Why I teach

I knew that making a cross-country move at almost 50 years old, with my husband and teenage son, would not be easy, but I knew in my heart it was the right thing to do. It was time for a change. Syracuse University has now become our second home. I teach in both the drama and film departments — teaching on-camera acting, cinema acting and directing, and acting and filmmaking for social change.

This move marks my third cross-country move over an almost three-decade span: Illinois to California, California to Illinois, and now Illinois to New York. Though my surroundings may look different, and my job titles may vary, a grounding factor at each place I’ve lived is helping people learn about the world of on-camera auditioning, self-taping, what it’s like to be on a film set and how to create meaningful work.

I got my degree in acting in 1996 and if you would’ve told me then that I would become an acting teacher and coach, I don’t think I would’ve believed you. I was so bent then on only becoming an actor. While I am an actor, and continue to work in TV/film, I find that I also need to teach — because the personal rewards I get from doing so are integral to my life as an artist.

I’ve come to realize that teaching the crafts of acting and directing help inform me in my own work. I’m constantly learning from my students. True, I am teaching them, but they are teaching me just as well.

The biggest concept I always come back to in education is that every student is different. Every student has their own way of learning. Much of the work of an actor is to find ways into the world of the script — the acting student must learn to personalize their role, to make the work authentic, to find a way in to the life of the character they are portraying. As a teacher, it’s similar for me. I have to find a way into the student. If my initial approach doesn’t work, I have to try again. And again. And again. It becomes a welcomed challenge.

I liken it to playing darts. If you throw the dart and it doesn’t stick, try again until it does. Similarly, if I’m on set or in a classroom exercise with a student, and they are having trouble with direction or performance, I keep throwing the dart. Maybe I’ll speak to them about what’s just happened in the script, where they are coming from, maybe I’ll help them clarify an objective, maybe I’ll give them a physical task to complete. Whatever they respond to, whatever dart sticks for them in particular is what I want to find and discover with them.

Looks like I’ll be playing darts forever.