As Neighborhood Playhouse Graduate I'd always heard about the program at Rutgers because it was run by William Esper a Neighborhood teacher and because my dad went there so he touted it as a great school. Mr. Esper has left so one might wonder how strong the teaching is now that he's gone. I can … Read more
Shocked to see I haven't written for a month. I was busy but still I should be writing more often. I am now back from two weeks of doing talks for the book in NY, NJ and Philly. I usually talk with an acting class of 20ish at a time. 50 students is big class. … Read more
A tip of the hat to Kanye for handing me that blog title. You have to wonder how someone who professes he wants to use his celebrity for "good," ends up grandstanding through someone else's moment. Or maybe you don't have to wonder at all… Sure this is way after the fact, everyone has had … Read more
I received this email from a friend in NYC. He went to The Neighborhood Playhouse with me after getting an degree in English from Stanford, now he’s a commercial producer. He points out how accepted the concept of form over function. For me it started with MTV and Madonna. Even when the world around me … Read more
I saw this on a friend's Facebook page… "I have an audition next week for a teen comedy with —– —–….omg thats a train wreck of a film waiting to happen….I can't wait till I can audition for some quality films." I bet this sounds like something you've said in the past. We've all read bad writing … Read more
NY actors are buzzing about the unprofesssionalism of a casting person who tweeted during an recent casting session. Real time tweets about actors being auditioned were sent out for the twit world to see. First, let's all try to get over the shock of finding out that casting people are human, and at times unprofessional. … Read more
While working on this film, that has a very tight budget, a person in the cast needed the night off to go to an event for a previous project. It seems our schedule changed and this person was now needed to shoot on the event night, and we had a conflict. We were all on … Read more
In a recent NPR article, Beth Broderick puts out an interesting idea…actors helping actors financially. You see, capitalists have no regard for anything but profit. Movie and TV studios are capitalists. Agents are capitalists, and artists eventually become capitalists out of necessity, but it isn't our nature. She brings up the idea that since only the … Read more
So in this odd realm of the biz we find ourselves in where work is scare and the medium of how our work will be presented is evolving, Casting Director Karen Rea (who hired me out of the blue last year for a Soap Opera) again found me a job. I have a nice role … Read more
So far as I can tell anyone vain enough to put their life on display in a reality series gets a divorce and ruins their family. I know there are exceptions because I can't think of every reality show about a married couple, but there seems to be 2 categories, those that got divorced and … Read more