A mega-animated "Thank you!" to Angie Jones, Farzad Varahramyan, Christophe Chaverou, Sherry McKenna, Gerilyn Wilhelm and especially Lorne Lanning at Oddworld Inhabitants in San Luis Obispo for hosting my Acting for Animators class on March 16th. We were still going strong when the clock ran out! I had a wonderful time, folks. Thanks, thanks and thanks again.

Thanks to John Angell Grant for the terrific article he wrote about my Palo Alto acting classes for the March 22nd Palo Alto Daily News.

HOOKS STUDENTS WORKING
BRUCE THOMPSON (scene study & f/tv- '96-'97) won the Bay Area Theatre Critics Circle Award for Best Male Performance in a Musical for "Brimstone", which ran at Willows Theatre, Concord last year. He flew in from Seattle where he is appearing in the national company of "Titanic", to accept the award. HEATHER PLAKKE (scene study- current) shot an independent film entitled "Nobody Sleeps." LEE FLORES (all classes - '93-'95) recorded a radio spot with Cheech Marin ("Nash Bridges"), for Taco Cabana in Texas. JEFFREY DEAN (f/tv - '99) landed roles in two independent films, "My Date With Alison" and "Ash Wednesday." PHIL SHERIDAN (comml & f/tv - '97) did the voice of an old geezer for an upcoming America West Airlines TV ad. He also plays a pathetically sick hospital patient in a pharmaceutical co. training video. (I've heard of being type cast, Phil, but good grief!) APARNA MALADI (scene study '98) has been cast as Aunt Ev in a production of "The Miracle Worker" at 'This Side of the Hill Players' in Half Moon Bay. ANNIESCOTT (yes, her name does not have a space in it) ROGERS (scene study - '95-'96) booked an industrial video through Tonry Talent for Sun Microsystems. JIMMY FREEMAN (scene study - current) will be portraying Don in a production of "Butterflies Are Free" at Stage 1 Repertory Theatre in Newark, Ca., May 28th - June 19th. MELISSA BAER (scene study - '96-'98) will star in "The Search for Signs of Intelligent Life in the Universe!" at the Dublin Theatre Company in Dublin, Ca., April 30th- May 16th.

It's not acting, but it's not bad.....BILL IAMMATTEO (scene study '92-94), after working hard for Hewlett Packard in Milan, Italy for three years, has convinced the company to send him to another hardship location -- Paris! From Chianti to Chablis. It's a dirty job, but somebody's got to do it, right, Bill? Caio!

"Extra! Extra! Read All About It....and Congrats!"...... Kurt (scene study '98) and Kathy Kroesche are proud to announce their finest production to date: Clare Cameron Kroesche. Clare made her debut on March 30, 3:45am, weighing in at 6 lbs. 13 oz. Refusing to be typecast as "the latest blond Kroesche", Clare came into the world with a full, beautiful head of dark brown hair! Even though the two producers suffer from massive sleep deprivation, they are energized and awed by their alert, bright, and beautiful baby.

Hmmmmm.....Egypt's top cleric, Grand Mufti Sheik Nasr Farid Wasel, has reportedly ruled that belly dancers and actresses should not perform haji, the annual Muslim pilgrimage, unless they quit show business. He says that money earned by public performance is illicit in Islam and should not be used to perform religious duties.

CHARLIE CHAPLIN

One of the best acting classes you will ever have is watching Charlie Chaplin movies. Pop some corn, prop up your feet and enjoy! In particular, I recommend to actors and animators alike a close viewing of "Gold Rush", "City Lights", "Modern Times" and "The Kid."

Charlie Chaplin brought empathy to comedy. Before Chaplin, comedy in films was of the Keystone Kops variety, car chases, people bumping into trees, slipping on banana peels, prat falls. Chaplin came along and slipped on the same banana peels -- but he was EMBARRASSED by it! He went beyond trying to be pie-in-the-face funny and found the humanity behind the comedy. The man was pure genius.

Charlie Chaplin was conceptual about making empathic acting choices even though he never used the word. (Actually, the word "empathy" wasn't coined until the mid-1920's). He realized he was working in a silent-film medium, and he wanted his comedy to resonate everywhere in the world. To accomplish that, he was always asking himself what behavior was true of all humans, regardless of culture, regardless of language. He figured out that we all act to survive, which is the cornerstone of empathic acting.

Consider the universal appeal of the famous shoe-eating sequence in "Gold Rush"(1925). Near starvation in the cold Alaskan gold mining country, Charlie cooks up one of his shoes for dinner, to the amazement of his dangerously ravenous cabin mate. He lovingly bastes the shoe, turning it this way and that over the fire, until it is just tender enough, and then he serves it on a platter just like a Thanksgiving turkey. Not once, not even for a fleeting second, will you catch him playing for a cheap laugh. What makes the scene work is the fact of his hunger and him striving to make the best of a bad situation. We all act to survive, all make the best of a bad situation. We can relate! By the way, this sequence was inspired by the real life tragedy of the Donner party, about which Charlie had been reading as he went into production for "Gold Rush."

Watch Charlie Chaplin movies as if they were made last year, not sixty or seventy years ago. There were no trade unions back then, so he could spend as long on every scene as he wanted to. Some sequences took many weeks to complete. No matter how casual and accidental a moment may seem in a Chaplin movie, you can count on it that he did it on purpose. Pass the popcorn, please.

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