Most experienced actors; the successful ones, that is, enjoy being given performance notes by a director. Make no mistake… giving an actor performance notes is a distinct craft within itself. Some consider it to be the art of psychology at its highest state. Some actors have been known to be a little touchy, considering any…
To the best of my knowledge there is no person I’ve ever met by the name of Ruth Suffield. I have no idea where the name came from. There was and is a person I wrote to who by no stretch of the imagination happens to be an extremely well thought of professional writer. I…
What if I don’t make it in show biz? Have I wasted my years of training? What about my singing, dancing and elocution lessons? Have I wasted all that money and training? At Kalmenson & Kalmenson, we follow not only the Stanislavsky method of progressive study, but also the theme of social grace and proper…
Don’t compete! It isn’t necessary or required. Being well schooled or being in the habit of practicing your craft is your requirement in order for success to happen; that is to say… if it ever happens. For what we do or contrive to do as actors is our addiction to nothing more than a personal…
Answering a question I’ve been asked over and over again is worthwhile for me to do, when I determine the number of actors my answer may be helping. One question comes at me more often than any of the others. “What can I do to keep myself up to date and in the game?” Basically…
I have never saved an outtake. I may have recorded them during a session or an audition, but by the end of the day, that same day, they were erased and discarded forever. Going one step further, I have never shared a recorded outtake with anyone other than the actor who had delivered the blooper…
“While I am still alive, I plan on living forever.” “Don’t die, until you’re dead.” – HK / 2010 You Be The Judge “Will You Be Living Forever” So many of us would have quit if we made the mistake of listening to or taking advice from someone deemed by society to be in a…
It’s a very old and over worked cliché – you know, the one about how time keeps flying by. I would guess everybody has said it at one time or another. Only the very young little kids, awaiting something great like Christmas morning, or summer vacation to begin, measure time as if it were at…
I’m in my eighteenth year of going up and back every workday from my home in Encino to Burbank. A conservative estimate makes it thirty five hundred round trips, to date. While I love my work… there have been a few times when I really didn’t feel like going to Burbank, for one reason or…
Broad statements are so much fun to make. It’s probably impossible to make a broad statement without causing some form of human reaction. As a matter of fact, causing reaction is what I do for a living; I either cause a reaction or stimulate an attitude in order to convey the meaning of what the…