Off Cut Forty Eight

END OF YEAR PERFORMANCES

All over the country student actors are presenting their final performances for the year and those who are completing their tertiary study are presenting themselves to the industry for assessment often in the hope of acquiring an agent. Discussions with television-orientated people at a recent performance of graduating students produced the following thoughts.

Essential Foundations Always Deliver
It's obvious that the performance process for theatre has a number of different technical requirements from the television/film process. But it was surprising that some television-orientated observers had difficulty in assessing the value of the offerings because stage work is "so large" and they are looking for actors who deliver "small" performances for the screen. So the difference in techniques muddies the water for some observers. However, it was obvious from the comments that actors who based their performance process on the fundamental essentials where the ones who attracted attention and comment.

Basic Ingredients
In essence,

• If the performer delivered their story, then they were on the way to gaining approval.
  
• If they did so through an active listening process, then they definitely were noticed.
  
• If the performer also managed to entertain the audience, then they possibly gained a few extra bonus points.

These seemed to be the ingredients which attracted the most comment.

In addition it was plain that performers could still receive a favourable response if they slipped a little in delivering the story but despite this were still listening. The active listening element seemed to be the one that was most constantly assessed as the ingredient that created a truthful interactive process. It appeared from the comments heard that these assessment appeared to be just as relevant to musical theatre students as they were to drama students.

December 2002