Articles - Page 1 - Theater - http://maxpages.com/arn/Articles_by_ARN

The articles below are by ARN members who agreed to share their individual experiences of RADA
and how it has subsequently impacted on their lives and careers.

The following article is by
Peter Phillips
Acting CEO and President, CPR International Institute for Conflict Prevention & Resolution:

I graduated RADA in December 1975, and moved into an apartment in New York City in late January 1976. I wrote lots of postcards, did my photos, rang doorbells I was given to follow-up from London (and a few that I wasn’t), and was fortunate to get my first job in March – Achilles in a production of Troilus and Cressida that Alvin Epstein directed at Yale Rep.

That went well, and a general audition at Public Theatre landed me my second gig, understudying the lead in Henry V in Central Park that summer. Sheer tenacity got me my third – through an open call, Nugget in a tour of Equus, which eventually led to the first of my eventual three Broadway jobs, replacing in that role. By then I had my first agent, William Morris, and I was off and running as that rare bird, a professional actor who earned his rent acting.

For several years it went on that way – regional theatres, Manhattan Theatre Club, Ensemble Studio, some ads, some TV. Directing in university theatre and off-Broadway, returning to RADA for some teaching and directing. A happy life, at least for a young guy with an actress wife and no kids.

After a while I sort of hit a ceiling and realized I wasn’t going any further. It used to be a thrill to do a part on All My Children and it kind of ceased to be thrilling, became a job. My friends were going to Hollywood or to the O’Neill Center and I was still where I was. I also realized – too late -- that I was going into auditions with a chip on my shoulder, behaving like somebody who didn’t think he ought to have to explain to an 18-year-old casting assistant who he was, and that the resentment was coming across. About this time I met a fascinating guy in a different business, and we also started expecting our first child. It all combined to the decision to leave the business in 1987.

I loved being a RADA student when at RADA, and I loved having been there too. I loved being an actor in New York in the late 70s and early 80s. I’m convinced that the skills, the confidence, and the breadth of vision that I acquired in London were important components in my ability to support myself s an artist for 11 years. I loved directing, too. I didn’t love auditioning, I resented not auditioning, and I hated being out of work. And as sometimes happens in passionate marriages, I changed, and I fell out of love.

I write to share only that truth: It’s okay to fall out of love with performing. Because you were one thing then doesn’t mean you’re still that one thing now, and indeed some of us chart our development as sentient human beings by the extent we are not what we used to be.

I had invested a huge amount in becoming a professional artist – all my youth, all my patience, my mind, my focus, my education and training, my talent, my passion. And when I started to feel a tug to get out, I denied it and then actively resisted it, because I could not face my friends and contemporaries as a “drop-out.” After all, I thought, I’m earning a living as an actor and I didn’t fail and I don’t want to present myself like somebody who did.

Then I remembered Sondheim’s song “Moving On,” from Sunday in the Park with George: “Stop worrying if your vision is new / Let others make that decision -- / They usually do / Just keep moving on… I chose and my world was shaken / So what? / The choice may have been mistaken / The choosing was not. / You have to move on.”

I hope that everyone who was brave enough and lucky enough and talented enough to go to RADA takes a big, brave and lucky bite out of that experience, and out of every experience that may arise thereafter. After all, it was us that RADA accepted, yes?

(posted July 2005)

The following article is by
J.D. Martinez
Theater Department Chair, Washington & Lee University, Lexington, VA

Life, “After RADA”

I wonder if my experiences in developing a professional career in the performing arts following graduation from RADA in 1972 is still relevant today? So much has changed. And each individual career follows a unique path, because no recognizable structure exists in the United States for nurturing and developing artists after formal training. And yet, there may be something in my particular journey that is universal or helpful to my fellow alumni emerging from RADA and returning to the wild frontier of American Theater.

First, I received a world-class education from RADA and the Royal Academy’s prestigious reputation preceded me to the States. Those two things were enormously helpful and continue to be helpful today. I also had a plan * although that plan took many twists and turns (in fact, I have decided that my tombstone will read, “He had more plans than time”). My plan was to market one of the practical skills that I developed while at RADA with the late, Henry Marshall * namely, to hire myself out as a Fight Director and Teacher of Stage Combat. I thought that this would pay the rent while I pursued a career in acting. I bought stage weapons, rented a space in the Chicago Theater District, advertised in the local newspapers and schools, and put up backstage advertisements at all of the Chicago theaters. As it turned out, I did get a group of students who helped pay the rent and landed some of my first fight directing gigs.

In the meantime, I got new headshots, did the daily rounds to the talent agencies and auditioned for everything. Within six months I was acting in an equity play, teaching stage fighting part time at the Goodman School of Drama (the oldest drama school in the U.S.) and at my own private studio, directing stage combat for several area theaters, doing the occasional radio voice-over spot and TV commercial and was on the road to developing a local reputation of my own (I also had a great new girlfriend!). Life was good. But was I really going anywhere? Was this really what I wanted to do? Was my plan big enough? Did I truly want to make my living as a Theater Actor * with all of the insecurity and relative poverty?

Then my creative life took an unexpected turn. I attended a “cattle-call” audition for a group of Midwest Regional Theater producers. I was confronted right after my audition by the head of the theater department at the University of Denver. He offered me a job - right then as we stood backstage - to teach acting, stage movement, and voice and speech in a new Master of Fine Arts Program * for more money than I had yet seen in my callow youth. It was right around that time that I became a vegetarian (remember this was the ‘70’s) and I was looking for a more “rural” lifestyle to complement my new-found spirituality. So, I accepted the position.

From that point on my career aspirations changed. I learned that teaching was a noble profession and that I wanted to become a Master Teacher of the Theater Arts. To make a long story shorter - over the last thirty years or so, I have taught acting, directing, voice and speech, theater movement, stage combat, and other theater courses at various universities. I’ve also directed over 50 stage plays, a couple of independent films, and published several books on Stage Violence. And now, I live on a farm raising sheep and apples in the Shenandoah Valley of Virginia and serve as the chairman of a theater department in one of the finest performing arts centers in the mid-Atlantic region.

I suppose that one of the reasons I am currently living a satisfying creative life is because of planning. But I credit most of the successes in my career to the fine and dedicated teachers and administrators at RADA (all of the failures are my own). The one thing I didn't have in my favor was a network to help me on my way. But now, because there is an American RADA Network, our young alumni are not left entirely on their own when they return to our shores.

Thank you for your kind indulgence in reading my brief biography. And I wish all of my fellow RADA graduates a fruitful journey.

J.D. Martinez, RADA ‘72
(posted April 2005)

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