Baby Pirates

I made a pretty bold choice a few months ago. I was just out of Summer Intensive training and went immediately into an equity show. The training depleted me monetarily and the equity show solidified my intense desire to go equity. I was offered two low to no paying non-eq jobs. I turned them both down. 

I am now spending my time until I am back in the equity saddle filling the coffers and focusing on on-camera work and equity auditions. And jeez-um do I miss the stage. 

So I've been keeping myself busy with everything but. I do staged readings like my life depends on it. I do table readings. Sometimes I just read books aloud. The best thing I do, however is teach theatre. Which is shocking, because I don't even like kids. 

Let me explain, its not that I don't like individual children. I think that some can be wonderful. I'm sure I will really like my child. If I have one. It's just children plural that I am generally wary of. So my friends always do a double take when they hear I work with them. 

But I have to say, I am having the TIME of my LIFE with my baby pirates. We are doing a play about Pirates. We are focusing on movement and storytelling and getting them to be able to stand in one place while saying a memorized line. It is so much fun. 

I think my joy stems from my memories of doing my very first plays, before I knew that it is something people do, back when being able to walk and talk simultaneously offstage was hard enough. It sends currents through me when we come up with gestures and incorporate them into characters a la Viewpoints, or we create an ocean using blue fabric (a la every water scene you've ever seen on a stage). It's a little triumph every time 6 year old (and youngest) Saylor does anything at all. 

On a deeper level, I think its the anthropological way of studying theatre. Sometimes I'm absolutely surprised when a line reading will be GREAT. This is my chance to stop and ask, why was that great. Why were her instincts right? It strips away all the things we pick up over the years, the direction, the training, the self-doubt, and shows you how someone with out any of that enhancement, or restriction, can perform. 

My baby pirates are making me a better actor. Who would've thunk it?

--Sharina Martin 

Comments

[Stacey Jackson]

LOL Love the picture! I think I want to steal "baby pirates" and make it a catch-phrase.