In a television interview, Jason Alexander talked about the intangibles of acting. He said you can have two people who have the same training and similar experience who both go on the same audition and one is brilliant and the other is average.  I am always trying to figure out how to help my actors so they can be the former.  

Now that the Olympics are over…actors can stop watching the games and start working on their game. There are many parallels between excelling in sports and in your acting career.

First off competition is intense. Acting is perceived as being glamorous and many want to pursue it. About 10,000 actors in Chicago have agent representation. How many actors make a living in the business or even work regularly?

On Saturday, I took a ballet class at Visceral Dance. NickPupillo, the owner of the studio, is an amazing teacher. Throughout the class,he said many useful things to improve our dancing but I realized his commentswere very applicable to acting as well. He said that, when he dances, hefocuses on clean moves and details, rather than being perfect. And when he does, perfection follows.

The Death of Method Acting; Modern Actors and the dwindling techniques of the past.  Copy and paste the following web address:  http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748704107104574571821619515590.html 

The Wages on Stages; A brief summary of the varying wages Actors are being paid to perform on stage in Chicago.  http://www.suntimes.com/entertainment/1982177,CST-NWS-artssalaries10.art... 

Brooke and I always tell our actors the importance of preparation. Here is what one of our actors learned recently when he booked a pilot and worked with LA talent-Dawn:     

R-E-J-E-C-T

Find out what it means to me...

Actors face rejection daily.  As an agent, I view it differently. If actors don’t get a role, they think the director didn’t like me. I see many actors not getting cast for that same role. A majority of the time actors don’t get the roles they audition for.

I am always telling actors that acting is like playing a sport. You need to practice every day if you want to make it to the Olympics or go pro.  Ice skating holds some parallels to acting because there are a number of elements of varying difficulties and you must master each level before moving on to the next level. 

The Casting Process as Sunday Brunch  It is clear that most actors find the casting process baffling.  We try to explain it.  But today I came up with a great analogy.  I guess you can tell I love to eat.