Category Archives: Acting Classes

Acting Class

by Alan Swyer

Acting Classes, Acting Coaches, Actors, Fiction, Film, Musicians, Short Story, Theatre, TV 1

A wannabe actor finds out he’s learning from a beast of a man. 3,130 words. Illustration by Mark Fearing.

 

"I cannot make you an actor," the man often spoken of as King Kahn (but never to his face) told the dozen hopefuls gathered on a Monday morning for his new theater workshop. "I’m a teacher, not God. I can, however, help you learn to think, prepare, and behave like the professional I assume you aspire to be. But that’s if and only if you’re willing to listen, accept criticism, and most importantly do the goddamn work. Understood?"

Feeling like he had somehow crashed the wrong party, Ed Saks watched as his classmates, who ranged in age from their early twenties to a woman in multiple scarves approaching fifty, nodded a bit too vigorously.

"But let me make clear," Kenneth Kahn continued, "that I am not, nor shall I ever be, your psychiatrist, your daddy, or your friend. If we were in New York, I would say if that’s what you’re searching for, go back to Poughkeepsie, Pawtucket, or Passaic. But we’re on the other coast. Where shall I say, Freddie?"

"Oxnard?" offered Kahn’s eager young assistant. "Or maybe Cucamonga?"

"Freddie’s a veritable font of knowledge. Oxnard and Cucamonga indeed."

Upon his arrival before class, Saks felt that he was entering an alternate universe. The other students spoke of Kahn as the successor to Stella, Bobby, Sandy, plus someone called Gadge, all the while referencing their own experiences at Tisch, RADA, and summer stock. It was as though another language was being spoken. That was also true when they cited stars reportedly mentored by King Kahn, plus celebrities male and female with whom he had been linked sexually.

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Firing Forsyth
Part One

by Nat Segaloff

Acting Classes, Acting Coaches, Actors, Directors, Fiction, Film, Film Schools, Producers, Screenwriters, Short Story Leave a comment

A comedy-action star stretches to take on a daringly different dramatic role. 1,705 words. Part Two. Illustration by Thomas Warming.

Brendan Forsyth was a green-light machine. Ever since he shot to stardom opposite Ryan Howson in Gangsters Two, the pair playing two lovable rogues, he had become one of those rare Hollywood commodities popular with both public and critics. He was also smart. He had a social conscience and supported many causes and charities, but he kept a low donor profile. His marriage was stable and the press treated him and his wife, Barbara, with respect. He was selective with interviews.

His ability to choose projects was equally remarkable. He famously passed on the starring role as the ship builder who rescues all the passengers in the disaster picture Sea Doom because it was the builder’s flawed design that put everybody in jeopardy in the first place. Rather, he wanted to play the captain of the rescue liner because that was the only guiltless character in the script. Interestingly, Howson had no qualms playing the ship builder, and the re-teaming scored a box office record.

Forsyth would even take a supporting role if he thought it could help a picture get made. That garnered him a lot of good press, but it also made his fellow actors wary of him. And yet the guy was just so likable that they had to forgive him. What other big star would have played the fireman for barely ten minutes in the children’s movie, Cathy’s Kitten? Because his daughter loved the books, that’s why. Or the voice of a paranoid caller on the TV series Shrink Rap? Because the sitcom was his guilty pleasure, and it set off a trend of celebrity cameos.

So when Forsyth agreed to play the hotly contended role of Dr. Bob Doherty, an alcoholic surgeon who climbs on the wagon to save the U.S. President’s life in the medical thriller Operation Death, it was seen as another daring decision by the iconoclastic star. Producers Adam Hoffman and Charlie Greene were thrilled; Larry Cooper, the retired surgeon who’d written the bestselling novel, was honored; and screenwriter-director Allan Spanner was eager to work with his friend of twenty years dating back to when they were both struggling actors.

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Roommates

by Robert W. Welkos

Acting Classes, Acting Coaches, Actors, Auditions, Fiction, Film, Screenwriters, Short Story, Theatre, TV 1

Three world famous actors started out long ago as NYC roommates struggling to make it. 3,222 words. Illustration by Thomas Warming.

New York City — 1950s

Sheldon Dumar, Bo Daggett and Bill Travers live together in the same New York City apartment 8547D799-C475-4659-B563-17A9A283F8B3building as close to roommates as three straight guys can get, all in their twenties and all focused on finding acting jobs.

Tonight, Sheldon is awakened by a pluk, pluk, pluk noise. What is that, the faucet? Geez, can’t a guy get any sleep around here?

“Shut up.” He covers his ears. “I said, shut up, dammit!” Groggily, he rubs the sleep from his eyes and stares unfocused into the grayish darkness. He has to laugh. How does that TV show go? There are eight million stories in the naked city… and now this is one of them: Bo’s shitty leaky kitchen faucet. Then Sheldon remembers all those lessons drummed into him using the Meisner Technique. Learn to improvise, Sheldon, like Meisner says. A phrase. Respond with intensity. Let your emotions flow. Sheldon glares at the faucet. “Are you pluking with me, faucet? Stop pluking with me!”

Sheldon dips his head and laughs. Always on. Always the actor. But he’s thankful Bo doesn’t kick him out of the apartment. Bo wouldn’t, would he? They’ve been pals since meeting at the Pasadena Playhouse, as unlikely a pair as Wally Cox and Marlon Brando.

Sheldon asked to crash at Bo’s pad while looking for a job in New York. Found one, too. Waiting tables. Don’t we all in this profession until the auditions pay off? Now Sheldon is looking for something off-Broadway or maybe a TV commercial. That would suffice until he gets on his feet financially and can afford his own pad. Until then, Bo says Sheldon can sleep on the kitchen floor. What a pal. Pluk, pluk pluk.

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Ingenue
Part Three

by Sagit Maier-Schwartz

Acting Classes, Actors, Advertising, Agents, Auditions, Child Actors, Fiction, Serialization, TV Leave a comment

The acting career of a 17-year-old Latina takes off. Then her parents interfere. 2,035 words. Part One. Part Two. Part Four. Illustration by Thomas Warming.

The next day, an assistant called me to set up an appointment at the end of the week. On Friday I went to the talent agency in Beverly Hills. When I was shown to Eli’s office, he was on the phone.

“One minute,” he mouthed. He was in his twenties and had a hot nerd vibe going on with hipster eyeglasses. After he hung up, he looked me in the eyes and shook my hand.

“Liz told me great things about you. She said you’ve been in L.A. less than a month and already booked a TV commercial. That’s impressive. Want to know what the batting average for commercial auditions is? One in a hundred. Meaning you’ll land one for every hundred auditions you go on.”

“I guess I didn’t get the memo,” I joked.

“Maybe you should come back after you go on ninety-nine more auditions,” he joked back. “It’ll probably take you longer to land the next one.” He grew serious. “Because I don’t want my team to put time and energy into getting you auditions only to have you bail because it’s not clicking fast enough.”

“I don’t know what Liz told you, but I don’t have a Plan B. This is it.”

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Acting Coach Unrequited

by Juliana Ashe

Acting Classes, Acting Coaches, Actors, Fiction, Film, Short Story, Starlets Leave a comment

A Hollywood acting coach makes a dream offer to an inexperienced young woman. 2,958 words. Illustration by Thomas Warming.

I had no idea who Erwin Eckelson was when I first met him. After I did understand, I was shocked and happy he invited me to participate in a free weekend of acting classes he was offering, Erwin was well-known in Hollywood as an acting coach who’d taught many movie stars over the years. He combined the methodology of both Lee Strasberg and Stella Adler to train over 100,000 students. And in case you were wondering, yes, he’s still alive.

I met Erwin in a way-out-there spiritual class led by a woman who went into deep trances and brought through entities from other realms of life to give pearls of wisdom about life on this planet. My spiritual journey with her changed many of my naive attitudes. Erwin was also into this woo-woo stuff. Who knew?

Not many, because the classes took place in Tucson. There were no actors there. We all sat on chairs and some on cushions around the room. Erwin sat very straight and quietly on a pillow on the floor. Most people got up and told a little about themselves. The very odd thing was they took off their clothes to do it. I did not get the memo. The majority of the attendees were over fifty and I never saw so much flesh pointing south. Erwin did not get naked but he did wear a lovely silk robe that looked just like Hugh Hefner’s.

When I stood up and told my personal story, Erwin noticed me. I was a 5-foot-8 blue-eyed blond 115-pound stick figure at the time. He came over to where I was sitting and said, “You’re so beautiful and such an anomaly. I can’t figure you out. When you speak you have a bit of country twang. You’re like a cross between Grace Kelly and Minnie Pearl.”

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