And the Acting Classes Begin…

Reasons to be PrettyI for the first time since graduating acting college back in 2005 decided it was time to take an acting class.  I went an audited Michele Gosset’s acting class in Sherman Oaks in the beginning of January and decided it was what I needed to get my foot back in the door.  I took Michele Gosset my first semester, first year of acting college and I learned a lot working with her.  The night I audited Mrs. Gosset’s acting class she had done a “Type Me” exercise where each person went up on stage alone, she had them do an instrumental and then as they were describing themselves, their life and doing this instrumental the whole class wrote about how they looked, what they could possibly be cast as, etc. 

I assumed that the first day of each month of Mrs. Gosset’s acting class where new students might come in that she would do the “Type Me” for each new student.  Since I did not have time to work on a monologue and since I was new to the class, no scene partner, I was hoping for the “Type Me”.  As she called my name to go up to the stage with my “to do”, I told her I would love to do the “Type Me” exercise.  Unfortunately she was not prepared with all the paperwork for that exercise and she was also planning on doing it on the makeup class which was the following day, which I was not able to attend.  Luckily, she found a sheet and had the whole class fill it out all on one (instead of individually). I found out some interesting things, but mostly what I had already known, such as I could play the wife, the bridesmaid, the best friend, the roommate, the shopaholic and I also got a few bitch type characters.  What I was shocked about was that most people in the class thought I was “average” looking and somewhat stuck up.  I’m not sure how the stuck up part came across since I have been nothing but nice to everyone (although not many people had known me yet).  I feel like it was the whole, girl judging girl that she doesn’t know type thing.  If I would have only smiled at every single girl in the class and personally introduced myself than it would have been okay, but apparently since I did not do that I was perceived as “stuck up”.  If you ask anyone who knows me they will tell you that I am far from stuck up.

The whole average looking thing shocked me, and I’m not sure why.  I know the first time I audited Gosset’s class that almost everyone cute or not was told they were cute, because in their own individual way they were… Coming from Seattle where I was in the top bracket of looks to Los Angeles where I fall right dead middle was a slight eye opener. It actually put me in check, which was a good thing.  Every now and then you need a grounder and that was mine. 

I left the class with a scene partner, a guy who was also new to the class.  We chose a scene from (ironically) “Reasons to be Pretty” by Neil LaBute and we will put it up in class on Monday.  I look forward to it!