HOOKS LAUNCHES A NEW NEWSLETTER
I will soon begin publishing a new monthly newsletter, ED HOOKS: ON TOPIC. It will be devoted to broad-brush cultural and non-theatrical current events. It will touch on politics, world affairs and philosophy, the kinds of subjects that are not appropriate for my theatrical newsletters. You are invited to subscribe for free. Simply send me an e-mail and ask to be included. Specify ED HOOKS: ON TOPIC.

HOOKS ACTORS WORKING
Congrats to JAXY BOYD (all classes '94-'96) who has been elected to a two year term as President of the San Francisco branch of Screen Actors Guild. She also shot a Keepsake Jewelry industrial, and her commercial for Wellbutrin is back on the air for another 21-month period. JOSEPHINE DEJESUS (s.stdy-current) appeared last month in Chemically Imbalanced Comedy Theater's improv show "Steveco" at Frankie J's on Broadway in Chicago. SHIRLEY SMALLWOOD (f/tv & comml-'00), a member of Many Rivers Theater in Berkeley is working on a video documentary of her 81 year old father. She hopes to have it included in the Smithsonian Institution on Oral History. MIA PASCHAL (all classes '96-'97) is appearing in "A Loud Little Handful". T.J. PIERCE (all classes - '99-'00) plays Joe (the lead role) in MET's production of William Saroyan's Pulitzer-winning play, THE TIME OF YOUR LIFE, at THE NEXT STAGE, 1620 Gough Street (at Bush), San Francisco. There will be a FREE PREVIEW (!) Thursday, Nov. 14 at 8 pm. For more information on the show: http://www.wehavemet.org/performance_schedule.html#Fall,%202002.

CHICAGO CLASS SCHEDULE

ONGOING SCENE STUDY
We have two classes of scene study, which is where we work on acting as an art form. Monday night or Wednesday night, 7-10:30. On-going, start at any time, free audit, 16-week commitment.

COMMERCIALS WORKSHOP NOV. 2-3
Excellent and fun on-camera class for anybody that wants to get into commercials or to improve her batting averages. 9-4 Saturday and 10-5 Sunday. $250 ($175 for current scene study students)

FILM DEMO WORKSHOP STARTS JANUARY 14TH
Tuesday nights, 7-10:30, four-week session, work on your own demo scene. Shoot and edit digital video. $250

PRIVATE COACHING
Hooks is generally available for coaching, $75 per hour.

CRAFT NOTES
"Acting is Doing"

Every acting teacher worth his or her salt instructs early on that "acting is doing." This certainly sounds simple and straightforward enough, but I'll wager that these three words cause more confusion and frustration than any other in the new actor's lexicon.

Theatrical "doing" is not the same thing as regular walk-around-the-neighborhood "doing". Theatrical doing is significant, compressed in time and space and in pursuit of an objective. Theatrical reality is not the same thing as regular reality. Regular reality is what you get at the grocery store or local trattoria and it has zero theatrical currency. Stanislavsky pointed out that when you act you play an action in pursuit of an objective while overcoming an obstacle. The playing of the action is the "doing". If you stand on stage trying to convince the audience that you are experiencing emotion, then what you are "doing" is indicating. Face acting. And that is an acting error.

Occasionally in one of my scene study workshops, an actor will present a scene in which she is struggling to remember her lines. In such an event, what she is, in reality, "doing" is trying to remember her lines. She is doing that while she simultaneously tries to trick the audience into believing that she is in pursuit of a theatrical objective. But audiences are very smart. They see what you are doing and it is unwise to condescend to them in this fashion.

The "doing" in acting is as concrete an activity as the hammering of a nail into the wall or the changing of a tire. It is physical and active and it has a purpose. Actors are not novelists. They do not describe action; they actually "do" the action. It isn't enough to analyze an action or to know in your head what you should be doing if you are not going to actually "do" it. Acting happens in the fleeting and present moment. This is one of the distinguishing characteristics of the art form in fact.

To further cause frustration for a new actor, the dialogue in a script does not always make it clear what a character is "doing", and it may even purposely mislead. A character might be talking about the weather with the postman when he is in fact planning a bank robbery. He might appear to be hanging out in a clearing when he is in fact busily waiting for Godot. Remove Godot from the equation and you have something boring theatrically. Hamlet instructs the players on the points of fine acting not because he is an enthusiast for acting as an art form but because he is setting a trap.

It is worth mentioning, too, that stage "business" should not be confused with "action". I saw an actor on stage last week pouring himself a drink of whisky. I asked him afterward why he did that, and he didn't have a reason other than it was drink time. I explained that drinking whiskey in the context of his particular scene could be justified as an attempt to calm his nerves. He was pouring the drink so as to look busy. It was a counterfeit action. He was pitching and filling on stage rather than playing an action in pursuit of an objective.