At this time of year I remember how I used to feel at the end of one acting school term and before the beginning of the next. Forget Christmas or New Year's hap-hap-happy. My guts used to churn.
When I watch young actors, fresh out of acting school, even before they open their mouths or do a goddam thing on stage, I admire them. They have been through the grinder of training and from all the stories I've heard from actors, new and veteran, about their education, not much has changed in the teaching of the trade.
You still have the improv, voice, movement, dance, text, makeup and interpretation classes. I also had fencing and mime, which some schools have, some don't. It's work. It's classes all day, rehearsals for the term play at night and on weekends. It's work. Sometimes it's pulverizing because time has to be snatched away from sleep for history of theatre papers, theatre lit reading and learning lines. It's work...
...and it's teachers.
