Well that was lovely. 47 people, in the same space as before, in Stratford. Last time it was kids from Tennessee. So chill they were almost horizontal. Maybe three of them were aware that there’s this writer existed once called Shakespeare. Five of them wanted to be actors. All were wishy washy non specific non targeted. I did what I could.
“Actor” still exists in the free-lunch dynamic of young people’s plans. As you know I’m going into schools pretty often and I’ll frequently ask rooms full of 14 year olds “So hands up any of you that KNOW what you’re gonna do when you enter the world of work?” There’ll only be a few hands. “Footballer”. “Ok great, what position do you play?” “Dunno.” “And you train with a local club?” “…”
Once in a blue moon there’s someone who is literally on the youth team for Arsenal. Normally it’s just a shrug. They wanna be a footballer, just don’t wanna train to be good at football.
“Influencer.” That’s number 2. “Ok so what software do you use to edit your videos?” “Dunno.” “Do you have a specific field?” “…”
Third place is actor. I was that kid though. “Actor.” “So how are you training your memory?” “Dunno.” Someone said that to me aged 14. In the next two years I arbitrarily learnt loads of poetry, and random bullshit stuff like Bohemian Rhapsody and big chunks of Monty Python. (I never regurgitate either because I associate people who do that with being mentally 14, but it was useful to do it. I usually try and avoid it. If someone told me their parrot was dead I would express appropriate concern, and absolutely wouldn’t mention fjords)
It’s good to be challenged and to understand what might actually be a useful skill. Because a lot of the time you just aspire to what you’ve consumed. I had been fascinated and judgemental about the actors coming through my school with TIE. The “Way of Life” workshop where someone made me understand that line learning is a muscle though, I’m glad of that person, that was a really handy learn and helped me develop a great big muscle ooer missus. You’ve gotta fight. Particularly if you are going into a field nobody in your family has gone into. Football, Influencing, Actors – it is possible to get very rich, it is more likely to just tick over, frequently it just goes to nothing. Aptitude, contacts, money, resilience.
These New Jersey kids, they understand how to make a fucking noise. In an audition every single one of them would ride over the Tennessee kids on first round. You’d need to open up and really work with the Tennessee to get them to the standard. It makes me notice though how much better at pushing forward you get when there’s not so much space. I enjoyed working with that room full of people so much more because there was SPARK.
I’m in a little room in Stratford to sleep now. Decided not to go home until tomorrow. No need to rush and means I can take it easy. I’m happy to have had such a good workshop with this new company – first one was disillusioning perhaps just because it wasn’t what I expected. I’ve got a good frame now though too, as Jo has run hundreds of these and we shared it, which basically meant I let her run it and actively told her I was gonna nick the workshop. Which I will.
AlBarclay 