Happy Birthday ACS

Today is the Fourth Birthday of my Acting Studio in Glasgow, Acting Coach Scotland. I’m proud of what we’ve achieved in just four short years. But I’m also always looking to the future.

We’ve grown so quickly from a tiny 2-hours per week acting class in a rented space, to a full time acting studio on the top floor of 19 Queen St in Glasgow.

There’s a lot of people without whom this would not be possible, my ex-wife Carolyn encouraged me tremendously and built the websites that we used to have. Our landlords over the years from the lovely folks at the Glasgay Festival, to Mandy and George at Hybrid Martial Arts Academy, and our highly supportive new landlord John, without whom we would have no new home. I feel none of this would be possible without Ian Watt, my dear friend and my trusted colleague, he has offered more support in action and silent encouragement than most, he also teaches for us and still trains with us 4 years on. But most of all, the students along the way, and the current students that have helped to create a real culture at ACS, a culture of hard work, risk-taking, determination and commitment.

And to those people out there in the Blogosphere, who read the blog, hated, supported, criticised, fought, argue, praised and commented, you keep the fire in me burning. And although I may have changed my tactics of late, I still have a passion for a revolution in acting and acting technique, and as long as people are still high-handedly telling me I’m wrong, I’ll still be here helping actors to do it simpler and more truthfully.

And I made mistakes along the way, no one can grow a business without doing so, and I’ve always tried to learn from every single mistake I’ve made. I also take responsibility for when things haven’t worked out, because by owning the problem, you get to be part of the solution and the solution often brings much more than just a resolution to the initial problem.

You can’t grow if you aren’t willing to change, and change is a really important thing to me. Each term we take a look at the curriculum and say ‘How could we deliver our programmes better?’ or ‘What would be a more effective way to teach this?’. That’s an essential part of our culture too, the ability to keep changing – evolving is probably the best word for it.

All this in only 4 years? Imagine what we can achieve in the future.

Happy Birthday to ACS, Happy Birthday to the ACS Students, and Happy Birthday to my dream of building a studio, I never thought I could do it, I proved myself wrong.