Why can’t acting be as easy as a cast photo?

by Bryce Barclay

Tonight we had our cast photo taken.  It went rather well and was fairly painless.  Get in a line, stand on the stage, smile, click and done.  After the photo was taken we began running through some scenes.

As the character Jaden, it was a little hard to go from taking a photo to acting some of the later scenes in the musical.  Jaden is rather complex and has a lot of conflicting emotions at times. This can make it rather hard to get into character, to portray the lines and make it seem that Jaden actually believes what he is saying.   There are times that what he is saying goes against what he has either said or how he acted in earlier scenes. Let me give you an example of what I am talking about.

Jaden is thinking, “I hate rainy days!” but he says “I love the rain!”  This is hard. How are you suppose to say a line that your character does not agree with?  Why can’t acting be like a photo?  A photo is cut and dry, a freeze frame of what was happening at that point in time.  But acting is not a stop-motion art. Acting is movement, thought and feeling, alive.  So how does one bring life to the stage?  How can you make your character feel, think, move, live?  These are questions that I ask myself before I step onto the stage.

Jaden going to be a fun and hard part to play, and I am going to move, feel, think and try to bring him to life on the stage.  This is my challenge.  Yours is to come and see this show.