The Three Stages

In any artistic development there are three stages of significant growth. These stages are important to understand and experience. Knowing where you are creates context, and with that you can see clearly towards your dream to the future. But just as important are the gaps between the stages. Those empty spaces that, because they are the places in-between, we assume have little or no value. In fact, understanding and experiencing the gaps and what it takes to make the leap from one stage of development to another, can be critical to reaching your goals. So, lets take a moment to examine those stages, the gaps in-between, and what it might mean to your journey …

Stage One:

Inspired Intuition

This is the, “Ah ha!” moment. Some of you had it early on in life, some had it later, and some few of you may still be waiting for it. It is the striking sound of your Calling. Myths and legends abound with stories of the Calling. A life without it can barely be a life lived, and a life with many becomes enriching both to the one living that life, and those around her. It is the undeniable sense that you have linked up with part of your destiny. In our case it’s about the performing arts. Each one of you heard the Call; something inside of you needed expression, and the stage was the place to find it. When someone is at this phase they are in a state of Inspired Intuition. It is very difficult to make a mistake when in this stage. It is the common experience of squeezing the trigger for the first time and hitting the target dead center. While from this well much hard work can be fed, it can also be a tripping point. If the initiate believes that this experience is an end in itself, that this bliss of first encountering the Calling is what the Calling is beckoning you towards, then there will quickly follow heartbreak and disillusionment. This is only the opening stage, one of great joy and elation, but there is much work to follow. While everything seems to be humming at this stage, soon the play will begin to look like work and the desire to create a discipline will emerge.

(The First Gap)

This one is easy, it usually come with almost no effort. The desire to start creating discipline and building the kind of muscles that only time and hard work can make possible begins now. We are excited in this Gap. We admire the others that have gone before us. We have studied their lives, as we grow positive about our own. As easy as this Gap can be, we need to take a moment to do just a couple of things. Consider first that you need to know that you are leaving your first stage behind. Too many actors will do good work that needs some improvement and in the note sessions they will be quietly kicking themselves for things not going perfectly. This is a ridiculous conceit. In a training environment you are there to fall down and grow up. Undo self criticism is a sign that the trainee hasn’t cut the cord with the first stage. They are lost in the fantasy that this all comes naturally. Maybe the best way to cut the cord with the first stage is to embrace it. An awareness coupled with genuine expressed gratitude about where you’ve been can be the antidote to staying stuck. Typically an actor might say to me something like, “I don’t know why I’m not moving forward in my craft, I feel stuck” and I can respond, “Why would you want to move on? You have such a cozy relationship with the past.” Moving on is a big part of moving forward.

Stage Two:

Technical Excellence

This is the one of the Three Stages that an actor can most likely get stuck in. It is an essential part of the growth curve, you can’t skip it, and it is the hardest to part with. So the young actor is all a blush with the joy of what they do and the more they learn about it the more they want to know. Reading books, watching the stars work that they admire. They have decided to leap into the technique. This is the beginning of a life’s work. I’m always saddened by outsiders that look at the art world and say, ‘Oh … an actors life, that’s a tough one.” Poppycock. Most everybody sets out to just get by. The artist sets out to be the best at what they do and change the world with it. When your task is so strong you’ll meet with disappointment and loss. The outsiders look at that as painful and so live lives of, “wishing they had”. The artist sees those things as inspirational and a driving force in their lives. The artist has turned disappointment into discontent and made it a fire that stokes their every action, and armed with that energy they begin to train. They set out to learn everything they can about what they do, the tools, the history, and the personalities that made it great. They write, act, direct, design, and most of all they dream. They fall on their ass a lot and each time they get up and brush off they are a little bit stronger than they were before. The road to Technical Excellence is a long and hard one fraught with peril, but the artist quickly turns it into a game where learning from losing is as exciting as any wins. But, with as many bumps and bruises as there are along the way of Technical Excellence, it is still the hardest of the three stages to move on from.

(The Second Gap)

There are a lot of bodies at this threshold. As a director, or when I’m helping a director put together a cast, the number one drawback that we see in actor is their unwillingness to let go of their work. It is never more important than in the art of film acting. Unlike stage acting, the actor for film has to work at a much more collaborative level. The disciplines that make up telling stories with film are each critical; directorial, editorial, writing, cinematography, composition, producing, score, and of course, acting. The goal is to tell stories, not to let any one of the disciplines linger in the spotlight. When we’re looking for great actors, we’re looking for great actors who will turn in their work completed but with enough room for us to do our work with the rest of our disciplines. The actor that is stuck in technique is showing the seems of his work, and if you think you like that idea, try wearing your shirt inside out for a day or two. Why is this gap particularly difficult to move over? It is because to achieve Technical Excellence one must dedicate oneself completely to it. That complete commitment is difficult to leave behind. The very thing, your commitment, that made it possible for you to call yourself a master, is the thing that makes moving on so scary. Who are you if you’re not your technique? I don’t have a lot of solutions for the artist about how to move on. This stage is intuitive and tricky. To teach you a technique to move on is to keep you in technique and so self-defeating. I do know this; expect to try to give up your work and rely in your intuition and get your ass kicked back across the line into technique more than once. That line out of Technical Excellence is one you’ll cross dozens of times as you mature. If you hold out for one big leap where you’re forever free you’ll spend your life waiting. Try, fall down, get up, try again, etc.

Stage Three:

Intuitive Mastery

There comes a point in any artist’s life where they feel like they are falling without a net only to discover that joy of the freefall never ends with a landing; there is only the fall. Your trip up the mastery curve tops out at Intuitive Mastery. It doesn’t end there, as this is a life’s work and therein lies its joy, but once the artist has hit Intuitive Mastery she can really begin to make some bold strokes with her work. It is the place when you have had the courage to leave your work behind and see what gifts await you. It is the combination of your natural Intuitive gifts and the Mastery that only strong technique can provide. This work falls into the realm discussed by Goethe when he suggests that, “the best things cannot be put into words, the second best things are misunderstood, and the third best things are what we talk about.” While there are very little details about what this work feels like, you’ll know it when you see it. It can be alarmingly simple. So much so that the artist must be on guard for a desire to do more just so that you can visit with your old friend, “Hard Work” from technique class. The idea that when the story begins the work ends and we start the play is powerful, but a rarified air that only the actor who as achieved Technical Excellence can breath. It feels effortless only because of the effort you expended to get there, it is simple only because you have eliminated all the complexities by mastering them, and it is freeing only because you have worked so hard to become free.