Wearing Different Hats

                In smaller productions (like mine), you will often find yourself wearing multiple hats.  In this particular show I’m wearing three.  I’m a writer, an actor, and a producer.  This is a lot of work, and while I feel I have the experience (and drive) to handle it, you have to be very careful and set up very specific boundaries.

                If you’re going to produce and act, then you need two things:  a good production manager, and a good director.  It’s very important that the other actors don’t see you as “the boss” during rehearsals.  The relationships you have in real life will carry over to the relationships you develop on stage, and unless you’re an authority figure in the play, this can be very very dangerous.  If you’re having a creative problem with one of the actors – get your director to handle it.  If you’re need to talk business, tell the production manager what needs to be said, and have him(or her) do it.

                Now if you’re going to write and act, that’s a different can of worms entirely.  The problem here is that when you write, you’ll usually have a specific vision for how things are supposed to be said and done.   This is great for writing, but terrible for acting.  Acting is all about experimenting and exploration.  If you come to rehearsal with preconceived notions of how things should sound and look, your performance will be completely flat.  You have to approach it like you would a script written by a different author, and be willing to try things that you didn’t intend.