A selfish profession

I am referring here to acting. Now before I get people mad at me, let me just say that I'm not trying to say acting is evil. That's not it at all. I mean, I love the theater, and I've done a bit of acting in my life. What I am trying to say is that acting is all about appearances. That makes it selfish. As an actor, you're constantly worrying about how you came across, how you sounded, and how you looked.

Think about auditions. You generally don't go into an audition thinking, 'Wow, that girl who auditioned for the same part as I did is really good. I hope she gets the part of Laurie!' No. Usually you are thinking, 'I hope I sing my best and do my cold read the best so I can get the part of Laurie.' Is there anything wrong with this? We need to decide where to draw the line. You, as an actor, need to decide just how diva-esque you are going to be.

If you're going to make it as an actor, you need to be a little selfish. No one is going to cast someone who doesn't care how they come across, how they read their lines, or how they sing. When you go to auditions, you can't just give your part away to other people because you are being unselfish. Perhaps this shouldn't be called selfish, but it kinda is.

Sometimes, actors start getting so selfish that they will do anything for that solo or that monologue, or do anything to have more lines because they are the best. This is when selfish starts getting too selfish. So it's up to us. Where will we as a theater community draw the line?

The other night my grandpa was hurt because of a selfish actor. During one of their shows, Tony was trying so hard to act distraught about Maria's death that he was shaking poor old Doc more violently than he should have. My grandpa fell down because of that. Despite frequent pleas to shake him softly, Tony forgot about the person who he was playing opposite and became too immersed in his own character. (By the way, I'm being selfish about acting right now because I'm mad at Tony for hurting my grandpa.)

In this same production, an audience member's nice leather cowboy hat and coat were ruined because the actors wanted to come across as real as possible, so they used fake blood. Unfortunately, it got out of hand and into the audience. That man was so mad!

So, acting is selfish. But it can be two different kinds of selfish: selfish for the benefit of the show itself, or selfish for the benefit of one's self.