About Arlene Schulman Expertise As a professional director, dramaturg, acting coach and actor for over 25 years in the NYC/NJ area, I can help with questions on acting technique, character development, audition and rehearsal techniques, dealing with directors and stage managers, what directors are looking for, and other aspects of the acting and directing professions.
Experience A professional director, dramaturg, acting coach and actor for over 25 years in the NYC/NJ area, I have directed in professional, university and amateur theatre and have directed and acted in dramas, comedies, musicals, Shakespeare as well as collaborating closely with playwrights in the development of original plays and musicals.
Organizations SSDC associate member Advisory Board - Isle of Shoals Productions Literary Managers and Dramaturgs of America associate member Shakespeare Association of America The Shakespesare Institute -
MA "Shakespeare & Theatre" candidate, Stratford-upon-Avon, UK
Expert: Arlene Schulman Date: 11/2/2007 Subject: Do actors need to be writers?
Question I was told by the director of a large drama group I'm involved in that all of us as actors need to be able to write scripts. He said that if we know how to write scripts, then it will make us better actors because we'll be able to analyze our characters better when he casts us. He prefers casting the actors who can write, which leaves a lot of great actors who just act, out of work.
As an actor, I am passionate about acting--every part of it. I can analyze a script, and find ways to change it up and make it better.
As for writing scripts and screenplays, I hate it. I want to be in the action, acting and making things happen, not sitting around writing about the action.
Are all actors writers?
Do actors have to know how to write in order to be great actors?
Answer Hi Dawn,
With all due respect, I think the director of your group is wrong. Acting and writing are two very different talents and require different abiities and different skills. I am a professional director, actor, and dramaturg (someone who works closely with playwrights to guide them in the writing and editing of their plays as well as doing research on plays for theatres, productions and their auditions), and yet I do not have the talent or ability to write plays.
That being said, I think what your director was getting at is that most young people think that all an actor has to do is learn her lines and blocking and just get up there and "do it". And that is a huge simplification of what is involved in being an actor.
A big part of acting is, as you mention, the ability to analyze a script. Not to change or improve it (which is NOT the actor's job, and is, in fact, illegal, being the perogative of the playwright alone), but rather to understand how it is structured, what makes it work, how the characters interact, both with each other and within the context of the play, and how to develop a character from what is given in the script.
In order to do that a good actor should STUDY playwrighting and analysis, at least minimally, and should have a good sense of what goes into making a good play. And one of the best ways to do that is actually to try writing scripts. That doesn't mean you have to be the best writer in the world, or that you have to do it for a living (likely you'd starve), or that you have to write more than one or two just to see what it entails and just how hard it is.
It sounds, however, as though your director thinks that actors need to be writers. Or at least that the actors for HIS group need to be writers. If that's the case, and you do not want to be a writer too, then I suggest that you find a different group. Why should you be forced to do something that you hate and are not good at when it is not even the field you are looking to work in.
Be assured that there are many groups and companies out there that let actors act, writers write, directors direct, designers design, and technicians do the work that they do best. Theatre is a collaborative art and artists with many different talents and skills all work together to make it work without trying to do each other's jobs for them.
So, to make is short, actors do not have to know how to write to be great actors. It doesn't hurt, and will certainly improve their skills if they study script analysis, but most actors are NOT writers.
