| | Michael Powers responded to a discussion that was in play on one of the many tech theater mailing lists. The topic was called "are all actors like this?" As you can imagine, the tech crew folks were complaining about some actors.
This is good stuff. Very valuable info. I put it under Stage Management because it often comes down to the SM to deal with actor vs. crew problems. | "NO!!!! ABSOLUTELY NOT!!!! The great majority of actors are hardworking; dedicated artists who want the same thing technicians want, to put the best production possible on stage. Actors who whine or pose or put on the diva act are generally very scared or insecure, regardless of their talent or position. Over the past 35 years, I have had the pleasure (and some times the less than pleasure) of working with performers from high school students and community theatre amateurs to film, Broadway and television actors of international reputation. There are whiners and moaners at all levels, but they are the few who seem to get all our attention. To a great extent we, technicians, are part of the problem. The actors who have no complaints get ignored and ones that whine get the attention, if only to shut them up. The result is Pavlovian conditioning to whine. One reason actors get so insecure is that their product is subjective, there is nothing concrete for them to show for their work. Even film or tape of a performance is not solid evidence of a good performance. One critic will say a show or an actor is great and another will say the same production stinks. When we put a design or a set on stage, it is there; it is hard evidence of our work and skills. Once it is there we don’t have to rebuild it each night. An actor has to recreate his role every performance. Our job is to facilitate the getting the best performance on stage for our audience. Occasionally that may mean we have to put up with a whiner, sometimes we have to “knock a little sense” into an actor to let him “get real”. By and large though, our job is the same as the actors’, that is, to do our job at a good professional level, quietly, on time and on cue. Sometimes just the act of listening to the whiner is all that is needed to “fix” the problem. Sometimes the whiner will reveal a real problem and our knee-jerk reaction is to ignore it because the whiner is so annoying, our turn to “get real” and fix the problem. Sometimes the whiner needs to be put in his place and told “NO!” although it is usually the job of the stage manager or director to pass that info along to the actor. Hope this give everyone a some points to ponder." Michael Michael Powers, Technical Director The Meadow Brook Theatre www.MBTheatre.com |
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