Julie Taymor's Midsummer Night's Dream

Hanging out with actors, talking about Julie Taymor

Last night we went to see Julie Taymor's Midsummer Night's Dream in Brooklyn.

We went to see a friend Roger Clark, who I'm pretty sure was born to play regal characters, and will for the rest of his thick-beard having life. Good work Roger. 

I expected a lot from the production, since it was so well reviewed, and it is Julie Taymor. 

This is now the 3rd Midsummer performance I've seen out of the 5 Shakespeare shows in 2 months. 

That's a lot of Shakespeare.



https://www.youtube.com/edit?o=U&video_id=RVmCka_DsfE

Although I found a number of enjoyable things about this production, the one from The Titan Theatre Company I saw and wrote about (and saw TWICE) has probably ruined this play for me.

It was that wonderful.

The Julie Taymor production had some cool harnesses and projections, but where was the story?

Sure it was cool to see a puppet donkey head on Bottom, but then any jokes made by him were impossible to appreciate.

Yes, the forest of sticks made me understand that the characters were in the woods, but I wanted to feel the fun of it, not the dread. 

It felt like someone forgot that the show was a comedy. 

Titan Theatre Company's production never let my smile leave my face.

So my question is, what kind of impression do you want to leave your audience with?

I make a PERFECT Blog post on "Medium"- See?

I just wrote the PERFECT blog post on a new blog platform: Medium.

The title is: 

“Good” Now is BETTER than “Perfect” Never

Of course you can do better, but so what?

I ended up telling the story of how I got to write the post... Kinda brilliant, and yes- it's all true. Check it out:

*******************************************

I’m not going to rewrite this blog post.

Also, this is my very first post on MEDIUM, and the only reason I’m here is that Gary Vaynerchuk told me to be in his interview with Marie Forleo this morning.

I asked myself- what would be the PERFECT post to write about, and have I explored something before, so I can then re-direct people to my blog where they’ll maybe buy one of my books, or one of my opportunities to work from home?

I looked at my past posts to see what I could just reproduce here, and found I have actually written some pretty cool things, but a lot of them have a video in them, which I can’t do here.

So, then I looked at the documents I have on Scribd, all basically short reports designed to get people to click through and buy something else.

Now, mind you, this is all good stuff, but not really perfect for my first post on MEDIUM, I mean, fromt he homepage, it seems this is a place for VALUE, for EXPERTISE, and for REPUTATION.

So, finally, I decided I was going to write a post for Actors, since I am starting up a community dffor actors who want to learn how to not have day jobs. I am an actor in New York, and haven’t had a day job in 10 years, so I am beginning to help other people do that.

I wrote a book on it, so I figured I would write my first post in MEDIUM about how I got here, the story of the past 10 years.

I have obviously not done that (Or have I been extremely clever, and kinda done that anyway?).

However, I realized that I had wasted about an hour with the edit screen up, the title not composed, nothing written, and the tab open waiting to find the PERFECT thing to write about and the perspective to use.

That’s when I remembered one of my favorite quotes “Good Now Is Better Than Perfect Never”.

I got mad at myself for wasting the time and energy in trying to find “PERFECT”, when I just needed to get started. Now that I just started writing, I see that not only did I get in just about every point I wanted to, I hopefully got the point across:

That waiting for the perfect moment is an exercise in futility, and often doing what’s “good enough” will suffice. And then you can “Ship it” as Seth Godin says.

Nope, it will never be perfect, and now that I look at it, I see that I never even mentioned the “Of course you can do better” part, but so what? Here it is, “Good enough”.

I would mark this first post on MEDIUM as “Good enough”, and so I’ll end it right here.

What do you think?

****************************************

Kinda clever, right?

I really wanted to edit it- I even clicked "edit" because I wanted to at least add a picture, but I chose not to. What's there is what's there. BUT- here's a picture for here- 

So here's the thing, if you're with me on the whole "Good Now is better than perfect never" idea, share this and leave a comment. 

I wanna see if you're out there. You may not be, but I'm asking.

What does ROB FORD have to do with your ACTING CAREER?

What Is Your Actor Brand?

Remember when Tina Fey got to be Sarah Pailn?

A big mistake many actors make is that since they're actors, they think they can play ANYTHING, and they may be right, but it doesn't matter-

You'll only get booked for what OTHER PEOPLE think you can play.

Just like you would use soft scrub instead of toothpaste to clean your bathtub (even though it would work!), the people who are going to hire you will mostly hire you to do something they've seen you play already.

Case in point: ROB FORD.

Now that he is branded as "The Crack-Smoking Mayor" who is clumsy, fat, and drunk all the time, guess who the internet clamored to play him:

CHRIS FARLEY.

Who died in 1997- 16 years ago.

But being a fat, clumsy, drunk slob was Chris Farley's Brand:

Rob Ford the Movie - YouTube: ""
Someone made a fake trailer for "Rob Ford The Movie" starring Chris Farley because of their brands.

Yes, the video is kinda hilarious, and of course, it fits. But I'm pretty sure that there are other actors, ALIVE ACTORS who could also play Rob Ford. Bobby Moynihan did a good job on SNL, but of course, that was to be expected too.

And that's the point.

You had better control your brand- and HAVE ONE TO BEGIN WITH- or you might not get the work that is exactly for you when it appears.

So, maybe you should find a politician who you look like, and see what kind of scandal they can get caught up in! Good luck!

By the way, The Rob Ford Television Show that was in the works was cancelled recently after the public said they would refuse to watch it. The Canadian Public. I have a feeling the US would have eaten it up!

Perform Random Acts Of Shakespeare!

Perform Random Acts Of Shakespeare?

A while ago, my friend Leah Burnette was talking about something, and she said "Perform Random Acts Of Shakespeare". I told her she should make T-Shirts and stuff.

She Didn't.

So I did! See them HERE.

But here's the thing- if someone wanted to run with this, there's an entire business plan that could go with it.

I say that you have a core group of people who perform a random act of Shakespeare flash-mob-style a few days a week, let' say at 4 different locations, and film them all.

Everyone wears the T-Shirts promoting the website.

Splice them together during the weekend, and put them on YouTube.

Make sure that SCHOOLS know you're doing this, and you could even get them to come be a part of a few of the Random Acts. They could watch them in class and discuss them, or maybe for homework- whatever.

After a while, you'd have entire plays up.

Then you could ask people to support you by buying the paraphernalia and donating to the site, or the various completed plays could be bought on DVD, or pay per view, or whatever.

Of course, it would also be a great way to promote your local shakespeare theatre group/

Anyway, the key is promotion, performance, and paraphernalia!!

Buy Random Acts Of Shakespeare Stuff HERE

Building An Asset In The Digital World

Building An Asset In The Digital World

I always recommend Rich Dad, Poor Dad by Robert Kiyosaki because it first taught me about the idea of "assets"- Something That Pays You.

I had never even thought of that as a concept.

Sure, I liked the idea of "making money" and he idea of "getting paid", but the idea that I could actually buy something that PAID ME was completely out of my awareness.

It was one of those ideas that "I didn't know I didn't know" about.

When I explain the idea to other people, I ask them to imagine buying a Pinball machine, and putting it in a barbershop where the kids who come in to the shop can play. You put it in the corner, and go home.

Once a week, or once a month, you go and get the money out of the machine. You haven't "worked" for the money, you haven't "sold" anything- you just collect the money.

IT PAYS YOU.

Another example is when you buy a house or an apartment, and rent it out to someone. The money that is paid by the renter is not something you worked for, and not something you sold- the renters just pay, and you collect the money.

The apartment PAYS YOU.

Online (The digital world) one of the assets you build is an EMAIL LIST.

You build a list of people who are interested in whatever your topic is, and as you send them emails, they buy stuff. You can even set up emails to go out automatically, therefore letting the emails sell automatically.

The Email list PAYS YOU.

It Is An Asset In The Digital World

I build a list with AWEBER, and I build different lists, creating several assets:

My list of Parents who buy my kids books.
My list of Artists who want to make money without a day job.
My List of Healthy People who want to look sexy.
My list of people who want to earn money from home.

If you'd like to do the same, I recommend you start an AWEBER trial:

Get Started Today For Only $1! - AWeber CommunicationsGet started
Create your own asset, and you won't need to find a barbershop, or pay for a pinball machine!

A Sure Way To "Discharge" Pain and Discomfort

Are you an actor, or an artist, or a PERSON, and Are you looking to get rid of your Pain and Discomfort?

I'm about to show you a way that does exactly that- INSTANTLY.

But you shouldn't use it.

You shouldn't use it because it actually robs you of the very thing that will make you change, grow and make you take action to make a difference.

When you have pain and discomfort, you are often motivated to change something. Whether it's the situation, how you see it, or yourself- changing something is a way to overcome it.

But most people use this technique instead.

And it gets them results.

It gets them results that relieve the pain and discomfort, but still leaves the problem.

It's called BLAME.

If something isn't working out, if you can't seem to get on top of something, or overcome something, you can just BLAME someone or something else.

And your pain and discomfort is magically..."discharged".

Here's the thing- you're probably wondering why I came to this conclusion, but it isn't mine. It's from Brene Brown and her two TED talks.

You kinda have to see them together, one after the next, and this little nugget of wisdom is sandwiched in between her talk about VULNERABILITY.

That's a whole other topic, but let me say this on it:

If you're an actor or an artist, your TRUE art only reveals itself when you're SCARED of what it will reveal about you and your soul.

The rest is funny faces... which I love too! :-D

Where does Passion Live?

Someone was recently telling me how musical theatre is all cheesy and ridiculous, and they can't really believe when people break into song.

I decided that this person had never been exposed to the real deal.

Of course a lot of it is cheese-ball hysterics and love platitude rhymes, but some of it- the REAL DEAL of it- is soul-filling love, heart-wrenching sadness, and spiritually-enlarging PASSION.

Yes, this is the cliche clip to pick but how can you watch this and not know how she feels?

1982 Tony Awards: Jennifer Holliday sings "And I'm Telling You" Dreamgirls - YouTube: ""

Maybe if you've never felt like this you have no idea what's happening here.

Maybe you just see someone singing LOUD and yelling for a paying audience, but when you KNOW what she's singing about, you FEEL IT.

Even more, when you are a performer, you WANT to get into a state like this, you WANT to take the emotions, and bring them forward so that someone on the other side of the 4th wall feels it.

The music and lyrics are NOT ENOUGH without the performer.

Do YOU do anything with this much passion?
Could you INSPIRE that much passion in someone else?
Could you EXPRESS this much passion in something or someone?

I don't know about you, but this brought me to tears, and that was after watching 4 different versions of it BEFORE I chose to write this.

I hope something brings you to tears today, and even better, that you bring them to someone else!

SHARE THIS if you believe in PASSION.