Jonathan Tzachor

Sometimes in your career, little miracles happen.  Mine started in the offices of Katie Wallin and Thom Klon, casting directors for Mighty Morphin Power Rangers.  Katie and Thom sent me to producers call for the show at the old studio in Culver City.  (After the earthquake, Saban moved the show to Valencia.)  The producer I met for my audition was Jonathan Tzachor.  Going to producers is a big deal.  It means that you are now in a smaller pool of people being considered for the job and that you have some quality they like.  Which means...you could book the job.

I remember very little about my audition.  I was very nervous.  I wasn't getting many callbacks, let alone going to producers.  I'd only been pursuing my career for a short while and, to be truthful, I was pretty green.  All I really remember is that after I left the MMPR office after my audition, I was disappointed with myself.  I have to be honest, that is the way I leave most auditions.  I always feel I could have done better, been thinner, prettier, funnier, whatever...anyway I never feel I am enough.  So I was walking down the stairs to leave the building totally absorbed in self-pity, knowing that I wouldn't get the job, when Mr. Tzachor came up behind me.  I thought, "He's coming to tell me to find another career."  Instead, he said they had decided to cast me and would I please come back up to the office to look over the contracts.  My impulse was to hug him and do a little victory dance, but, of course, one must maintain a professional demeanor.  I was screaming inside, but calm and collected on the outside.   I was going to be Ms. Appleby on a show that no one at the time knew would become such an amazing success.

I didn't see Jonathan much during three years recurring as Ms. Appleby, but I kept in touch with him by correspondence (snail mail).  He always graciously wrote me back.  And he was so generous.  He always made sure I was invited to the wrap parties even though I was just a day player.  I think I only attended one, a great party at the Hollywood Roosevelt Hotel.  My last note from him was when he left the show.  I've lost touch with him to my sorrow.

I will always be grateful to Mr. Tzachor for seeing in me the potential to bring something to MMPR.  It was my first professional industry job.  And my connection with the show has given me my fifteen minutes of fame, which is delicious, but about all I can handle.

Yes, sometimes little miracles happen in a career.  Jonathan Tzachor provided me mine.

The Process

I am so excited.  I'm in a play!  Yes, I have a very nice role in a local Christmas production.  I haven't done any theatre in recent years because I teach a late class on Thursday nights and most small theatre have Thursday night performances.  This production has only two performances on a weekend in mid-December, so it is perfect.  My first rehearsal is tomorrow and I can't wait.

I love the process of rehearsal.  It is the discovery of what it is to be someone other than yourself.  You get to step out of your own shoes and walk a mile in someone else's.  It is a complicated game of finding in your own behavior what best suits your "new" personality.  What does your character have in common with you and how are you different?  I love answering those questions because it usually means that I have to confront a part of me with which I may not be very comfortable and introduce it to the part of me with which I am content.  After I go through a rehearsal process, I am usually mentally much healthier.  And I've usually overcome some personal inhibition.

Rehearsal and performance also engages me with a community.  That temporary family thing that happens in a cast makes my heart sing.  As actors, to do a good job, we have to be vulnerable, emotionally accessible.  I love that!  In a world where so many people are closed off, to be with folks who can express their feelings easily is a real treat.  Okay, maybe not everyone, but most actors share and it is delightful.  I don't get enough outside stimulation.  No one's fault but my own, but it's the truth.  Rehearsal get me involved with others.  I need that, particularly as we begin the holiday season.

In all honesty, I have to admit that I am also an adrenaline junky.  Rehearsal and performance will get the adrenals pumping so I'll get my fix.  Heighten adrenaline means more activity means more stimulation means more...well, you get the point.  It's a healthy high and very good for me.

So I'm in a play.  A true theatre fanatic...I'm in heaven.  Totally blessed, I am doing what I was created to do.  So let's kick start this holiday season and let the games begin.

I Wanna Be An Actor

At least once a month someone asks me, "How do I become an actor?"  My initial thought is, "If I have to tell you, you don't really want to be an actor."  What I think these people are really asking is, "How do I get rich and famous?"  Unfortunately, no one can tell them that.

Being an actor is not being rich and famous.  Most of us aren't.  I don't know what the statistic are now, but when I was in college my acting teacher used to quote these--only ten percent of actors ever make a living at it and only about one half of one percent become wealthy from acting.  If you want to be an actor for money and fame, better find another career field.

For the most part, acting is a continual search for a job.  It's a numbers game.  The more you audition, the more likely you'll get cast.  Acting is, at best, a "few weeks" job.  Then it's back to the hunt again.  For some of us, me for example, it's usually a "one day" job.  It can be disheartening looking for that one day.  You try and you try, you do your best and you still don't get the job.  But somehow, if you are an actor, you pick yourself up, you get out and you do it again, and again, and again.

The moments when you do work are heavenly.  The worst day on a set or stage is better that the best day doing anything else for me.  I love the process and I suspect most of my colleagues do too.  The work is what being an actor is about.  Creating a character that resonates with an audience.  Making a statement with art that makes people think and expand their horizons.  Of course, the money is nice and if people remember your work, that is the icing on the cake.

So how do you become an actor?  I think you are born needing to perform.  Some of us search for our own identity through trying on others.  You have to be hungry to perform.  If you don't have the hunger, you won't have the persistence that keeps you out there, against all odds, searching for the next job.  And boy oh boy, you better be persistent because it's a crowded job market.

When I came to Hollywood in the 90s, there was good news and bad news.  The good news was I found out I wasn't the only large sized woman in the world like I thought I was.  The bad news was every other large sized woman was here looking for the same jobs I was.  I go to auditions and there are a dozen other "Royce Herrons" looking at me as I walk in the door.  No one is alone in Hollywood.  There are hundreds of every type, all talented, all looking for work.  That's the acting game.

So you want to be an actor...good luck.  No, that's not sarcastic, that's genuine.  If you have the hunger, need to do it, will work (even for free) to be involved in the process, come join the fray.  I wish you the best as I hope you wish me the best.  I'll see you on the set soon, I hope.  Right now, I need to go submit myself for auditions.  Like I said...it's a numbers game.

A New Beginning

I'm an actor.  I've been doing it for 48 years...that's right, longer than some of you have been alive.  I believe acting saved my life.  Sounds extreme, I know, but I feel it's true.

I had a gypsy childhood.  It sounds like a soap opera when I tell it, but my childhood included a parental abduction, foster homes, and continual moving.  Needless to say, I was a fairly reclusive child. At fourteen, I finally managed to get my dad to keep me with him and I found myself in a school where the drama department held open auditions for the school play.  I don't know where I found the courage to audition.  I was bookish and shy and chubby.  I had no self-confidence.  But I did audition and I got a part...Daisy Stanley in The Man Who Came to Dinner, Moss Hart and George Kaufmann.

This was the beginning of two careers--actor and costumer.  The director, Mr. B, looked at me and said, "Oh you're large. (Duh, didn't notice that when you cast me.)  Can you do your own costume?"  When he found out I could sew, it was, "Can you do them all?"  Of course I could.  I would have done anything for Mr. B.  I began costuming shows, which led to my theatre scholarship and my seventeen years at Glendale Community College.

I also fell in love with the rehearsal process.  For me, it was instant family, something I longed for.  Actors have to be emotionally available to each other if a show is to be any good.  I came from an emotionally inaccessible family.  Rehearsals were a little slice of heaven.   Little did I know that it was also instant divorce when the show was over.  Oh well, everything has a downside.

I also loved the adrenaline high of performance.  It was like flying.  The slight fear of forgetting lines and blocking.  The "magic" of making it perfect.  And the applause, oh my God, the applause.  It was like the audience reaching out and hugging me.  For my love starved heart, it was pure delight.

48 years later, these truths still hold true.  I love the work, whether it pays or not.  I am a true theatre junky.  Show me a stage and I want to be on it.  I long to leave Royce Herron behind and become whoever the play calls for.

So here is the beginning of my new adventure into blogdom.  Friday is the day and the subject is acting--what I'm doing, what the business it like.  Sometime personal, sometimes rant, sometimes blubber.  Ask me questions.  If I have answers, I'll give them.  If I don't know, I'll make something up.  If no one reads this, then I'm talking to myself.  But what else is new?  I'm an actor, which means I'm not running on all cylinders.  If I wasn't crazy, I'd be doing something I made money at.

So I'm sending this out to the world wide web.  Let me know if I make any sense at all.