I'm not trying to convert you to any absolute philosophy about the craft. I'm going to talk about Stanislavski and Meisner and other theorists of acting and theater, but I'm going to discipline myself to just put their ideas out there, give you my interpretation, and you can use that for whatever you want. Or not at all.

What's the familiar caveat? Your views and experiences may differ. Hey, I know that, and that's okay. But I would hope you would give my point of view its due consideration.

Now, the main reason I want my students to focus on possibilities rather than absolutes is because collaborating to put on a play is the work of imagination. The playwright imagined this story, the playwright imagined these characters. The director is imagining maybe a concept for the play, how it's going to be presented, and how they're going to communicate with the designers and the actors, overseeing this whole process.

The designers then imagine the look of the show and the look of the costumes. And then the actors are also using their imaginations to develop their characters in rehearsal. So my argument is with all of these imaginations working at once, why bring absolutes into that process? Because if you do that, you're limiting everyone's imagination.

Yes, there is context to the play. The playwright has a voice, and you want to be faithful to that voice and faithful to the context. But faithfulness to the material is not an absolute thing. It is subject to interpretation and imagination. And if you block imagination, especially for the actors, you're going to end up with something that basically has no life to it. That doesn't have a feeling of spontaneity, like it's happening in front of the audience, in the moment.

So my philosophies and my point of view toward the craft are rooted in possibilities rather than absolutes. And I think that's a trap that a lot of artists fall into, that there's only one way to do something. You have to be open to new ways of doing things, and never rest on the same process of preparation that you used for the last project you were a part of.

You have to come at everything fresh and reinvest in your individual process. 

You are listening to Dedicated to the Craft, part of the Electric Secrets Variety Podcast.

Be sure to check out our other segments, BizVox for small businesses, and the forthcoming The Unforgettable Voice, focused on vocal performance and the iconic voices that shape our lives.

Now, back to the show.

So here's where I'm coming from. It's been around 25 years since I first started working professionally. My first job, where I got paid, was playing a pirate in Peter Pan. I gave up my Christmas break at graduate school. I did two shows a day for two weeks. I think we had one day off between the weeks. And I made $90 for the whole thing. And that was my first lesson in the economics of being an actor.

But I could have made nothing. Artists are often paid with opportunity and experience.

Something that's valuable to their profession and to their craft, but it doesn't pay the bills.

And the economics of being an artist will help you learn the value of relying on your craft. Because sometimes your craft is all you have. The business is feast or famine. You struggle and struggle and struggle and audition and audition and audition to get those first few jobs.

And then the work starts happening more often. You start getting more jobs. And then all of a sudden the work dries up. And you're left in your studio apartment going, what happened to all the work? I thought people loved me. And it's a recipe for depression and self-doubt and all of those things. If you hone your craft, it will help you through those difficult, rocky times of being an artist.

And you know what? Even with all of the self-knowledge that you gain and all of the sacrifices that you make in your life to be an artist. At least, from my standpoint and my experience, you still end up a self-doubting, neurotic, anxious, socially inept person. And I think you should be okay with that. Because that means you're sensitive and you can't be a good actor and ignore your sensory input. That's what helps you create compelling and believable characters. Sensitivity.

And we'll talk about that in the series.

Now I'm going to hit you with a bit of a paradox. Even with sensitivity and possibility as a part of our process, we do have to have an ethic, which implies restriction, right? And part of the ethic is theater etiquette, knowing how to behave in rehearsal and behave toward your fellow collaborators and to the designers and to everyone who's running the show. That is a separate professional ethic.

The ethic that I'm referring to is the one that engages, sustains, and supports the work of your imagination. The ethic that helps you leave real life outside the theater and allows you to focus on the creation of your character.

Remember, actors speak for people who have no voice. And I'm not just talking in terms of social voice or political voice. We speak for characters, imaginary people, people that have been created to take part in a fictional struggle that's going to show some truth about life.

And that's the paradox.

We want to be free enough to engage in possibilities and keep ourselves from thinking in terms of absolutes. But at the same time, we want to follow an individual ethic of creativity that helps you breathe life into your character.

Okay, a little bit about where I'm coming from educationally. I have a Master's of Fine Arts in acting, but I do not consider myself a Master of the Craft.

I think the Craft itself is one of the best examples of lifelong learning that you could ever find.

Now, an MFA is the highest degree you can attain as an actor, and it basically means that you can teach acting at a college level. And we all know how many of those jobs are available.

Being an MFA does not help you get more work, it does not make you more attractive to agents, it does not give you special consideration at auditions. The way you get work, in essence, is the audition.

And this reminds me of an apocryphal story told by Robin Williams, I believe, when he was on Inside the Actors Studio. He talked about winning his Academy Award for Goodwill Hunting as Best Supporting Actor. He talked about the whole experience of going up and receiving the award, and he emphasized that a week after the ceremony, he was just another actor.

He was the toast of the town for about a week, and then he had to go back to the grind. Now, Robin Williams is considered an icon, and there are plenty of other actors that are considered icons of the profession. But there are not many of them who have attained a status where they can come out of their house once a year and do a movie and have it be a blockbuster and go back home and wait for the next offer.

And that's part of the acting craft as well, not resting on your laurels. Validation by award is nice, but it shouldn't feed your ego, because that makes you complacent and lazy in the craft of creating a character.

So, there is no mastering that craft the way a carpenter masters their craft. There is no right tool for the job. There may be exacting specifications depending on the complexity of the play. Tennessee Williams comes to mind, Oscar Wilde. But if you rest on the fact that you've received accolades, you're doing a disservice to yourself and the people you're collaborating with. And I think you can even argue that mastery of anything is impossible, since any person of craft needs to keep up with its trends, its demands, its innovations, which are constantly changing it for better and worse.

Actors and directors on top of all that have to deal with the expectations of different producers, different venues, different audiences. And on top of that, because of YouTube and social media, anyone and everyone is a performer. 

So there really is no such thing as mastery, but there is still the ethic of craft. No matter what changes, no matter what opportunities go away and what new ones come up. If you have that ethic of craft, it can help you keep going through that stuff.

So how do you go about having an ethic of craft? Well, start with this useful philosophical triad.

Your craft should be flexible, adaptable, and generous.

Now you're probably saying Scott, flexible and adaptable are pretty much the same thing. And you are absolutely right. They are very, very similar. I think the difference lies in their focus.

Flexibility, the focus is on yourself. Adaptability, the focus is on your collaborators.

So when you're being flexible, you are not resting on your laurels and your accolades. You are not expecting every single attempt you make to be perfect. You're open to the possibilities of performance. You're not marrying yourself to one absolute interpretation.

So here's another paradox.

Flexibility is about self-discipline. And that includes curiosity, being willing to improvise, and being able to handle constructive criticism. Being adaptable is about your collaborators.

The actors you're sharing the stage with, the director, the designers, the stage manager, the crew. This is where craft meets professionalism. This discipline includes being able to take direction, being open to the processes of your castmates, and being ready for every rehearsal.

There is no greater frustration than collaborating with someone who is habitually unprepared. 

So flexibility, focus on yourself, adaptability, focused on your collaborators.

Being generous. I like to say being generous of spirit, showing your collaborators that you are reliable, giving as much of yourself as possible, but still setting boundaries for yourself. Remember, you choose your level of generosity. And that's difficult for some actors because a lot of actors are introverted. They don't socialize a whole lot, but they give of themselves in rehearsal. Every time that scene starts, they're giving as much of themselves as possible.

They're not holding anything back. And that takes practice, that takes discipline, that takes a reliance and dedication to craft.

And when you get a production full of people that are generous of spirit, that production can't help but be great. Because it fosters camaraderie and trust. And for my money, you can't have a really good piece of collaborative art without the collaborators trusting each other.

So throughout this series, that's what we're going to keep coming back to. This idea of flexibility, adaptability, and generosity of spirit.

Next time on Dedicated to the Craft, I will debunk the myths behind that age-old acting cliche.

What's my motivation? What's my motivation?

No motivations. Only objectives and obstacles. Next time on dedicated to the craft.

I've thrown a lot of ideas at you, but fear not, every episode of this podcast is going to focus on something very specific. Some episodes will focus on a concept from acting theory. Some will focus on a particular role. Some will focus on practical acting techniques. We'll also have episodes that focus on directing, on conceptualization, on working with actors, about being a good communicator as a director. And as I'm working on different projects, I will share with you what's happening in my rehearsal process. So you can get some practical illustrations of the concepts and get some strategies on how you can reflect on your own process.

And remember, this is about your own empowerment as an artist. So if there's something you would like me to address in the podcast, I will do my best to make a place for it in an episode. And the best way to make those suggestions is to send an email to my production company. So the address is info@monstervoxproductions.com.

Thank you so much for listening to the inaugural episode. I hope you enjoyed it. I hope you're curious to learn more. And I hope you'll come back for the next episode.

Until then, I'm Scott. Stay dedicated and I'll see you next time.

This has been Dedicated to the Craft. Be sure to check out my other podcasts for performance and creative life. Look for those at https://www.monstervoxproductions.com/.

Disclaimer

This podcast is for informational purposes only and should not be considered legal advice or endorsement of its participants nor of any companies or persons discussed therein. MonsterVox Productions is not responsible for any losses, damage, or liabilities that may arise from the use of information contained in this podcast. The views expressed in this podcast are those of its participants and may not be those of any podcasting platform or hosting service utilized in its distribution. 

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