Acting Coach: A Day in the Life

I’m an acting coach but what exactly does that involve? Here’s a peek into the day in the life of an acting coach.

I woke up around 9 and noticed that the private acting coach session that I have at 10:30am has changed already and that we’re no longer working on a movie, now we’re working on an audition for a hit tv show, and my Skype acting student is up for a part. I read up about the show on IMDB, google around about it, switch my Hotpost Shield on so that I can watch US TV on my laptop and catch some clips of the first season, I scroll through the breakdown and read over the script a few times, doing a quick analysis in my head of each scene, so that I can save time with Kyle.

I go onto Skype, and it’s my first session with Kyle in Los Angeles, and we have a great vibe and get along very well as he understands what I’m talking about almost instinctively. It ends very positively and I remind him that acting is meant to be fun. I work with a lot of people on Skype and have worked with people all over the US, Australia and Europe by Skype. I always thought it was a bad idea, but I was wrong, it works beautifully, sometimes better than in person! I enjoy coaching actors via Skype now and it allows me to ‘meet’ a lot more actors all around the world.

A 80 litre bin arrives at my apartment and after I shower, I carry the bin to the studio, helping some Dutch tourists trying to find the Gallery of Modern Art and going the wrong way. I replace the bin (oh the glamorous life of an acting coach), and meet Tom A, a new student that wants to chat, so we go across the road to Zebra Cafe and have a cup of tea and a chat about joining the studio. I don’t usually have time for this, so it’s nice to meet someone face to face before they sign up.

I catch up on some studio admin, put a few reminders on FB and start this blog.

I have a two hour private acting coaching session with two of my Step 4 students from 4-6pm and  I’m still buzzing from the classes I taught at the weekend. I have them really trying to connect to the behaviour they would use in their daydreams, and they struggle but they push through it. It’s interesting to see their interpretation of a scene and how the change of mindset or task changes the meaning of the individual lines. I rethink an old idea and try it, and it’s reasonably successful and immediately start using it in the evening’s classes.

I have a 30 minute break, catch up with my colleague, joke about some of the problems of the day and head off to this evenings acting classes, we make some time to talk over some of the changes at the studio and he reminds me that we have an Improv Masterclass at the weekend and that we’re also planning to work on my new book Approaching Shakespeare together too. I try to vacuum Studio A but the 4th Hoover seems to have given up the ghost.

My colleague goes to teach his Step 2 and I have Step 3.2 followed by Step 3.1 and they’re all working hard towards their auditions. My 3.2s seem to be grasping the exercise but struggle when it comes to using their own words. The 3.1s had a mock audition and looked terrified. They got some pretty rigorous feedback and they took it on the chin and I’m looking forwards to see how they come back from it and develop from here.

Classes finish and I head for the gym, tomorrow night I won’t be able to train because I’ll have a private from 11pm-1am with my student Andrea in the US. I reply to FB messages that arrive, Facebook makes getting away from it all increasingly difficult, we are on call 24/7 thanks to Facebook.

I head to bed still vibed from the day, thinking about the Mindset Acting Technique and wondering what tomorrow will bring.  This was a fairly quiet day, as October rolls into November, there’s be a lot of Drama School Audition coaching to do, and then things get really crazy.

I publish this blog before I fall asleep to someone reading Uta Hagen’s Respect for Acting on my Audible app.