I won a best actor award for the first play in which I played a lead role. It was a two-person play performed at a state-wide drama conference. I was 16 years old.

 

There are several reasons I mention this, and why it is relevant to my work as a transformational acting coach. And why you may (or may not) choose to work with me.

 

While a first-time out-of-the-gate win may sound impressive, what is most relevant to the story is when they called my name as the winner, I felt unworthy. Yet, truth be told, had I NOT won I would have felt like an utter failure.

 

There is MORE to the story….

 

I performed the same play again back home and later that year they gave out awards for all the shows produced in town that year.

 

I did NOT win for best actor. My CO-LEAD did. It was for a different play she had been in, but still I was devastated. To be more accurate, livid. Did they not KNOW what the STATE judges thought?

 

These feelings of vehement injustice made no sense, of course, given I had felt completely unworthy of the award I had won at state, but that did not matter. If I didn't win, I was a failure. If I was a failure ... well, why LIVE?

 

I was "good." With very little training I was called a "very good actor,” but my obsession with being good kept me from the thing that makes a good actor GREAT ... TRUTH.

 

I was "good" for quite awhile, all the way to and through theatre school and beyond. 

 

Then I went somewhere where many people were good and EVERYONE wanted to win ... seemingly even more than I did. But that's a much longer story for another time. 

 

The important part is this... 

 

The reason I was good at all the VERY FIRST TIME I ever "acted" was because I was not concerned with being good. I was simply telling the truth. 

 

Somewhere, way back, before I began competing, before I felt like I had to be picked, before I had to win, I was just a kid telling a story. A truthteller. People laughed or were moved by my sensitivity. I told the truth in a simple real way ... I was my goofy and/or empathetic self ... or I made up some silly character that felt completely real to me and someone caught me doing it, but I wasn't trying to be good at it. 

 

They just wanted to watch me because I was being Who I Truly Am. Truthful. 

 

Then I starting trying to be good and forgot the joy, believing that I, the truthteller, was not enough.

 

I needed to prove I was enough.

 

Of course, good acting requires a certain amount of technique, but TRUTHFUL acting is transformative. It is joyful. It is something you don't really have to learn, only re-member. It is putting together your True Self again, and then using that self in every character ... every time you act. Doesn't that sound easier?

 

I did,  and I'm really damn good at helping other actors do it too if they truly want to. 

 

(And if you already know what I'm talking about, I'd love the opportunity to assist you in continuing your Truthful Actor journey. )

So send me an email if you want to have a mini-coaching and remember again Who You Truly Are... The Truth is in you.