Time Flies

I really can't believe where the time has gone this year.

In just a few weeks,we will be celebrating one year in our new home, a place we absolutely adore living in, and yet I am still supposedly looking forward to summer which seems to have passed me by. Possibly I was working that day, but here we are with the falling leaves of autumn, conkers strewing the road to the station, and that smoky bonfire night smell in the air.

Already time to be going out to talk to a whole new year of drama graduates. The Actors Centre has really got its act together about arranging talks for drama schools. My brief is to ensure that these talks are not just boring chats  about the Actors Centre itself. If they are to be successful the sessions have to ask the graduates what are their fears and their expectations of the world outside the haven of drama school, and how can the Actors Centre help them in making this transition.

On Monday afternoon it was a trip down to Guildford School of Acting, where I have to confess I haven't been for many years. These days it is housed in splendid premises on the University campus and while university administration may slow a few things down - it took quite a while to get the car park pass and quite a while to walk back to the car park - it means that this school in particular benefits from great facilities and rehearsal rooms. I think I might have died and gone to heaven if I had found a Starbucks in the reception area of my drama school. The two groups we spoke to were differing mix in terms of training. A group of three-year BA Acting students, and a group of one-year MA music Theatre students. The questions were much the same, but nevertheless key to the thoughts of somebody who is seeing their training drawing to a close and that moment where they will face the world becoming ever nearer. Time flies and soon the world will be a big reality. I call it "the day the acting stops". From the moment you decided to be an actor, acting has been easy to put on your plate. You were able to go out and find it yourself at school, the new theatre groups, and in local drama groups. At drama school, acting is served onto your plate every morning whether you want it or not. The day will come though, next year for these graduates, when they wake up and there will be no acting. Ever again. Unless of course they get up and do something about it. So worries about agents, castability, what other jobs can I do, and survival are all circling in the mind of these young graduates. Quite rightly too.

You might be marvellous at Meisner, terrific at text, immeasurably exciting at improv (I'll stop these alliterative references now before they swallow me up) but unless you get the chance to practice the skills, they may be of little use. You'll need to be brilliant at business, awesome at organisation, and redoubtable at rejection. Skills that are much more difficult to teach. Many drama schools, such as Guildford, include industrial classes and talks, but no one can really prepare you for what it's like out there. The Actors Centre can’t. But it can help and support you when you are out there. That's what it does best.