While cleaning out my room, I discovered that once the junk mail and old fliers had been recycled I was left with four piles of paper.
1) Drawings my kiddo made of my characters. (I'll keep these forever);
2) Notes from agents, editors, friends, and colleagues sharing feedback on stories;
3) Other kiddo stuff: writing, report cards, creative ideas;
4) Mementos from years past.
This fourth category tends to go WAY back. News clippings kicking around from the 80's, 90's, and 2000's. Eclectic things I sketched out before I was calling myself a writer.
And letters! Back when we wrote those. And occasionally typed them! You know, on a typewriter. For me, the PC came the year after, when I graduated, along with a useful thing called the internet. Would you believe I had an electric typewriter in college instead of a computer?
It's okay. I don't believe it either.
One such typed letter is from November 13, 1999. When I read it, I realized "Oh! This is about me as a young actor." That means, in a way, it's also about one of my protagonists, Jaren Silverwing. Of course, Jaren is 12, and I wrote this letter when I was 21, preparing to graduate from college with my BA in Theatre Arts. But like me, he had an actor and teacher who inspired him: his grandfather. He learned how the acting process was a roadmap to how to live your life. I'm querying this book now, so those early thoughts about the process are on my mind.
The letter, stained with coffee and slightly wrinkled, was to the administration at my school UC Santa Cruz. I am now a lecturer at UCSC, so it is with a lot of nostalgia and perspective that I look back on this letter and think about everything that has happened since then.
I wrote the letter in support of my beloved acting professor, Marcia Taylor, who had changed my life. Like other lecturers I worked with at UCSC, including Ursula Neuerberg, a brilliant visiting director, and Greg Fritsch, a brilliant director and acting coach, Marcia took high school students who considered themselves actors, turned us upside down, opened us up, shook us out, and taught us the truth about the acting process. She did this with kindness, bluntness, openness, and her characteristic caustic dry humor. My observations of her and my other instructors become the foundation of my own work as an actor, director, and teaching artist.
Now that I am a lecturer myself, I can more fully appreciate the opportunities Marcia gave us despite lacking the stability, benefits, and reassurance of a full-time position. I haven't spoken to Marcia for many years, but if I ever find her again, I will surely tell her this.
I've decided to share parts of this letter here. Why? Because it serves little purpose kicking around in the dusty corners on my room. And although this letter did not, apparently, have the desired effect and keep her teaching at my university, it helped me sum up what I learned.
Many of the lessons I learned as an actor apply to writing:
Take a risk. Breathe. Control what you can (your development and your process.) Learn about the business, yes, but work on your craft. Don't compare yourself to others. Find your own path with a heart. If its important to you, if it fills you, keep trying. Don't give up.
Here is the letter:
"My first memory of Ms. Marcia Taylor is from my very first day of my very first acting studio my freshman year. She was sitting in a circle with all of us, kindly encouraging us to lift our hearts and straighten our spines as we talked about why were taking this class. She was talking about character intentions, and the connection between the body and the mind, and lots of other things the bunch of us wondered at as we slumped back into our usual slumps.
Suddenly she turned to me, striking terror into my heart.
She said "Dor--" (the first time anyone called me by my proper nickname at UCSC, and the beginning of a happy tradition for me) "Dor, why are you in this class?"
She gazed at me with wide, open eyes, fully seeing me and scaring me out of my skin.
"Because I like to act," I stammered.
"Why?" she asked.
"Because... it makes me feel good?" I ended on an inquisitive note.
"Why?" she prodded.
She continued this question and nervous answer session until I said emotionally "Because I want to live life to its fullest!"
Marcia smiled and dove into her lesson about the acting process. Real, honest acting, not the easy kind we knew well. That was the beginning of something that made me who I am today.
I was extremely fortunate in that I was able to have four studios with Marcia, as well as work under her direction in Chautauqua (a festival of student work), as well as perform in two plays with her. With Marcia, I learned with my body, with all my senses, with my mind and with my heart. A class with Marcia was a borderline spiritual experience. I might leave supremely aware of my own sight, and see everything a little more clearly, a little bit brighter, with more "poetic sensibility" for a day or two. I might approach a friend with more compassion. I learned about my essence, my capabilities, as an actor, as a friend, as a person.
Marcia's training made me a much more grounded individual. She always used different methods, including Mentastics, Grotowski's corporals and plastiques, the theories of Kleist, the concept of the Uber marionette. We studied Samuel Beckett and repetitive movement, we read Shakespeare, Chekhov, Odets, contemporary plays, and poetry. She used photos, paintings, articles, prose and poetry, excursions into the redwoods behind the studio, videos, audio tapes, and music to enhance her curriculum.
Once I got used to Marcia's ability to relate to people in an almost psychic way, I eagerly looked forward to an office appointment. Marcia allowed me to vent (but never whine) and listened with all the abilities of a highly skilled therapist, which required that I control myself at times from unleashing the depths of my soul. (She was not paid, after all, to psycho-analyze me.) I shed tears in her presence, but she didn't let me feel ashamed. I left feeling refreshed, stronger and more capable, ready to take on the world!
Or at least ready to try out some new things in rehearsal or studio.
When I remember my education, I will remember Marcia Taylor, alongside Greg Fritsch and Ulla Neuerberg -- kind, knowledgeable, and blunt individuals who had confidence in me and who trained my mind, body, and heart so I could pursue a career in the theatre.
You see, what I needed most of all was confidence, a belief in myself, and the love of those around me to survive college and live life to its fullest. I'm still struggling with that confidence, and I deeply miss those individuals. But as a result of the tools Marcia provided me, I was able to audition for dance shows (despite my pervasive belief I was a lousy dancer); I was able to return to my high school and teach a class; I was able to tour a play to Scotland with friends and travel alone; I was able to write a play about my father's death and see it performed.
Now that I hear Marcia may have to leave the department, all I can I say is I believe this would be a tragedy for everyone. I feel it would seriously impair the department. As in the removal of the heart. Which would impair one's ability to live life to it's fullest, don't you think?"
After I wrote this letter, I had one or two more phone calls with Marcia before she, essentially, disappeared. Her colleagues haven't been in touch with her. Nobody knows where she is.
Well, Marcia knows, certainly. I don't doubt that.
Moral, if there is one:
When you get the chance, tell a teacher how they changed your life.
And tell them again.
The gifts Marcia and my other teachers gave me made it possible for me to take risks, to apply for grad school multiple times, interviewing repeatedly, until I finally, after years of trying, I got in.
I think about this often while I'm querying. It was a multi-year process then, why not now?
My teachers made it possible for me to write a book for kids which I hope will inspire them: about a tenacious young actor with little confidence who finds magic in his art and uses it for the better. My teachers gave me these gifts without knowing if they would land a role in their next audition, or be invited to direct a play, or if they'd be teaching again the following year.
By example, they made it possible for me to exist in the realm of uncertainty. And breathe.
If you're reading this, Marcia, thank you.
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