Ed Hooks' Monthly Newsletter
Mid-August 2001
Until next month...Be Safe!
FINAL SF COMMERCIALS WORKSHOP!
Because the August 25-26 weekend commercials workshop has filled, I have decided to offer a special Wednesday evening commercials workshop. It will meet in my SF studio on August 22nd and 29th, 7-10:30. The tuition is $125 total. This will be our last opportunity to work together in a commercials workshop in San Francisco, and I hope you can make it. Send me an e-mail at
edhooks@best.com so I can get you on the list.

HOOKS IS STILL AVAILABLE FOR PRIVATE COACHING IN SAN FRANCISCO...
I can fit in some coaching sessions between now and the time I depart for Chicago on September 1st. We can work on whatever you want -- career strategies, monologue presentation, cold-reading. Either in San Francisco or Palo Alto. $75 per hour.

LOOKING FOR ANOTHER SF ACTING TEACHER?
Since I am moving to Chicago, many Bay Area actors have been asking for my advice and opinion regarding other possible teachers. I have prepared a paper on this subject and will e-mail it to you upon request.

I NEED TWO STRONG MEN
... to help load the acting studio stuff onto the moving truck September 1st (Saturday). Mid-afternoon, 70 Oak Street. $20/hour plus all the pizza you can eat. I'd appreciate it.

A PERSONAL NOTE FOR MY SAN FRANCISCO FRIENDS AND STUDENTS...
I am a very fortunate man for having had the opportunity to know and work with you for these past twelve years. I deeply appreciate the trust and respect you have given me as well as your clear dedication to the art and craft of acting. You have honored me by letting me know that what I say matters to you, and you have been my professional family.

We never have to be out of touch. I will still be available to you and will always welcome your voice and smiling face. I want to hear about it when you book a job or when you need a shoulder. I will
continue to write the monthly Hooks Newsletter and expect you to keep telling me about your successes. Regardless of where I am living in the world, I will help you spread the word as you rise from gig to gig and make your mark on show biz. And of course if you get to Chicago, you know where you can find eager conversation and maybe a glass of wine.

With profound affection, I thank you once again for being such an important part of my life. Don't be a stranger, okay?

A PERSONAL NOTE FOR MY NEW CHICAGO FRIENDS AND STUDENTS ....
When I lived in New York in the late 60's and early 70's, my usually-broke actor-friends and I used to "second-act" the Broadway shows. We'd take the IRT or 104 bus to Broadway's Great White Way and, because we couldn't afford to purchase full price tickets at the box office, we'd mingle with the crowds during intermission and then simply follow them back into the theatre and find empty seats. We saw the second acts of many wonderful shows (and some turkeys) that way, and I think of it now as a valuable, if edgy, part of our acting education.

The curtain is just going up on the second act of Chicago's historic and famous theatre scene, and I am eager to find a seat. Eighth row, on the aisle, please. The world justifiably applauds Chicago actors and theatres, and your great city has become a magnet for talent as well as a feeder to Hollywood and New York. There is something you have that those cities do not. Chicago acting is, by all accounts, about the work. And so am I. I think it will be a good fit. I will be a permanent resident by September 8th. I am looking forward to meeting and working with you! Give me a call, or
drop by the new Lakeview studio. The address is 2908 N. Broadway, near the corner of Oakdale.

CHICAGO CLASS SCHEDULE

SCENE STUDY
September 17th. Monday nights, 7-10:30. Tuition is $135 per 4-week month, 16-week minimum commitment. After that, you can attend on a month-to-month. The first class on September 17th will be organizational. We'll talk about acting theory, maybe do some improvs. My aim is to assemble a small group of serious actors who want to begin work with me.

Film Demo Workshop
September 25th. Nine-week class, tuition is $600. In this workshop, you will shoot and edit scenes on digital video. At the end of the nine weeks, you'll walk away with two scenes, transferred to VHS, for presentation to the industry. This is a most unusual workshop, and it is appropriate for experienced stage actors who want to work on the differences between acting on stage and acting in movies and TV. Limited to ten actors.

COMMERCIALS WORKSHOP
September 29-30. Saturday 9-4 and Sunday 10-5. Tuition is $250. This is the only class I teach on weekends. It is a fun, high energy and very practical on-camera workshop. As a special bonus, since this is my first commercials workshop in Chicago, I will give each student an autographed copy of my book, "The Audition Book (Winning Strategies for Breaking into Theatre, Film and TV)", which has recently been published in a revised third edition. This book is a required text at the NYU Tisch School of Drama.

PRIVATE COACHING -- $75 per hour.

CURIOUS ABOUT CHICAGO'S ENTERTAINMENT INDUSTRY AND LIFESTYLE?
These are some of the links I have accumulated while doing my own personal research on Chicago.

HOOKS ACTORS WORKING
AMY WATT (s.stdy - '97) is in LA, appearing at the Open Fist Theatre Company in Joe Orton's play "Funeral Games". JEFF DE LUCIO-BROCK (all classes - '98-'00) has been cast as a WWII soldier at the site of the first atomic bomb test, in the sci-fi short "Trinity". KATHRYN DE YOUNG (comml - '95) will appear in "Communicating Doors" by Alan Ayckbourn at The Pleasanton Playhouse, opening mid- September. NICOLE DOHERTY (comml - '00), newly represented by Tonry Talent got cast in a new Internet TV Series called "PC187: The Death of the Dot Commer." ANDREA MICHAELS (all classes- current) also appears in the production. SUSAN GARD (s.stdy - current) plays a bounty hunter in an alternate universe (originally intended for a man) in the indie film "Cowboys" being produced by Spiral Films in Berkeley. JOSEPHINE DE JESUS (all classes - current) is in "Testimony to a Massacre". GLEN MICHELETTI (comml-'97) is in "Merrily We Roll Along" at Willows Theatre Company in Concord. For info, call 925-798-1300. SHIRLEY SMALLWOOD (comml-f/tv-'00) has been cast in the Pride7 Season at the New Conservatory Theater. She appears in a musical entitled "The Last Session". Shirley is also the happiest new grandma in the world. Myles Johnson McMurray was born July 26th. He and his mom, Talya, are doing great. Congrats to all!

CRAFT NOTES
"SCREEN ACTORS GUILD IN TROUBLE..."

Even if you are not yet a member of Screen Actors Guild, you ought to be concerned by the flap that is raging within the ranks of the union. It has to do with whether or not SAG should close some of its branch offices and reduce the number of actors on the national board. The Towers-Perrin Report, commissioned last year by SAG, advised that SAG do precisely these things, and I personally support the recommendations. In my view SAG is a very sick union, far past the point where it can take a couple of aspirin and call the doctor in the morning. SAG needs very major and emergency surgery, or it runs the risk of an early demise.

I don't want to be long-winded about this, and I am not seeking to antagonize the many good SAG members that disagree with me. In a nutshell, here is my reasoning:

1) Over half the national membership of SAG lives and works in Hollywood, and more than half of the income of all SAG actors is generated in Hollywood. It is perfectly reasonable to expect,
therefore, that Hollywood members would have the dominant voice in the running of the Guild.

2) SAG will very soon be forced to skyrocket the threshhold for qualification for health insurance. Trade papers are reporting that we SAG members will have to earn $17,000 in order to qualify for
coverage! The reason for this is that health care costs have shot up almost 50 percent since 1996 and, at the same time, the Guild is hemorrhaging money because of inefficiency and waste. Income is going down, expenses are going up, a toxic combo. SAG needs to streamline and start saving money, or pretty soon health insurance may not be available at all, for any price. Towers-Perrin is a step in the right direction.

3) Branch members are very vocally worried that, if Hollywood is dominant on the national board, the actors in their cities -- like in Portland or Washington, D.C. or San Francisco for example -- will be left out in the cold. The fear is that Hollywood actors display no understanding nor empathy with the issues confronting actors in the branches. While I think it is true that Hollywood actors are not the most empathetic bunch on earth, I also think that the sky will not fall if we reorganize in a way that favors the Hollywood majority.

4) It is high time for SAG to re-focus itself on actors rather than extras. Extra work is not acting, and you can't put it on your resume. It is an activity, not an art. SAG opened up a can of worms
when it took over the Screen Extras Guild and began equating extras with actors. I believe strongly that SAG should be a union of actors, not extras. It is time to clear things up. Reorganizing the
national board and refocusing on the lot of working actors -- even if those actors are mainly in Hollywood -- has to be a positive move in my view. Towers-Perrin specifically warns about the schism of opinion concerning extra work in the ranks of SAG members and advises that it be resolved. Amen.

I've been a SAG member for thirty years, and I have never seen the Guild in such a sorry and embarrassing state. It makes me angry that SAG allowed cable and the Internet to get out of the barn. It makes me angry that the middle-income SAG actor is once again an endangered species. For sure, we had better do something, and quickly. Maintaining the status quo -- continuing with the huge and unwieldy national board and all of those branch offices, is not going to help anything, and it may make matters worse. Already, theatrical producers and ad agencies are eating SAG's lunch in negotiations. We just last year endured the longest strike in SAG history and basically got squat for our trouble. With due respect for my fellow union members that disagree, I emphatically urge that SAG go ahead, take a deep breath and follow the recommendations in Towers-Perrin.

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