Universal Empathy

I always urge my students, in their process of creating original work from blank canvas, to first give themselves a structure. (Note that it does not matter what the structure is and you are not bound to the structure you start with. You can always change, as your ideas develop through your process). Artists work well within limitations. Limitations stimulate creativity. If we understand what our limitations are, there is freedom to be found in the space between.

Creativity is a process of making choices.

In helping students define their structure, I often urge them to commit their energies towards work that deals with themes that are universal in nature. Find that common experience. Work from that range of experiences that all people can understand and identify with. Communicate to that.

Hunting Inspiration

A number of years ago, while at Yale, I had the good fortune to meet renowned playwright,

Inspiration can hit us at once or we may have to hunt it down.

Arthur Miller (author of The Crucible, Death of a Salesman and All My Sons). This was, for me, a truly magical encounter, as he is one of my favorite writers. I asked him if he, in his creative process, met inspiration at the door OR if he consciously sought it out. He responded that it is different with every occasion, but that sometimes one must look for it.

Vision Seeking. What a romantic coupling of words. For me, it brings to my mind the mythic vision quest, where a hero strikes out with the express intent to have adventure, to experience new stimuli and to find inspiration.

Not all of us are blessed with a regular muse. Sometimes, we must make a conscious, concerted effort to hunt down the often elusive Inspirado.

Audio Recording of The Tiger Raised by Sheep

This post has been a really popular one.

So, I have created an audio Podcast recording of my telling the tale.

I hope you enjoy.

Click here to listen:

All it Takes is 10,000 Hours.

In his book Outliers, author Malcolm Gladwell, also author of bestselling books Blink and The Tipping Point, makes the case that success is less about talent and more about opportunity. He argues that those who are exposed to more and greater opportunities have a greater likelihood of being successful. Makes sense, right? We are each products of

Audio Recording of “What’s a Hero”?

Check out my audio recording of “What’s a Hero”?

Running your Acting Career as a Business

Waiting by the phone wastes time.

Entrepreneur is a word that can trip some actors up. I am an actor myself and I never used the word “entrepreneur”, until I was already well into my first business venture. I wish, however, that I had been exposed to

Choosing to Live, Deliberately

Henry David Thoreau

This is one of my favorite Joseph Campbell quotes: “We must let go of the life we have planned, so as to accept the one that is waiting for us.”

Upon first hearing these words, I thought to myself, “But I know what I want and I am building my life towards that goal”. But Campbell does not mean we should not have goals, but encourages us, rather, to say “Yes” to opportunities that present themselves before us.

Saying, “Yes” to new opportunities, even ones that are in opposite directions of our planned goals”, is a way of saying yes to life.

Life is unpredictable, just as adventure is. If we say no to adventure or new opportunity, we are closing the door on possibility.

Is Your Identity Defined by What You Do Professionally?

A lot of people define their sense of self, based on what they do for a living. Artists are notorious for this. They think of themselves as, “I am an actor” “I am a dancer” “I am a writer”, etc.

Tricky thing about such a line of thinking is that if you are not working, what are you then?

Defining one’s identity via what one does can lead to identity crises over time.

Certainly, most of us ask what it is we want to do, numerous times in our lives. I have heard that many Americans will have up to 6 careers in their lifetime. This further illustrates that we are all in a constant state of change.

Of course, each of us “is” more than just what we do. Still, many artists feel so passionately about the work they create, that they identify themselves strongly with their art. In such cases, 

Which Would you Choose?

Imagine a magic genie appeared and offered you the two following choices. The one you choose determines your fate. If you had the option to make one of the following choices, which would you choose?

Play the Game and Make a Choice.

1.    As an artist, your work, in your lifetime, will not be appreciated and you will struggle greatly, making many sacrifices. But, your art will live on after your death and you will become posthumously famous and well known for the next 400 years.

Or

Burn Your Boats.

If you are toying with engaging in a new lifestyle, career, artistic endeavor or life opportunity, I urge you to say yes.

But, if you decide to instigate this process of change in your life,

Burn your boats.

If you have a back up plan, you have the option of falling back on a “back up plan”. It is too easy, when things start to become very challenging to check out and fall back. Don’t give yourself that “safety net”.

Commit as if your life depended on it. Structure it so that it does.

Commitment to new endeavors can, for some, be a terrifying pursuit. However, this is fear speaking. The hero’s journey is, in part, about overcoming fear…and his cousin doubt. Know that the anticipatory fear is always greater than the actual experience usually brings. In brief, we are the makers of our fear and can be the controllers and over comers.

So Many Visionaries Inspired by Bali

Bali has served as a phenomenal source of inspiration for theatrical visionaries for decades. Peter Brook, Andre Belgrader, Julie Taymor and

(c) James Hart

many others have been attracted to and found inspiration in the beautiful island of Bali, Indonesia.

I have had the fortune to visit Bali for extended stays on two separate occasions, the first time while fulfilling a fellowship to study ritualistic mask dancing. Bali, Indonesia is one of my favorite places to have visited in the twenty countries I have toured, to date. The island of Bali sits in the Indonesian archipelago, a string of thousands of islands, most of which are Muslim. Bali, however, is predominately Hindu and has maintained its Hindu origins for thousands of years, making it still further special.

This small island, only about 55 miles long and 90 or so miles wide, I have been told, has around 60,000 temples. Spirituality infuses most aspects of life and I have never, in all of my years of travels, seen a happier, more “smiling people”.

Check this out: Nearly 90% of the inhabitants on the island of Bali consider themselves artists.

What I Learned from the Russians

In January of 1997, while a first year student at Yale School of Drama, I, along with my full class of fellow actors and directors, under the leadership of YSD professor, David Chambers, boarded a plane for St. Petersburg, Russia. We would spend five weeks in Russia, re-staging the legendary Russian theatrical director Meyerhold´s 1926 production of “The Inspector General”, a show that ran for years during his life and was touted, by many, as his masterpiece. As a side note, the communists eventually used this production as justification to politically assassinate Meyerhold.

Meyerhold´s 1926 production of Gogol´s "The Inspector General" or "Revizor"

Here is a link to the NY Times article about the project

But, this post today is not about Meyerhold, as much as it is about how I learned about what discipline means, a lesson I learned from our Russian collaborators and fellow artists.

That Familiar Taste of Failure

Who wants to feel failure and defeat?

Most of us dread our “negative” feelings, those all too familiar traveling mates of Failure, and we will do anything we can to avoid having to feel the emotions that commonly accompany a fall.

Failure can bring a ton of emotions flooding down. We might feel humiliated, insignificant, overcome, ill-equipped, general bouts of low self-esteem, depression, loss and other emotions we might describe as “negative”.

We all want to do well. We all want to be recognized when we succeed. That’s the way we are built.

Many of us try so hard to stay far away from these potential emotions that, in doing so, we engage in behavior that causes us to hesitate, be indecisive, flippant, non-committal, and act in ways that mirror someone who is wobbling on a tightrope. A tightrope is no place to live.

Sensitive by Design

Artists are, by nature, sensitive people. If you are an artist, you may have heard the following in your life: “You are so sensitive”.

The artists´ sensitivity is their strength. It is their sensitivity that nets stimuli and experience. The artist then, in turn, shapes and expresses such stimuli outwardly. Thus, art is born.

“Be careful, lest in casting out your demon you exorcise the best thing in you.”
— Friedrich Nietzsche

Our sensitivity is tied to our impulses and we must, as artists, follow our creative impulses. Our impulses, along with our sensitivity and imagination, are some of our greatest attributes. However, for many artists, their sensitivity leads them to “feel too much” and then to self-medicate.

Man is by instinct a Lover, a Hunter, a Fighter

Man is by instinct a lover, a hunter, a fighter.

Being in the market, one must compete, for it is competitive by its very nature. There are other people who are looking for the same resources that you have, the same opportunities.

You must be smart and prepare yourself.

Athletes train intensely for competition. They put their bodies into the best form they can possibly achieve, so as to increase their odds of winning.

So too must we, as artists, condition ourselves.

Serve the Living.

Continuing our exploration of whether artists are sellouts if they are profit motivated, I wan to illustrate an important concept.

If an artist is creating art for art’s sake, without a focus on who is going to appreciate it, want to support it and ultimately buy or consume it, who is one creating for? Is the work of art for a potential audience or is it therapy for the artist? Is one focused on making a living from their art and craft or are they creating just for the pleasure it gives them, personally?

I never offer any guarantees of success with educational offerings. To do so, would be dishonest. Avoid those arts institutions that do promise such results. Art is highly subjective and the interest of the market in any particular form is only to be known from entering the market.

Build your Infrastructure

Expending the labor to build the proper infrastructure now, can enable you greater flexibility, financial freedom and free time. With an additional revenue stream, you increase your chances of greater financial independence (if all goes well).

Having access to cash enables opportunity. Most new endeavors (creative, business, lifestyle, etc) require some injection of cash. If you have cash available for such purposes, you can use it. If you don’t, you will either have to figure out how to get it or learn to do without.

If you Hesitate, you Get Hit.

Hesitate and you get hit.

At the age of ten, my parents enrolled me in the martial arts, studying Tae Kwon Do. I had a marvelous first mentor. His name was Billy Bramer and he took me under his wing and served as a wonderful motivating and liberating figure in my life.

I loved being active in Karate and competed on the national stage, fighting as a black belt in the adult arena at the age of 14.

The martial arts, or military arts, was my first entry into a formalized style of art training.

Art is art is art. It all stems from the same place and different types of artists, simply have different tools to express themselves, but we artists are all the same type of animal and create from the same place.

One can learn a great deal about his or her own medium of artistry by watching or participating in another. For example: I have learned tons and tons about theatre by listening to and observing a friend who is a classical violinist. I have learned still more by watching dance.

You Get What You Want and I Get What I Want.

Everyone wants to win and nobody wants to lose.

All of us operate on a need basis and we are constantly seeking to fulfill our perceived “needs”.

“I want” is another way of articulating this (but needing and wanting are not the same, of course).

It sounds shallow to assume that we, as people, are milling about, constantly trying to fill the hole, fill the hole. But…that is pretty much accurate.

Think about how you go about your day. Buzz! I need to take a shower. I need to put on my clothes. I need to hurry or I will be late. I need to find my keys. Baby crying. I need to sooth baby. Phone ringing. I need to answer phone. No. Baby. etc, etc. ad infinitum.

Champions Adjust.

While at Yale School of Drama, I had a movement teacher by the name of Wesley Fata. Wesley was well known for the little gems he would bequeath in an “off the cuff” fashion.

One such gem has always stuck with me and here it is:

“Champions Adjust”.

These two words, together, embody a profound idea. Champions, in their process of earning such title, adjust to the circumstances before them.