THE BASICS

Chapter Three

The Basics

    So, I say to you, learn how to focus your attention. Do exercises in attention and communication, because if you’re not communicating to someone you know, even if it’s only in your mind, then your attention will be dissipated, and you’ll be lost in the moment, because without an understanding of who you’re talking to, what you’re saying, and what the importance of the message is, what the point of what you’re communicating, no one will get what or why you’re saying it!

    Let’s clarify with some basic definitions:

Acting – Representing a unique character by assuming the point of view of that person to serve the character in the best, most positive light imaginable, understanding the exact situations a character is involved in. To serve an imaginary character as a spokesperson, believing all that he or she stands for.Attention- Mental concentration, looking toward someone or something, placing one’s mind and gaze on someone with an expectation of giving and receiving information, with the understanding that something will occur between two or more viewpoints.
Classify- The act of arranging things according to subject matter, putting them into a particular category.
Communication is the act of relaying information from one viewpoint to another viewpoint which includes the attention, intention and willingness to share data from all parties, originator and recipient.
Intention – Having one’s mind strengthened by a specific important purpose.
Objective- Something someone is trying to achieve or reach out for from a specific viewpoint.
Responsibility- Having to account for your actions and recognizing the validity of your character’s and your own choices. 
Specify- Isolating details which describe something to be done or made, clearly distinguishing a unique choice deemed to be important. Finding a special item which emerges significantly within a particular classification, defined exactly, which increases its value.
Note: Several schools of thought on the subject of performing encourage you to focus on objectives, the purposeful goal, but they don’t delve into the source of the attention, which is the imaginary character’s point of view. Ask yourself, “Do I ever focus on an objective?” Usually you focus on your thoughts, and the message you’re trying to communicate. The practice of focusing on objectives may work, if the character is doing that. Most of the time, characters and people are unaware of actual objectives, but they know what their attention is on, how they need to respond to the situation at hand. It is an immediate attraction which leads you to understand the nature of the viewpoint.
Classify/Specify
   The entire act of creation is two-fold. Initially, when developing a character you need to place him or her into a classification, a category which allows you to see clearly the details and boundaries of the viewpoint. Next, you need to discover something specific about the particular, unique viewpoint given to you by the thoughts and considerations of the character, expressed in the script or song.
You need to first CLASSIFY the situation, and then to SPECIFY something about it; that is, to “specify,” is to make something more important than anything else. By classifying and specifying, you open the door to creative endeavors. You may have to repeat this process until something emerges more important than others.    I would say the vital task is to expand your ability is to imagine things, imagine situations, imagine character traits, and imagine new thoughts and new ideas. One exercise I’ve found useful is to go to a large shopping mall, and watch people shopping, coming and going to and from stores, and imagine what’s on their minds, what they’re thinking about, what their attention is on, and take notes from you act of imagining what absorbs their attention. It doesn’t matter what you imagine, as long as you don’t fall into the traps of interpretation: This process helps the performer focus his/her attention on the possible negative traps that may come your way, and find out how to reverse them to positive items grasping your attention.
    There is a sequence, that if placed out of order or if the steps are ignored, will hinder the accurate interpretation of a song, and produce little or no effect. In turn, it will leave an audience without an opinion of why you sang the song at all. That’s where the traps come in. They take us away from positive choices, and we become cynical and doubting, rather than positive and reassuring.    You see, as people, we naturally look toward the hopeful, positive, and beneficial paths, those which lead us toward solutions, rather than into the mire of problems.
The Trap of Adopting Criticism
   Our world loves criticism as it pervades the media, our universities, our schools, and our workplace, as well as in our homes. In many ways, it is easier to be critical of someone or something, than it is to take a positive outlook. Performers, as James Earl Jones recently said, “Have the responsibility to breathe life into our characters.” It’s hard to breathe life into an imaginary person when you’re critical of him or her, just as it is hard to love someone when you criticize that person. Performers are challenged to find the most positive viewpoint of the characters they represent in a scene, a song or a movie. That’s why we always look at the good things we do, what we like about our work and our choices.    I found there are four “A”s which serve as traps, as they hinder our ability to imagine and interpret a viewpoint. 
Attitude: Is a pasted on group of thoughts or actions which we feel are part of a character’s viewpoint, but are not really, because a character’s attention is absorbed with the problem s/he faces, not by attitude arising out of the problem.
Attitudes are not real, but are nevertheless destructive to the process of assuming a viewpoint, as by striking an attitude, you lose the character’s genuine attention on what s/he is doing. It could also be the actor’s attitude toward the character.
By plastering ourselves in an attitude, we drive ourselves away from that viewpoint, because the character as an entity would reject that focus of attention. That creates distance from the location we need to be in, so that we can SEE what has our character’s attention. Assumption: This is the false act of assuming things are true when they are not, but imagined to be true out of an idea that you are obligated to make it true. If the character was aware of it s/he would separate him/herself from you to prevent being false. We are assuming that our character would react is a way that s/he may not.
The key to discovering if we are making assumptions is to:

• go over the text of the song, find out who the character is directing the message to
• imagine the person receiving the communication and viewpoint of your character
• what reaction would s/he have?
• Choose the most effective means to communicate your character’s viewpoint. Such means will be designed to get your character’s desired reaction from whomever s/he is talking to. 
• When that is done, no assumptions will be present.

Association: This is the false act of finding someone or something that is similar and adopting that in place of the true character, deciding that our character resembles “so and so.”It’s thinking “S/he reminds me of … and I know s/he is just like that person.” What effect will that have on our character? The result is alienation, the same thing happens when a person, attempting to create a bonding experience, uses an association to create familiarity, but it backfires because the other person is unique and special and s/he knows it’s not true. S/he wants to be seen as an unique individual, unlike any other person. Your attempt to pigeon hole them will only make them individuate from you, just like a real life friend. They know you’re not sincere if you make an associative comparison.
Arbitrary: This is the result of one’s spontaneous imagination and bringing in something out of the blue, without relevance or regard for the character’s true viewpoint. It often takes shape in emotions and actions you bring to the role. They are destructive to keeping the character’s attention on the actual reality of the situation. Arbitrary is something that comes out of the blue, without rhyme or reason, but just added as a substitute for communication, to make it “interesting or compelling”, but results in a showing that is neither.
Emotional outbreaks are among the arbitrary choices I’ve seen performers make. Excessive emotion has the ability to drown out the thoughts, which confuses audiences as they can’t understand why or how the emotion could fit in with the thought. Remember, performing is mostly thought-driven, and thoughts require accurate attention, from moment to moment.

    These are the Four A’s: Attitude (pasting on ideas to yourself, covering your identity or the character’s identity with fabricated ideas), Association (uniting the viewpoint with someone you know as in “you remind me of such and such”) Assumption (taking a thought that it should be for this purpose by assuming that it is true, when most likely it is not) and Arbitrary (coming from nowhere, from a wild tangent or a “fun idea”). If you fall into any of these traps, your proximity to the viewpoint will enlarge, because the character, the imaginary character will be offended and won’t have anything to do with you, especially since your job is to represent the viewpoint to the best of your knowledge and wisdom. And in summary, that is why you are a performer, so you can take on the viewpoint of an imaginary character, find what his/her attention is on, locate that focal point, speak with all the feeling you have inside you, letting it come out naturally, as the breath from your soul.
    Use the Four A’s to help you locate the trouble spots. Sometimes they are illusory and difficult to perceive. If you feel something is not effective in your communication, and you’re “Not in the zone” so to speak, check yourself by evaluating your thoughts about the character, the situation, other characters and the entire scene. You may have an unknown critical thought which propels you into a void, like falling into a deep hole. You need to isolate the origin of that thought and acknowledge its presence. Once that “A” has been identified, you can discard the critical thought by changing it to a positive choice, then rehearsing it over and over again to remove any residual negative effect.

Positive Choices Enhance Imagination
   I looked at assumptions that I had made and realized that it was a trap, one that drove me further from the viewpoint, rather than closer. It became apparent that these traps would hamper, if not kill the communication process, and would also reduce my ability to use my imagination, which I feel is the most valuable and important tool a performer has.    As children, we imagine everything, the Wild West, the presence of Indians, the battlefield with cannons and guns, the railroad trains and trucks; in short, our imaginations got us through childhood. So why as adults, do we lose the ability to develop our imaginations? 
   What is this process? I call it the SRS method, short for SEE, RELATE, & SIGNIFY. I have found this process to be very workable, and if used consistently, will produce great satisfaction and enjoyment in your performances. 

See
The first step is to SEE what is there.SEE what thoughts are there 
SEE the transitions between the thoughts
what brings on the change of thought
how that change from one thought to another is used to create a desired response?
What is actually happening in the music?
SEE the rhythm, tempo, and pacing of the piece, and any changes & transitions
SEE the instructions written on the music: dynamics markings, phrasing & articulation.
SEE how the composer integrated the text with the melody, and identified what kind of vocal line it is. Are there skips, scales, recitatives, etc?
Note what the accompaniment is doing in contrast to the vocal line.
SEE and hear the harmonies and dissonances.
Relate

The second step is to RELATE, that is, to: compare one thought to another 
compare how the thoughts are connected to an overall point of the communication.
Compare your thoughts to that of the character if you were in the same situation. Would you say or do the same thing? Why? Why not?
How do the character’s thoughts and works and actions originate from a positive place; where even an antagonist is making decisions because they feel it is the best path for them?
Often, this step is used extensively when a performer monologues the song, wherein the communication is enhanced, and discoveries about the character’s thought processes are revealed. With the monologue process, you , as the performer, understand how the “cycle of communication” is present.
Signify
  That leads to the third step, to SIGNIFY, to find something important in the communication that focuses your attention, that gives you purpose for the communication. The important thought that you choose as being significant can absorb you full attention and involvement, and will help bring in the emotional support for your communication.    The whole use of SRS is to take advantage of your creative abilities to classify and specify.

Being a performer is different from being a person. Performers must “step up to the plate,” in terms of their energy and communication. They must be like tigers ready to pounce, and must have an antenna out for opportunities to find significance.    The most successful auditions I’ve had happened when I found something significant in the song or scene, something I could rally behind, and something that put me into the viewpoint of the character instantly. Most of the unsuccessful auditions lacked that clarity of purpose, and therefore reduced my ability to energize from that specific viewpoint. 
    Performers must also be excellent perceivers of human thought and emotion. I recommend going to a shopping mall and watching people, SEEING, RELATING and finding SIGNIFICANCES. It is a good, worthwhile activity to prepare you for this work. Performers should be positive role models, people who are problem solvers, not problem makers. Most of our activity involves groups of people, and whenever one of us becomes a negative influence, the result is disastrous.
   Our lives will impact us, and we need to develop our techniques to survive as performers, to not dredge up bad times to artificially energize ourselves, but rather to use our imaginations to place us in the moment. 
    So, how do you get setup for a performance? You start by imagining what just happened five minutes earlier, and you place yourself in that viewpoint, so that when you begin singing or acting, you are already in the MIDDLE of the scene or song, so that you are involved and communicating, rather than BEGINNING to communicate. 
   I realize that to prepare performers one needs to direct their attention and energy to mental, physical, emotional, and spiritual realities, which are brought about by clear and present thoughts. This demands much from a performer, inasmuch as mental work can be as trying as physical work. Yet, this mental work is a known necessity and requirement of the performer.
    Much of this discipline lends itself to the task of living. I encourage performers to overcome adversity, illness, laziness and apathy. By challenging ourselves to remove criticism from our lives, we set our sights on finding positive choices, which edify our families and friends. We set a standard of living which is higher than life itself.
It is the secret to living a life of joy.

OUR PHILOSOPHY

Chapter Two

Our Philosophy

    Your attention is the most valuable asset you have. Your mind is guided by your thoughts and your thoughts lead you to either success or failure. Accepting criticism from people minimizes your energy and reduces your effectiveness as a performer. The best way to take criticism is to thank the person who gives it to you
and let that be the end of it.    Performing is a team sport. Each performer contributes to the total event in concert with one another, supporting each other’s preparation and delivery to achieve a desired result. Technique is how you know, have and use a workable, patterned approach to the work which allows you to assume the character’s viewpoint. Performing requires specific attention which cannot be distracted
by anyone or anything. Performers are masters of maintaining their attention, regardless of audience responses.     Singing is sustained talking as you are communicating to a specific person always.
The most effective tool for communicating is having a strong imagination which can establish and form an event. Building the ability to imagine is essential for performers, as it provides an anchor point, a recipient of your communications. Discovering your source of energy is important in developing your technique and abilities to perform any task.     Performers are special people. They are dedicated to challenging and moving audiences to change personal considerations, adjust their habits, alter their actions in life toward improvement and thereby improve the performer’s life and situations.
    The process of learning is a gentle, gradient-based progression which is free of negative input so as to engender cooperation, enhanced understandings, quality communications and wonderful performances. Learning is something that occupies a performer’s lifelong ambition. Age is not a factor when it comes to learning if the person confronts success, failure and adversity with a relentless willingness to be challenged. Much like the early forefathers of our country, we are all faced with trials, tribulations, conflicts, economic reversals, emotional upheavals, disappointments, and disasters. George Washington suffered many defeats before the victory at Yorktown and the eventual defeat of the British. He suffered through
Valley Forge, the death of hundreds of soldiers, disgrace among his peers and countrymen, and periods of hunger, cold and starvation of his men. Yet he persisted in spite of all that was thrust upon him. He was a military “performer” who never gave up his belief in his country and determination to survive the adversity. He learned that the only way to withstand a storm is to drive directly to the heart of the matter without running or hiding from it.    So it is with performers. You may encounter criticism, which is prevalent in our society, and may be affected by it, may even cause you to become sick, depressed, rejected, and ashamed that you let it happen to you. Just know that you are special, unique, and spiritual in nature. Know that people love you and that God loves you as your father or mother loves you. Remind yourself that you are a good person; you seek after joy and learning. Know that you may have to defend yourself on occasion, and know that you will survive, you will be fine. Adversarial attacks come out of nowhere, and if you refuse to be the effect of them, they soon fade away into the darkness they come from. Seeking light is the best way to defeat darkness. Turning to spiritual realities helps you conquer the world’s ills. You are primarily a thinking, rational being who is loved and loves. Adversarial attacks occur without provocation, randomly and are not the results of any specific target. Things happen. It is your responsibility to maintain a cool head, not be provoked into making a mistake which will drop you down a deep hole. Once, I remember walking down a street on the lower east side of New York City, and a man came out of nowhere and grabbed me. My initial reaction was to take the hand and dance with him! I instinctively knew it would prevent the attack, and I was right. He recoiled saying, “You’re crazy!” Only later did I discover that criminals are afraid of crazy people. 
    As performers, and indeed, people, we are responsible for our personal condition. We can point the finger that other people are responsible, but when we do, four of our other fingers are pointing directly back to us. The odds are four to one we are responsible for our choices in life, and indeed for our performances. I can’t say that I haven’t had the desire to blame someone, especially my father, growing up, but as I matured, I realized I had to forgive him, and understand his particular viewpoint, not discounting that his actions were wrong and indecent, but that we all respond to life’s pressures, and as a performer, we need to be able to “walk a mile in that person’s moccasins.”
    It’s a matter of being “pan-determined,” going out of the world and standing on the moon to get the whole picture, seeing the truth of a situation from another viewpoint other than our own, relating to how a person arrives at a place where they could do something negative, destructive, and self-deprecating. Some people believe in Karma, what goes around, comes around. There may be some truth in that, but to react because of that is foolish, and is an assumptive trap, because it might be that a person responded to a chaotic event which had nothing to do with a causative action supposedly committed earlier. Things happen, and for us to assume that we are the cause of what happens to us is naïve. What is more important is that our choices in response are what we have control over. Imagine if people thought what happened in New Orleans was the result of the sinful or wayward actions of the people. No, it just happened. What they do in response is the issue. 
   Now, when 9-11 happened, we were attacked, similar to Pearl Harbor. Certainly, no one viewed either of those incidents as provoked by causation. What did we do? How did we interpret those acts? We declared war on the enemies, who represent an adversarial force wanting to eliminate our freedom to exist, the same way Israel responds to the Palestine or Iranian desire to extinguish their people from the earth.
    Some time ago, I was in a touring production of “Antigona Perez” a rewrite of Anouilh’s Antigone, and we were sent to Boston to perform around town. Little did we know that the climate was hostile, that the Cuban refugees in the neighborhood were reacting to us as the invaders, suggesting that they return to Cuba, and that the play was a message to “go home?” So guerrillas came on the scene armed with weapons, and threw bottles at us on the stage, forcing us to seek refuge in our touring bus, and two of them boarded our bus, and threatened us mortally if we did not run away and not present this “propaganda” anywhere else in Boston. We ran for our lives and witnessed our bus, costumes, and clothes left behind burning behind us. I was the Equity deputy, and had the responsibility of contacting the union to demand two weeks pay and return transportation back to New York for the cast and crew. There are times when it is wise to not resist evil, but to preserve yourselves and friends, away from harm. I was responsible for that decision to comply with the terrorists and leave while we still could.    I pray that no one will ever have to endure that situation. In forty five years, it only happened once, and I am grateful for that. We learn from life’s turns of fate or we expose ourselves to a repeat performance later on. It’s what we do in the clinch that makes a difference. 
    Our philosophy is basically, that students need to be prepared for as many situations they can imagine, like what the New York Water Authority did recently with the US Air crash in the Hudson river. They were prepared and acted decisively to save lives. We believe that students should be ready to assume full responsibility for their actions, especially their reactions to whatever comes their way. We believe we are problem solvers, not problem makers.

A JOYOUS LIFE

Chapter One

A Joyous Life

   I believe it began, this quest of mine, as a young man wanting to serve others, as an acolyte in the Episcopal Church. It brought joy which I could share with others. Then, in my last two years of high school, I performed on the stage as an actor and in a local night club, as a stand up comedian. I also wanted to be an officer and a gentleman, and was accepted into Kings Point Military Academy, but fate would turn. I grew up the son of a first generation Italian father and a first generation German mother. My father was an alcoholic and beat both my mother and I. I sincerely thought he wanted me dead, especially when he refused to take me to the hospital when I was crippled over in paid from a ruptured appendix. Fortunately, my mother successfully took me in only to hear the doctor tell her that I had a twenty percent chance of living, even if the surgery was successful. I guess I was an optimist from that time on, because I decided I would live and that twenty percent was better than no percent. I learned then to make the positive choice in life, that I would always treat others with dignity and compassion, especially children I knew I would have later in life, and that I would never strike a child, or adult. I became an Eagle Scout, got a part time job, and found my way into performing, if no other reason to bring joy to myself and others.
    Which is why I am writing this book. I could have been an officer in the Navy, had my father not prevented me from pursuing that interest, by stealing the money I had saved for college to make his mortgage payment. I understand he resented me and wanted me to pay for that, and now, in retrospect, from his viewpoint, he considered he was entitled to some repayment for my lack of obedience. He wanted me to work my last summer, and I went to Scout camp to achieve a gold palm for my Eagle Award, forsaking my part time job, as I had saved the money already. However, I am grateful my life took a turn, after enlisting in the Navy, being sent to Pensacola, Florida to train as an Naval Aviator, which was thwarted on my first day after gaining a new-found friend in the program who was excited about his first solo flight and invited me to watch him take off. Now, I had studied aeronautics and knew the basic principles of flight, one of which you need to lower your flaps on the wings to get sufficient lift on take off. I sat in horror as he taxied to the runway without lowering his flaps and began screaming at the top of my lungs to lower them. He could not hear me of course, and proceeded to take off without lowering his flaps. I witnessed him crashing at the end of the runway and found out later that the engine went through his body, leaving a pool of blood and tiny bones. I was shocked to think that one error might cost someone his life and decided to bail out of the program, another major turn.    I began to study history and philosophy in the Navy, and after my four year tour, applied to universities to study history. I decided to start at a small junior college in Louisburg, North Carolina, since I was stationed in Norfolk, Virginia at a naval air station, and had trained as a radio operator on P2V’s - patrol planes. 
    I had no fear of flying, only the fear of being a pilot, so letting someone else fly the plane was fine, and after three years of flying, I was ready to live on the ground.
    So I was accepted and decided to major in history and philosophy, writing as my first assignment, the History of Utopian Thought. My professor was duly impressed and ratified my interest in becoming a historian, or at least, a professor of history. But my first semester presented yet another turn of fate, as I was eating lunch in the cafeteria and an older gentlemen joined me, announcing that he was looking for a carpenter to prepare a theatre for his drama classes. Since I had learned as a child to do carpentry, and later used that skill to pay for graduate studies in New York, I asked if it came with a scholarship, and it did! So, I solved a financial problem I was facing, paying my tuition in my second year, as I had saved enough from the Navy to pay my first year’s tuition and now I could save enough to get me through my second year.     I loved carpentry work, and began to rekindle my joy from being in theatrical productions, and was asked to play a small part in Elmer Rice’s Adding Machine!
    I built a small coffin (because of the small stage area) and then climbed into it, before the audience arrived, and had to remain quiet for the entire first act until my cue came, which prompted me to rise up in white face make-up and shout “Won’t you shut up and let a man sleep!” It created a shocking moment just before the lights went out and intermission began. I went on to act in several productions for the next two years, and transferred to the University of North Carolina in Chapel Hill, still intending to major in History. But the first production that fall in my Junior year was My Fair Lady, in which I played Doolittle, and sang “Get me to the church on time” to a thunderous applause in the 1800 seat theatre. I thought to myself, “What am I doing in History, I can make history in Theatre!” Again, the joy it brought to both myself and the audience was special, unique and provocative.    After graduation, I went to Europe seeking more information about the arts, and was curious about fine artists I witnessed at the Louvre in Paris. I watched them working on reproducing the great masters, especially DaVinci. There was no criticism in their countenance, only looking at what they liked about what they did, evaluating the color, line, shadows, light, and composition. Then, after doing that, they searched the canvas for something they would change or add to it. It struck me, that it is the only true way to proceed as an artist, to evaluate what you like about what you do, getting everything you liked and then asking yourself, what would you change? I went to London, and checked out different drama schools, thinking that I would like to further my education, but my money ran out and I had to return to the states. Once I got back, I looked up a girl friend in San Francisco, and we went to Berkeley, to check out the University programs. I found a theatre set up in a store front, called the “Berkeley Repertory Theatre” and got a job as a carpenter and stage manager. It was their first season! After all, it began my interest in college, so why not continue it? It seemed a great way to introduce myself to the area, help them build the theatre’s reputation, and I met some fine actors, one of which I would meet later in Los Angeles on "Hill Street Blues," Joe Spano, who stayed at Berkeley Rep for several years. 
Berkeley Repertory was terrific! I acted in several plays, once in Norman Mailer’s Deer Park, as Herman Teppis, a sixty year old man (I was 26). I had learned make up in college, and was a dancer and singer, and was considered a “triple threat.”
I brought such joy to the part that my age transformed and after the show, no one recognized me, in street clothes and out of make-up. I enjoyed bouncing out of the theatre as a young man, instead of limping my way through life as Herman Teppis did. Even now in my late sixties, I have the same energy I had then, having just completed my sixth production at the Egyptian Theatre in Park City, Utah as Mayor Shinn in The Music Man. I realized some years ago, that whenever I was either in a film, play or musical on my birthday, I would not age, and it’s true! Spreading joy has its rewards!   After two years at Berkeley Rep, I got hired as an actor as Richard II at the Mill Valley Shakespeare Festival, and was noticed by a director who offered me the role of R.P. McMurphy in One Flew Over The Cuckoo’s Nest, which was picked up by a producer who offered me my first union contract at the Little Fox Theatre in San Francisco. That was 1969, and I have continued to act to this day! In fact, I have two pensions from acting, one with Actor’s Equity and another with Screen Actor’s Guild. From that production, I moved to New York City, and played the same show Off-Broadway as Cheswick, as McMurphy was played by Billy Devane, and Martini was played by Danny Devito. Peter Yates saw our performance and I was cast in my first movie, The Hot Rock , with Robert Redford and Zero Mostel, joining SAG in 1971. It’s usual to be a member of more than one union. In fact, I joined AFTRA, the American Federation of Television and Radio Artists shortly after that. It prompted me to frequent the downtown Actor’s Equity lounge to gain insight on older performers. Often they were bitter, sarcastic, and critical of other performers, directors and producers. I couldn’t understand how they expected to get hired with such negative attitudes, and decided then and there that I would not let sarcasm and bitterness get the best of me. I would retain the positive choice in life. For two years I performed eight shows a week, and also studied with Uta Hagen, Robert Lewis, and Mira Rostova from the Moscow Art Theatre, but decided I needed to increase my education and started a master’s degree at Hunter College, in Directing, to gain another viewpoint of the profession, and especially since professional theatre people were teaching: Harold Clurman, Lillian Helman, Arthur Miller, and Joseph Anthony, a Broadway Director.     It was the best two years, I thought at the time, of my professional career. Just before I graduated, I noticed that the London Academy of Music & Dramatic Art was holding auditions for their one year post graduate program in the classics. I had prepared several Shakespeare monologues and submitted an application. I had so much joy in that audition, they asked me to do seven monologues, one right after the other, and invited me to join them in London! It’s a rare occasion when you’re offered a role or invitation to participate on the first meeting. Fortunately, after graduation I was hired to act in Ibsen’s Masterbuilder at the Long Wharf Theatre in New Haven, Connecticut in the Fall, the time I had set aside for going to London. So I called LAMDA and asked if I could come the following year, 1974-75, and to my surprise they said yes! Once again, the joy saved the day. 
    When I arrived at LAMDA in September of 1974, I went up to the headmaster, introduced myself and asked him a very important question, following this remark, “I have performed and studied for the last ten years with some of the top people in Theatre, but not one of them could say in a nutshell what the secret to acting is!” He smiled and said, “It’s quite simple, it’s knowing what your attention is on, moment to moment.” My jaw hit the floor. It’s a matter of viewpoint. That year turned out to be the best year of my life, because it made me aware of the source of the communication, and what absorbs the character’s ATTENTION. That simple truth has made sense out of every performance I have done since then.
    On my return to the states, I arrived in New York, and flipped a coin (talk about fate) and flew to Los Angeles, where within three weeks I secured an agent as I was already a SAG member. Two weeks after that I was called to audition for Jackson County Jail opposite Yvette Mimieux and Tommy Lee Jones (his first movie). After three weeks of auditions, they were worried that such a kind guy couldn’t play a rapist cop and Ms. Mimieux had doubts. I asked her what did she need to know (what was her attention on?) and she said we needed to arm wrestle, which I gladly did, convincing her that I could physically overwhelm her. It was my first starring role in film. 
   Once I was established, offers came in to do other similar roles and I turned them down, because I didn’t want to be pigeon holed as a sexual deviate. But the word got out that I knew something about acting, and people began to ask me to help them learn how to act, so I started an acting class in my apartment, which became so successful the neighbors said I had to take it elsewhere, and so I did, I opened the Los Angeles Academy of Dramatic Art, which Neil Simon used in I Ought To Be In Pictures! Neil became a friend of the Academy, which lasted eight years, and the Academy produced some fine actors, who are working to this day. We produced several plays at the Academy during those late seventies and early eighties, and had three theatres operating simultaneously. I continued to work in film and on television until I left again for New York, as I knew my true wife would be there (I had married once in San Francisco and once in Los Angeles) so it was time to find the right one. As fate would have it, I married in New York to the wrong one, and because of her career and children, we moved back to LA after three years teaching at Hunter College in the Theatre and Film departments.     Back in California, the work picked up, but the marriage failed, and so I went back to New York, where I taught at a small theatre company close to 14th Street. I had a sudden interest in opera, (another wonderful turn of fate prompted by providence as one of my actresses was hired by City Opera at Lincoln Center and recommended I audition. I did and was cast in Carmen. Sure enough my first rehearsal answered my lifelong question, as I saw the woman I had sought for many years. I was cast as the priest and she was cast as the nun, because her young son was in the children’s chorus, and, rather than sit backstage, she signed on as a supernumerary, although she is really a wonderful soprano who had done several professional leading roles herself. She had real joy in her work, even as an actress! It was love at first sight, and I made the mistake of telling her. I said, “Where have you been? You are my true wife!” That freaked her out, and she stood me up so many times, even for concerts at the New York Philharmonic. (I was hired to promote concerts, call patrons and sell season tickets, for which I was paid well and received complimentary tickets, many of which I gave away after waiting for her to arrive.) 
    She finally told me she was in a relationship with another man and was reeling from a recent divorce and had no room in her life for an actor! That did it. Although I loved her, and told her so, I could no longer remain in the same city knowing that the woman I’ve looked for most of my adult life would not consent to be my wife. I returned to Los Angeles to continue my career, even though I knew my agent was completely fed up with me and I would have to find other representation. So several months went by and due to a freaky motorcycle accident (the bike fell over and I extended my leg to catch it, which torqued my knee and I was laid up for a spell. I called her and she was excited to hear from me, as she had broken up with the other man. I asked her what we should do with 3000 miles between us. She asked if I would write her, and I jumped at the opportunity. After several months of writing letters back and forth, one of her friends read one of my letters and she told her, “This guy loves you, if you don’t marry him, I will!” Like I said, it’s always a question of viewpoints! That was another spiritual moment, one which convinced her to move out to Hollywood, marry me and begin our life together.
    We ran a studio teaching vocal performance at Beachwood Arts & Music for almost three years with some notable success, but a handful of students. We were prompted to visit Utah, where Debra worked for seven seasons at Utah Opera as a soloist and had graduated, where she had taught for eleven years, with honors, a Masters Degree in Vocal Performance from Brigham Young University. We drove to Provo, which was okay, but nothing special in terms of living there, and then to Salt Lake City, which was covered with a temperature inversion, much like smog in LA. She recommended that we drive up to Park City, and I thought “A city of parked recreational vehicles?” But as we came up Parley’s Canyon I told Debra that “for the first time in my life I couldn’t see the air!” Then I said, “What are we doing with our lives? Let’s move here!” So we sold our house in Hollywood, bought another in Park City, and wondered what we should do. I said, “We should go to the local music store, pick up some sheet music and do a duet!” There wasn’t a local music store, the nearest store was thirty miles away in Salt Lake City. We knew why we moved to Park City and established Park City Music twelve years ago, and music instructors came out of the woodwork wanting to teach in our store. So we did, out of a little seven hundred square foot store within the Treasure Mountain Inn on Main Street, which grew to over one hundred fifty students in three years. We applied for a non-profit organization named Park City Arts & Music Conservatory and opened in June, 2000. We received a few grants to do concerts but had a difficult time raising funds and decided after four years to relegate the non-profit to a scholarship program depending upon support from the community, which we continue to do every year, and have opened up the opportunity to students of other teachers in Salt Lake City. We added a studio in Salt Lake City and changed our name to Utah Conservatory. Recently we added the Paul Green School of Rock as an experimental program to encourage performers to prepare and improve their skills for audiences. Currently we have over 400 students with several students winning competitions and gaining paid performance work. Moreover, Debra has been teaching actors how to sing and perform for the last nine years at the University of Utah, which is where I studied in the Doctoral Education Program for seven years and finally graduated from Rochville University with a PhD in Educational Studies in 2004. 
    Age should not be a factor in our lives. It is essentially mind over matter. The prospect and progress of our lives is to have enthusiasm and joy, which sheds light over darkness, brings optimism instead of criticism, ushering in hope to the equation. I consider this the responsibility of the performer. Like a race horse, performers need to guard and protect themselves from negative influences so that they are able to feel, express passion from a viewpoint, maintain compassion for others, forgive people rather than harboring resentment and ill will. Performers should desire a life of joy so others can follow. Performers can be leaders. It is a choice one makes. Performers are capable of instilling courage, hope and happiness.