Learning from Unlikely Teachers

 

Hello dear reader. It’s been a hot minute.

I’m writing to you from Glasgow, where we’ll soon be starting a two-week run at The King’s Theatre. We’ve just finished a one week run at the beautiful Wales Millennium Centre in Cardiff. I have been slowly recovering from a throat infection and the toll it took on my voice. I practically missed all of Norwich, and the last day of Derry – but I’m back to full health, and was able to take in the beauty of the WMC. Didn’t have a whole lot of time to explore Cardiff itself, due to my digs being located far away from the theater – and the one free afternoon I had was spent with my dear friend who I was staying with. We watched Mandalorian and Grogu, which wasn’t amazing unfortunately – but I digress.

Recently I was thinking a lot about this video of Christian Borle giving a commencement speech at his alma mater. Specifically, the bit around 10:38 - but I do encourage you to watch the whole thing. It's brilliant.

Basically, he talks about learning from unlikely teachers. He proceeds to tell a story about his friend he went to Carnegie Mellon with who was a brilliant actor. When they moved to New York City after college, he started getting cast almost immediately – it seemed like every casting director in town wanted a piece of him. The problem was that his friend was a jerk, who couldn’t control his attitude and was constantly getting in his own way. As a result, he worked with EVERYONE… once.

It made me think about the unlikely teachers in my life and career. These “teachers” have all made a positive impact in my life, whether through them imparting wisdom to me, or by osmosis; me observing how to move and NOT to move through the world or behave in a rehearsal room.

When I was doing my first professional job at the 5^th Avenue Theatre in Seattle, I was filled to the BRIM with impostor syndrome. I was in a room full of Broadway veterans and local Seattle talent – whom I’ve seen on stages all across town and have looked up to whilst studying musical theatre. Two things were occurring: I didn’t feel like I belonged in that room, and I was also downplaying this huge achievement so that I didn’t come across as arrogant, conceited, or acting like I was better than the rest of my peers. What resulted was an incredible lack of self-confidence that I would shoulder throughout the entire rehearsal process.

The unlikely teacher in this scenario was a Broadway vet. We’ll call him Ben. He was a very calming presence in the room. I would observe him while he worked, and was in awe of his stoic and calm nature in the midst of all of the rewrites and restagings of what was essentially a brand-new musical. During our Equity-mandated breaks, I would see him meditating in a quiet corner of the room.
Our choreographer held a rooftop party to celebrate the end of being in the rehearsal room and starting tech that next week. Later in the evening, Ben pulled me aside and told me his observations. I can’t recall his exact words, but he saw my lack of confidence and encouraged me to embrace all that I was – and this amazing opportunity that I found myself in. On the first day of tech, he gave me a copy The Gift of Imperfections by Brene Brown with a handwritten note. It’s a book I keep returning to any time I’m feeling like I’m not enough or it seems like the world is being hyper-critical about my every move.

It seems like a small gesture, but the impact was massive. Ben introduced me to the concept of self-worth and self-love, and it’s served me well not only in my career but also in my life. Turns out, having a modicum of self-respect and self-love actually helps with your mental health, and would make navigating an industry full of external criticism easier! Ben didn’t have to pull me aside that evening. He didn’t have to impart his wisdom on me. We were colleagues. Coworkers. He didn’t have to spend time helping me out. But he did, and it’s something I will always be grateful for. Through this seemingly small action, he’s taught me how to keep joy in some of the most difficult moments of my life and, more importantly, embrace and address all aspects of my being – not just my “positive” traits. It's made me a better human being, which in turn has made me a better actor.

On the flip side...

I once did a show that had a big name in it. I considered this person a hero – I studied their work a lot when I was in college. I was REALLY excited to be working with this person. Unfortunately, despite their success (or perhaps because of it,) they were just unpleasant to be around. They would complain a lot – about the size of their role, about the piece itself, the process… I even heard this person utter the words “I have been in this business for [x-amount of] years!!!”

A lot of fun, this person was. I took one look at that behavior and told myself: “I am NOT going to be like that if I ever get to the level of success that they have.”

Now… the piece we were working on wasn’t very good, and I could empathize with this person’s complaints about the process. But the rest of us – some of whom were just as big of names, if not bigger than this person – were all taking it in good stride. We’d giggle and make asides about the poor structure of the piece. We’d moan about certain aspects of the process. But we didn’t let it affect our work. In fact, one of the other cast members, who was arguably the biggest name amongst us, was the most excited out of all of us.

It was sad to me that the person I once considered a hero – the epitome of a successful artist - turned out to be kind of a jerk. And an unprofessional one at that. It would later be revealed to me that this person has had a history of this kind of behavior. I haven’t looked at them the same way since.

In the aforementioned video of Christian Borle, he goes on to implore to the students of Shady Side Academy to be on the lookout for people who are jerks – people who are rude to waiters or baristas – and to go out of their way to be kind. This has been my motto for any contract I work on. There is a lot to moan and complain about in this industry. We’re not treated the best. It is helpful to have colleagues to moan to when the going gets tough. I’ve had my fair share of them. But I refuse to be the jerk that brings the entire room down because I have a problem with whatever the project has wrought down upon me.

I try to walk away from every project having learned something. Even if the project doesn’t fulfil me in some way, and especially if the project feels like the peak of my career. I think that’s one thing that keeps me sane in this business – I don’t ever feel like I've peaked. There certainly have been some highlights, but I don’t rest on my laurels. So that when I do get a project that really doesn’t fulfil me, I go out of my way to find something about the process that can inform how I can be a better collaborator in future rehearsal rooms, or how I can improve upon my craft.

So perhaps my little nugget of “wisdom” for this post is this: be on the lookout for unlikely teachers. Learn from them. Take away what’s useful and bin what isn’t. Look for the jerks. See how they act. Look for the pleasant ones. See how they act. Emulate who you’d want to work with. Never stop learning.

I wanna hear from you: who were your unlikely teachers? Was it a colleague? A random person on the street? What did you learn from them?