First of all, I wanted to give a hearty apology for being silent for a couple of weeks.  I was out of town (as you know) and then I was buried with houseguests/paperwork/other stuff and just couldn’t get around to the blog.  BUT I’M BACK BABY!  So on with this weeks blog…

This is a book.

A Book?

Yes. A Book.

Oh. A Book.

Well my book came out early!  Huzzah!  For those of you who have already bought it, I thank you.  For those of you who haven’t yet… what are you waiting for?  Here is the link: Starting Your Career In Voice-Overs, go ahead, click and buy.  I’ll wait…

OK, are you back?  Good!  Thanks for doing that.  So now on to the meat of the matter:  books. 

During my 7(!) years of theatrical training, I was assigned, and read, a huge amount of books on theatre, acting, script analysis, theory, plays etc. etc. ad nauseum.  I read ALMOST all of them.  A big apology to William McConnell Bozman who taught my theatre history class in undergrad… I didn’t read all of the plays during that class.  BUT if it makes you feel any better, I have since read them all… several times. 

I digress.  Having read all of those books, something struck me:  by themselves they are worthless.  Don’t misunderstand; the books themselves are great; filled with useful insight and tips on the craft of acting.  Now that I have written one of those books (which you can buy here) I would never tell you that those books are useless!  But without implementation and practice, they are nothing but pretty words on a page.  Theory is needed and wonderful, but unless you put that theory into practice, it means nothing.

So try things out!  Read the books and get on stage, mic or camera and try it!  You may read a book and the words resonate, but when you try to apply the words wholesale they fall flat.  Excellent!  You have learned something.  The glaring truth of the matter is that the right approach for each individual is different, and very rarely is the right approach all of what one person says.  Most often, it is a mix of things:  a little bit of Stanislavsky, a touch of Meisner, a dash of Suzuki, a scoach of Chekhov and a smidge of Beeson… oh did I mention I wrote a book?  You can get it here. 

This is what makes good teachers, writers, actors, business people and just plain ol’ people:  experience.  Locking yourself away in a room filled with books is no way to live a life.  The only way to live and learn about what you read is to get out into the world and play with those ideas.  It’s also what the author intended… so please don’t make our intentions go unfulfilled.  We just want to help.  We?  Oh, yeah, did I mention I wrote a book?  You can get it here.

This shameless self-promotion is over.

OK, one more.  My book is available here.