Ghost train-ing

The current poll overwhelmingly indicates that people believe training never ends - and yet how many, I wonder, seriously take the effort to improve their craft through training? I'm not including anyone in a school or training institution...this is a question for those theatre artists who have left their original training and are in the industry or performing in the community - What do you do to improve? I hear a lot of you defend yourselves saying 'You learn by experience'. This is a truism, but some of you are also deluding yourselves. If your experience is not challenging you; if the experience is simply repeating what you already know over and over; if the experience is actually an incidence of doing something badly....then all you are learning are bad habits and poor technique. Unfortunately, you also learn those by experience! That's not to say that you MUST go to a class or an institution. There are many skilled practitioners who have set out to train themselves...whether that means learning an instrument, studying performance by watching plays, practicing lines and learning monologues...etc, etc... Everyone has something to learn. That's obvious, and judging by the poll most of us know it. But how many people are aware of their own individual weaknesses, and are actively taking steps to improve? How many of us realize what exact steps we need to take to increase our skill and improve our own performance abilities? Who can sum up, in a single sentence, what particular habit or inability is holding them back from greater success? That's the first, and most important, step toward training. Cheers, Craig <8>-/======\-------

But only if you allow it to be. As you say Craig. I'mm also with you Jeff about the high cost of workshops for participants in an industry that doen't earn a whole lot. What I hope to set up through the SHORT THEATRE group we are getting going here in Adelaide is a series of self help workshops where we bring our experience and hopefully leave our prejudice at the door. We would lead sessions in our areas of expertise and in return take part in sessions that challenge us. I recently had the opportunity to work with another really experienced actor and a young woman who had never set foot on a stage outside of school and an academic drama course. Bridget and I found that the questions she asked made us re-evaluate truisms we had accepted for years. An eye opening experience and I am very pleased that Holly had the chutzpah to challenge two old stagers because we both learnt from her.

Every experience is a learning experience

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