Expert: Kenneth D. Plonkey - 9/28/2009

Question
QUESTION: First of all I want to say thank you for reading all these and giving truthful advice.  Now for what I'm writing you for.  I'm a almost 22 year old.  For the last about 2 to 3 years I've seriously been thinking about acting.  I have no experience other than a few middle school plays.  I live in a small town in Michigan where there are no theatre group.  I don't have big bucks to go out and spend on acting classes or coaches.  But I'm serious about acting.  I just need help.  I don't know anything about the business other than I should expect rejection and not take it personal.  I know everyone's acting career (or lack there of) is different.  I need advice on where I should start.  What should I do.  I'm not really the most confident person in the world but I know with help I could overcome it.  I'm just so lost.  Help please???  Any advice would be greatly appreciated.

ANSWER: Hi Jenna, Thank you for the kind words, I hope you will find the kindness in the truth of your situation as I can see it from your description.  It sounds like you have a pretty honest appraisal of yourself except as far as acting is concerned.  This is, in part, because you do not have any knowledge about what acting in and what an acting career is really like.  For that information, I encourage you to visit my blog and read all the acting posts for the past month. http://theatredoconacting.blogspot.com    I think you see the images on the TV screen and cinema screen and find those experiences far more interesting than your daily life. This is what the purpose of dramatic entertainment is, to provide our hum-drum lives with romance and excitement. But the images you see on the screen are illusions created by editing, sound and special effects.  They are not what an actor's life is like at all,not even while filming those scenes.  If you were to do anything at all about your fantasy of acting, you would have to find a theatre where you could audition for roles and actual do some acting.  That is completely up to you.  No one can do it for you.  I wish you all the best, God bless, Doc

---------- FOLLOW-UP ----------

QUESTION: First of all thank you for time and thoughts on answering my original questions.  I took into consideration what you said and decided to try to save up some money to take some classes at the Purple Rose Theatre Company.  I also started reading your blog.  But you said something in your Sept. 26th post that made me think.  Here is the specific passage that I am talking about:

"If someone has not had a great deal of experience and training by the time they are 13 or 14 and at least one of their parents is not working hard to make a career for them, they just are not going to have a teen professional career. If someone has not been in a lot of plays and playing really good roles by the time they are 17, they probably are not going to be an adult professional. The past is prologue. It is a rare, very rare, instance when someone with absolutely no background in acting luckily tumbles into the profession."

So are you saying because I haven't acted in any plays as a semi-adult in high school or haven't done plays or such now as a 22-year-old adult that I won't be an actress??? Are you basically saying I should give up now and not "waste" my time?

Answer
Hi Jenna, You are welcome. I am sorry I cannot be more positive about your situation. No where did I advise you to take acting classes. What I said was you should go try out for some plays somewhere. I am glad you read that post on my blog. I am saying that since you have not done any acting since junior high, it is unlikely that you will ever do any professional acting.  If you read previous posts to Sept. 26, you will see that there really is not much of an acting profession to get into.  It is a very small and quite closed profession compared to the hundreds of thousands of people who think they can earn a living as an actor.  Almost noone earns a living as an actor.  But there is more to earning a living in being an actor whether professional or amateur. Professional only means you are a union actor and occasionally work under a union contract as an actor.  The amateur theatre by comparison to the professional is very large and has lots and lots of opportunities for acting.  The soul satisfaction of acting whether amateur or professional is about the same and each is an equally good goal for a person who wants to 'be an actor.'  Acting classes can be fun and can help with self confidence. They will not make you a professional actress. God bless, Doc