The Acting Teacher is not a Director

For many years, I compared the director with the teacher and vice versa. I thought that they were similar roles. These days I can see why I thought that, but I know that they are not.

A teacher can be a director, a director can be a teacher, but their roles do NOT really cross over. One of my teachers in New York, Robert Bella told us that too often an acting teacher just directs the students. But that doesn’t help the actor, it just provides them with solutions to that particular problem and it doesn’t help them find solutions for themself.

The difference is that an acting teacher needs to empower the actor to help themself. The actor needs to become a great problem solver and they cannot do that if they’ve only been taught to respond to direction. This type of acting teacher develops co-dependency in the actor without realising that’s why they’re doing. The acting teacher’s role must be one of providing the students with tools that allow them to work autonomously. When a director works they’re interested in getting a specific result from the actor, which serves this particular situation, but that will not help the actor in the long term. What happens in this way of working is that the actor becomes dependent upon the acting teacher for help, because in the past the acting teacher has always provided direct solutions to particular problems, but they’ve never provided the actor with a set of tools that they can use when the acting teacher is not around.

For this reason I rarely direct my students at all. I give them advice and guidance, but my main aim is to get them to become autonomous. I do direct once the students are experienced and able to work autonomously, but my aim is not to keep the actors dependent upon me. Instead, I want them out there working in the world, where they can make a living as an actor and they do not need me on set or in rehearsal with them. I’m not a comfort blanket and if you need me after I’ve trained you, then I’m worried that I haven’t done my job properly.

When I think of the actors that I’ve trained in the past, the ones that are making it in the world don’t need me any more. I’m not sad about that, I’m happy, very happy indeed. That’s my mission accomplished.