Quotes

Many, many, many American teachers of the fine art of acting are, in my opinion, "generalists," regurgitating the Method in various guises, and fancy reputations of particular teachers and/or schools can be very misleading and a waste of time and money. If an individual or a school either doesn't encourage you or shine such a bright light of wisdom to guide your path, you really are wasting your time. To the young actor I say either hitch your wagon to a nourisher OR a person who is so bright you just have to keep staying on your toes to catch even the slightest whiff of his/her brilliance; the brilliant teachers are very far and few between! My teacher Mira Rostova (Montgomery Clift's teacher) was one of the "brilliants" and Norman Ayrton at LAMDA was another. My nourishers have included Stanley Gould (I)', Marie Donet, and Jacques Burdick (all at Adelphi University back in l966-67 when the theatre itself was in an old dilapidated but cozy quonset hut, but the whole department had energy and love) - also Martin Landau at The Actors Studio. Bottomline, it all depends how you get along with your teachers and how much they believe in you; on the other hand, if you happen to be under the tutelage of a far-and-few- between-genius, that is a thing of total beauty as long as you don't expect much coddling. Finally, it's better to be in a Kia Rio with gas than in a Mercedes on empty; so don't be enamored of the fancy reputation of a school or an individual, and should you wake up and find you're with neither a nourisher or a "brilliant," leave immediately and keep looking.

I truly believe that MFA and BFA programs should have their version of the Dale Carnegie Course for actors in their programs. Talent is talent and business is business, and many actors don't necessarily have the most well developed social skills. Thank God that a number of drama programs are now incorporating "the business of acting" into their curriculum.