Ed Hooks - Acting Classes

"HELLO SAN FRANCISCO ACTORS! "
The Exit Theatre, located at Eddy and Mason streets, will host my upcoming classes. The Exit is centrally located, only a block away from the cable car turnaround and the Powell Street BART and MUNI underground stops, as well as some MUNI bus lines. Parking in mid-town is always tricky, but there are a couple of for-pay lots convenient to the theatre.

This is the first time I have taught in the Bay Area in two years, and it is important that you register for these classes sooner rather than later. They are 3-week intensives, and I want to pre-assign scene work so that we can begin serious work on session number one. I can't assign scenes until I can personally look at photos/resumes, so please get your hand up quickly. Classes begin only three weeks from now! Classes in San Francisco will be on Monday and Wednesday nights, 7-10:30. Dates are July 21, 23, 28, 30 and August 4, 6. Tuition is $275. A $50 deposit holds a space.

Mountain View classes will be held at Pear Avenue Theatre, just off the #101 Freeway. Classes will meet on Sunday and Tuesday nights, 7-10:30. Dates are July 20, 22, 27, 29 and August 3, 5

BAY AREA CLASS DESCRIPTION: These are mixed-levels professional acting classes that are appropriate for experienced as well as new actors. The primary activity in each class will be scene study. I will assign scenes that actors will rehearse outside of workshop for presentation in workshop. If you are a beginning actor, I will rehearse you in class; in you are an experienced actor, I hope you and your scene partner will rehearse on your own in advance of my arrival in the Bay Area. That way, we can begin actual scene work the very first night. These workshops also present you with a good opportunity to work on monologues.

FOR QUESTIONS AND/OR ENROLLMENT INSTRUCTIONS...Send an e-mail to me at edhooks@edhooks.com. Or call me in Chicago at 773-929-1667. I will also be available for private coaching during my stay in the Bay Area. I don't know where that will take place yet though. If you are interested in private coaching ($75 per hour) and have not done so already, send me an e-mail so I can put your name on a list. Then, as soon as I get the venue set, I can let you know.

(Special Note to Chicago Students: My commitments in San Francisco will not affect your classes at all. I will be returning to Chicago each Thursday to teach the regular Thursday scene study workshop at The Audition Studio.)

CASTING CONNECTION ADDS NEW BELLS AND WHISTLES
Molly Craft, the talented and creative owner of the Bay Area on-line site Casting Connection (http://www.castingconnection.com) has added some new features that are worth checking out. Her primary focus remains to foster interaction between actors and the Independent film community and, to that end, she has added a photo database element to the site. Members do not pay extra for this. It comes with the basic yearly fee. Visit the site and take a look.

SHOWFAX LAUNCHES COOL (AND FREE!) NEW WEB SITE
Showfax Actors 101 is a free service for actors. They're going to have guest authors, casting directors, agents and so forth contributing. At some point, they'll even offer free workshops via this web site. Take a look: http://www.actors101.com

CHICAGO CLASS SCHEDULE
SCENE STUDY -- On-going, Thursday nights, 7-10:30 at The Audition Studio, 20 West Hubbard Street, #2W. Free audit, start any time. $135 per month, sixteen week commitment. Here's a Yahoo map to the The Audition Studio
It is easy to reach The Audition Studio on the CTA red line. Exit at Grand Street and State. Walk two blocks south on State to Hubbard. The #36 Broadway bus also stops very near the school.

PRIVATE COACHING
I'm always available for private coaching. My rate is $75 per hour. We can work on cold reading, career strategies or whatever you want. Call 773-929-1667, or send an e-mail to edhooks@edhooks.com.

HOOKS ACTORS WORKING
JO MCKINLEY (F./TV''96) booked Boston Public, national commercials for Ameriquest and Klondike, and an ongoing voiceover gig for The Sims. AMY WATT (all classes '97), now in LA, appears in "Playhouse Creatures" April DeAngelis, a comic drama set in the 1660s in Restoration England. Details: Open Fist Theatre Company, 1625 N. La Brea, Hollywood, CA 90028. Call 323-882-6912 for info. and reservations. ERIC SWARTZ (all classes '99) has been cast in a corporate film for Cisco Systems. MEREDITH HAGEDORN (f/tv '00) and DIANE TASCA (s.stdy - '96-'00) are featured in "Collected Stories" by Donald Margulies at the Pear Avenue Theatre in Mountain View, CA. Running Thursdays through Saturdays, August 1 - 17. For info: www.dragonproductions.net or call 650-329-1656. SARA BETTS (F/TV-'00) is featured as Hortense, the frisky French maid, in "The Boyfriend" at the Dean Lescher Center for the Performing Arts in Walnut Creek, June 5-28, 2003; Thursday -Saturdays at 8:15pm; Sundays at 2;15pm. GENE GORE (all classes '99-'00) has recently landed lead roles in three independent films: "Doghouse" (a comedy) "The Music Box" (a mystery) and, currently she is shooting one entitled "Dumping Gretchen". ALAN QUISMORIO (s.stdy '01) directed "Dooley", running July 11-27 at the Jon Sims Center for the Arts in SF. JAYSON MATTHEWS (s.stdy/f/tv '01) is acting in the play.

The American Film Institute recently honored Robert DeNiro with its lifetime achievement award. The televised tribute featured praise from many of the actors and directors that have worked with him over the years - Martin Scorsese, Sean Penn, Jodi Foster, Robin Williams, Sandra Bernhardt, Leonardo DeCaprio and more. By the end of the show, there were no superlatives left in the dictionary. DeNiro, according to one of the speakers, is this generation's Brando; everybody said he inspired their art and, in a couple of cases, their very lives.

I, too, am a major fan of DeNiro's work having been studying him closely since "Hi, Mom" and "Bang the Drum Slowly" thirty years ago. "Godfather II" was awesomely excellent, and "Raging Bull" may have been his stronest performance on film. In a word, I like him. Therefore, nothing I say here is intended to detract. Robert DeNiro's work will outlive him, and that's the end of that.

The thing that bothers me is that new actors listening to all of that praise might get a wrong idea of what acting is all about. Again and again, the thrust of the televised comments had to do with DeNiro's ability to pare a role down to its bare bones. His work was described continually as "stark" and simple and honest. To be sure, it is all of those things, but new actors need to understand that simple honesty is far from enough. Excellent acting requires structure and significance and conflict, too.

There are only three possible kinds of conflict (or obstacle) an actor can use in a scene:
Conflict with one self. ("Yes I will, no I won't, yes I will, no I won'tŠ.")
Conflict with the situation ("Here's neither bush nor shrub to bear off any weather at all, and another storm is brewing!" Trinculo in The Tempest, Act II, scene II)
Conflict with the other character ("I don't want to sleep with you, Bob!")

Stanislavsky once said that acting is playing an action in pursuit of an objective while overcoming an obstacle. Theatrical reality is not the same thing as regular reality. Regular reality is what they do at the shopping mall and it has zero theatrical currency. People do not go to the theatre or to the movies to see regular reality. (Šthe filmed documentary excepted, but I can talk about that at another time. For now, let's stick with fictional storytelling.) Theatrical reality is heightened reality, significent, compressed in time and space, oxygenated. And it necessarily contains the element of conflict. David Mamet astutely observes that a scene is a negotiation and, of course, all negotiations inherently contains conflict. Further, in any negotiation, there must be a way you can win and a way you can lose. Defining a scene as a negotiation automatically demands of the actor that she do something.

Now, with these principles in mind, take a closer look at Robert DeNiro's basic persona. Look closely at his craggy face and tortured demeanor. It is not for nothing that he makes such a good Mafia boss. DeNiro looks always like he doesn't sleep nights, that he is a cauldrum inside. (He shares this demeanor with Al Pacino, by the way.) In short, DeNiro appears - just walking around on the street - to be in conflict with himself about something. It is one of his fundamental qualities, and it has been like that since his earliest acting work. Not to put too fine a point on it, Robert DeNiro therefore has an advantage over most actors the way that Seabiscuit and Secretariat had advantages over the other horses at the race track. He doesn't have to work as hard at establishing conflict. He has it when he arrives on the soundstage. He has it when he goes to his favorite restaurant. He has it when he takes his drivers' license test. He looked like that in all those movies, and he looked like that at the AFI ceremonies when he was presumably not acting at all.

Honesty is not enough in acting. It is an element of good acting, but it is not in itself enough. You can be honest on stage and still bore the bejeezus out of the audience. They'll flee at intermission. Good acting is purposeful and involves conflict and objectives. Acting is doing something, it is not merely being.

And so I send my cyber-congratulations to Mister DeNiro on the occasion of his honor. I hope that this artist has many more performances in him before he puts away the grease paint. But hear me, please, new actors! Acting is only partially defined by being honest. It requires conflict.