The Courage to Connect
More than a decade ago, a new director had started at one of the major theatre companies. He was doing the rounds and attended a session for young actors who were interested in a career in the performing arts.
One young actor asked, “What makes you cast someone in one of your plays?”
His reply came quickly, “Someone who I can be locked in a black box with for six weeks without going crazy.”
There was a ripple of laughter and then a pause as the audience waited for his real response. An extension to his first response was not forthcoming- that was his real response!
He didn’t talk about the fit for the role, the experience or qualifications, the actor’s past work, evidence of preparation in their audition, their appearance, their accent or any other category of “artistic” merit (even though I’m sure all of these things were of value in his decision-making process)
He went straight to the most important thing in the casting process – the creation of ‘an ensemble’ – a group of people who can work together in an intense goal-based environment, “cast” their egos aside (See what I did there?) and support each other to create not just a great show – but a great team!
The truth is that there are an unimaginably large amount of talented people. You can (and should) try to be the most skilled performer that you can be, but you should put just as much time into being the kindest person in the room. Your relationship and communication skills, your optimism, your trustworthiness, your authenticity are more likely to get you cast then your cv in any walk of life.
When you bring compliments and kindness and encouragement to those around you, people don’t mind being locked in a room with you – actually they quite like it.
And that’s why you’ll see us not only teaching the performance skills in our programs but also the personal and interpersonal skills that you need to succeed – because as Maya Angelou said,
“No one cares how much you know until they know how much you care.”
Andrew “Share the Love” Wright