Your Travalanche Daily Digest for October 23, 2026
11 hours ago
Wednesday, May 06, 2009
shameless self promotion
THis is a press release I just put out and I wanted to share.
Acting Teacher's Students Blazing Creative Trails
Andrew Utter, founder of the Mother of Invention Acting School in Los Angeles and San Francisco, finds that his students are seeking out and finding fresh and exciting opportunities to practice their art.
Mother of Invention Acting School
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
PRLog (Press Release) – May 06, 2009 – Andrew Utter, founder of the Mother of Invention Acting School in Los Angeles and San Francisco, started his acting school five years ago, and is constantly amazed at the variety and richness of the work that his students are doing. From booking a small speaking part in Gus van Sant's 'Milk' to creating a touring one-woman show by a Palestinian-American entitled 'I Heart Hamas and Other Things I Am Afraid to Tell You', Utter' finds that his students carry on the idealism, the passion and the love of the art of acting that he espouses in his classes.
"One of the best things about this gig, aside from the classroom experience, and seeing people make strides in their skill as an actor, is hearing back from students about the things they are up to. I'll get a Facebook message that someone just got a role in an independent film, or I'll hear that someone got into a graduate program they applied for, and I will feel like a proud papa for a whole week!" Utter muses.
Utter's student Dawn Scott was admitted to the National Theater Conservatory in Colorado, which included a full scholarship and a stipend for three years and the opportunity to study trapeze as part of the training! Another student, Tim Rossi, just got a role in an independent film shooting this June in San Francisco called 'Sedona's Rule', about a man who agrees to let his girlfirend cheat on him, and is subsequently drawn into dangerous sexual intrigue. Miklos Philips, a filmmaker who studied with Utter, has made films which have been shown in several festivals and on NBC's Universal's Digital Television Channel 4.4 Independent Producer Showcase. Holly Shaw, an actor and choreographer, recently produced an evening of wolrd dance at Fort Mason's Cowell Theater, entitled 'Eyes of Eve', which included pieces that Shaw choreographed and appeared in, but also included many other pieces that allowed Bay Area dancers and choreographers to show their work.. Jeremy Mascia has becone a regular with the offbeat and surprising PianoFIght Productions, a theater/improv/comedy troupe operating in San Francisco and Los Angeles.
"I am very lucky to attract students who want to learn to do great work as actors and have a creative vision all their own. A lot of actors don't feel a lot of ownership of their own creative destinies, but you can't say that about my students. They have the pluck and determination to search out or create the contexts that will allow them to be the creative artists that they want to be" says Utter.
Utter started teaching in San Francisco five years ago, and began offering classes in Los Angeles in October. He founded the School to create a forum to pass on the tremendous acting training he received at the Yale Schoold Drama from master teachers like Earle Gister and Evan Yionoulis. He lives in San Francisco but travels weekly to Los Angeles to teach there. "I love teaching in both cities. They have very different things going for them, but there are passionate, creative people in both. I plan to keep a foot in both cities in the future."
The courses Utter teaches at Mother of Invention run in ten week cycles. The next cycles begin the week of June 30. More information is available at the School's website, http://www.utteracting.com/
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About Mother of Invention Acting School. The Mother of Invention Acting School was founded in 2004 by director Andrew Utter, MFA, Yale School of Drama. Utter founded the School to create a forum to transmit the approach to acting that he encountered from master teachers like Evan Yionoulis and Earle Gister at Yale to serious, motivated students.
Monday, May 04, 2009
the ego of the acting teacher
I encounter this attitude in many students. There is no question that acting is challenging, and that teachers need to be challenging. Certainly no one who comes to my class walks away feeling unchallenged. Compelling acting is difficult to do, no matter how you slice it. I make no bones about this to my students, and I am always ready to invite them to fulfill the aspect of the scene or role that they may not yet have attended to. But it is also true that acting is a confidence game: being able to do it entails believing that you can do it, and harshness or abuse from a revered teacher is a great way to destroy that confidence forever.
I have heard stories of acting teachers saying things to students, in front of a whole acting class, such as "You know, you wouldn't be having this problem if you weren't sleeping with a truck driver." There is so much wrong with this, I don't know where to begin: betraying a confidence, inappropriate use of knowledge about someone's personal life in a public setting, shaming about sexuality and pleasure, and humiliation, all rolled up into one ugly bundle. I shudder to think about what that student suffered. There is no excuse for behavior like this from teachers who have been entrusted with the creative aspirations and dreams of others. To my mind, it has more than a little in common with child abuse.
The truth is people like to be challenged, and they like the challenge of pleasing a demanding teacher. There is simply no need for this type of abusive treatment. That is not to say that people never need to be confronted about their foibles and evasions, but context and tone mean everything in that type of intervention.
And then there are the acting teachers who publicly harangue their students for a one-time lateness. It's true that an acting class needs structure, and that that structure is part of what creates the feeling of safety for the participants. But there is simply no way that this kind of no-wiggle-room approach can truly foster an environment conducive to creativity. I have evolved my own set of rules for dealing with attendance and promptness, and I find that they are very adequate. There is no need to shame or humiliate anyone. in fact, the most important thing I can do to promote observance of the class structure is to start on time and have something really interesting to say, so that students will be motivated to be present for as much of class as possible.
There are a lot of people who gravitate to acting because they think it looks easy, and it can be a rude awakening for them when they come to learn how much work and dedication is involved. Sometimes I have to be the agent of that awakening for someone, but even then, I endeavor to keep it respectful: for all I know, they will be ready to dedicate in the fullness of time, but they simply aren't right now. And that's ok. Better that we both recognize where they are right now and move on.
Theater and film are collaborative art forms. As teachers, we have an obligation to prepare our students to work collaboratively by modelling the practice of standing for high quality in the work of the actors that we work with while adhering to a basic principle of respect for all people. There is simply no acceptable alternative.
Saturday, May 02, 2009
Big Art flop
Big Art Group, though, was another story. I had heard some good things, and the pictures looked intriguing. When I sat down in the theater, though, I began to feel uneasy. My frame of reference for multimedia work is the incomparable Wooster Group, and one of the many things that was so dazzling about them was the way in which the multimedia equipment that decked the stage was always arranged and rearranged with an eye toward the overall visual composition of the landscape: human figures, scenic elements, video monitors, and mic stands conspired to form an eternally arresting composition, and this was even true upon entering the theater, in the time before the performance started.
The stage for Big Art Group was crowded with multimedia equipment that seemed to be arranged in no particular way relative to the rest of the space. There was nothing alluring or artful about the array of screens and mics and other stuff that lay in waiting for the performance to begin.
It turned out that this was shades of things to come. The performance was big and loud. The acting was not good. The subject matter, insofar as I could even grasp it at all, was glib and devoid of interest. The director seemed conflicted about whether we should watch the actors in the center of the stage or their projected faces on the giant screens above, and this conflict was not even remotely aesthetically interesting, just confused. I lasted about twenty-five minutes.
As much as I love California, I often wonder what new talents are exploding onto the scene back in NYC. This is one I won't need to wonder about anymore.
(This post is from the blog of the Mother of Invention Acting School in Los Angeles and San Francisco (www.utteracting.com): an acting class in Los Angeles and San Francisco for serious, motivated students.)
Thursday, April 30, 2009
Tim Rossi lands role in indie film Sedona's Rule
http://www.sedonasrule.com/
Congratulations Tim! Looking forward to seeing it!
A
(This post is from the blog of the Mother of Invention Acting School in Los Angeles and San Francisco (www.utteracting.com): an acting class in Los Angeles and San Francisco for serious, motivated students.)
Sunday, April 26, 2009
the Beatles' apprenticeship
He goes on to argue that talent is not some inborn, native ability, but simply the desire to practice, to make enormous sacrifices and compromises to be able to do what one loves. He says that it was the Beatles' genius to see the Hamburg gig as an opportunity, and not as an invitation to indentured servitude.
Few people recognize this as the truth about acting. What we associate with actors is the glamour and the slick presentation of the movies, but most actors never see even a moment of fame, and the ones that do find that it isn't what it's cracked up to be. What doesn't get seen is the endless hours of blood, sweat and tears that go into doing anything well. My class gives people a taste of that: an enormous amount is asked of the students in the way of time and preparation. I do my best to communicate the happiness of this challenge, this burden. "We must do what is difficult because it is difficult", wrote Rainer Maria Rilke. It is a message that not everyone is ready to hear, much less to embrace. But it's the ones that can lap up that vinegar like it's honey and ask for more that will come to know the true rewards of a creative life.
The Gladwell piece:
http://www.cnn.com/video/#/video/us/2009/04/26/gps.fareed.intv.malcolm.gladwell.cnn
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