Talent-challenged teachers
Talent has never been my problem; check out my monologue page, or my resume, or my audio plays, or my film reel. Before leaving The Bristol Old Vic Theatre School, Peter O’Toole wrote me a short note, no other student got. Check out my workshop page; I can most certainly teach. Ask the 1000 actors I coached over the years. I have known better actors, of course, but not better teachers, and I have been blessed to learn from the best. So this website is to teach teachers, who take my resources with NEVER a thank-you or a payment, and then claim success for the great students and their own natural gifts. I have been in many groups of you, and you are all wannabe actors. I encourage you, of course because that is my profession - TO FIX THE SHAKESPEARE PROBLEM THAT HAS EXISTED THROUGH MY ENTIRE LIFE. 98% of kids hate him. The 2% that loved him had a teacher that could either act Shakespeare well, or instruct the class how to do it. Now I have produced the tools, not translations, not pontification, distilled (I like to say vacuumed) versions of 12 popular Shakespearean plays to practice out loud. As Dogberry says, “Gifts that god gives.” If you want to challenge me, let’s do a speech! Or, if you insist on being some cell-phone bore or gamer, go do it in the hall.
The fact is, this ability to condense information in as few spoken words as possible, to persuade oneself, or others, to action, is our most important survival tool. Listen to how Donald Trump does it. He demands an accepted, nay revered, stupidity. It would be difficult to not join one of his crowds, they’d bully you forwards.
WE are going to imagine a brighter audience! We are going to use more precise, interesting words! If you, teachers, are a bit boring, or safe, or predictable, you are going to have to challenge yourself in front of your students. Check out any of my monologues; they all demand emotions, that cost to produce. If you can’t at least try to produce some, will not lay yourself open to the judgement of an audience, teach something else! You have also got to learn to spot, and encourage talent, when it pops up in your class. Doing workshops I have found several bookish girls at the back of classrooms, who with their courage and gifts, and my direction, have produced enchanting Juliet-readings. On some occasions they have been so good, I know their social standing in the class has changed forever. Wonderfully imaginative girls just waiting to express themselves! Teachers, expect lots of students to have more natural performance-talent than you. I blame my mother for mine. Unearth them by first putting your own ass on the line, then demand that others try, encourage them, they will then hopefully inspire others, etc. Sometimes I have kids refine a bit through 5 or 6 attempts. When we get it sounding right, they own it. All want to try it. Use your ears, use your vocabulary, demand that suggestions or readings always be supported through the text. DO YOUR HOMEWORK. Then, exhaust yourself PLAYING with them!
Kids need courage to succeed at SOL. SO DO YOU!
You might not be the best actor; acknowledge that! Work on your own game!