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By Ankine Vasoyan (Grade 11)

Fame, glory, your name surrounded by a hundred gleaming, glistening lights, a thousand people in the audience all here to see you. A few in the crowd wish they were you. Others have experienced this moment before and would give the world to be there again, all of them once in their lives wishing they were famous. The price one pays to reach that fame may be considerably great compared to the reward. On their journey to reach fame, actors face many difficulties. Nevertheless, they persist, unable to hide their secrets from the glare of the paparazzi’s cameras, like normal people. Fame is their reward, their key to recognition, and acknowledgement.

We live to be the greatest, taking classes, studying, experimenting, and trying to find our passion. Actors are no different. They take classes and experiment with characters. My life changed once I found my passion for acting. It allows me to escape the world by changing my identity with each character I portray. To cultivate my passion, I enrolled in a class at the Lee Strasburg Institute, a world-renowned center for the art of acting. The institute is a small, red and white building that most people would likely overlook, unaware of what occurs inside. As I walk into the building for the first time, I am surprised at the size and the importance of what takes place here. Immediately, I feel safe and comfortable knowing that my soon-to-be classmates are not here to judge me, as we are all here to share the same profound experience. This is the sort of feeling that you get when a new friend hugs you so tight, when something is so new and familiar at the same time. I suddenly feel as if I have been here my entire life, even though this was my first step, and my first glance at the expanse of history in front of me. Marilyn Monroe, James Dean, and Angelina Jolie, all were in the exact same spot, the exact same position that I am in right now, and it is overwhelming and exhilarating. They allowed themselves to learn to expand on what acting truly is: being human. With all of this in mind, I proceed into the building, up the white stairs into a small classroom. There are no chairs in this class, just a small stage and mirrors lining one side of the room. All fifteen students, including myself, do not know what to expect.

Bottle up the energy and emotions, explode into my character, and come back down to earth. Emotion is essential. As my first exercise the teacher tells me I must first relax; understand myself and my own emotions first. A few of the students begin to whimper, and then start to cry, and end completely bawling.The teacher congratulates the students, they have broken free. In a world where hiding your emotions, feelings, and thoughts is valued, yet expressing yourself and allowing your true colors to illuminate yourself is frowned upon, I can only adjust slowly to the world of acting. The teacher tells the students to now stop crying suddenly. “Stop, control! Control!” We are those who focus, control everything, because our bodies are our tools.

We were advised to prepare a monologue beforehand; a speech performed by one character in order to allow the audience inside the characters thoughts and feeling. Alone on stage, one by one, we walk up the steps and set our emotions, our lives free for those watching. As I walk on stage to present my piece, I am met with blinding stage lights. I find it amazing how the audience can see the actor clearly and perfectly, yet all the actor sees are shadows of her audience. There is a freeing quality about not being able to see to whom you are speaking. Still, the nervousness is present and unavoidable as I pour out my soul into the dark, deep emptiness that is offstage. My heart pounds twenty times faster, my mouth is driest its ever been, and I feel as if everything I memorized is going to fly out of my ears, but I continue on, conserving my nervous energy and using it to enhance my performance. I speak, uttering the words many hope to always keep to themselves: “I am alone.” My character knows who she is, but do I know? Who am I? Where am I? What makes me utter these words? The teacher repeats these questions instilling them in my brain. My character is fearless, I am fearless. My character knows she is alone, and I know it too. She is able to admit she is alone, and now I am too.

“Be your character,” one of my teachers reminds me. After a long day of rehearsal, I am exhausted and drained. After all my classmates complete their monologues my teachers remind my class that actors are “strong when needed, yet weak when asked.” I need to be strong to play a courageous, leader, yet I need to allow this leader figure to feel when her position has been stolen. I feel twice as hard, observing those around me, for they are all my teachers for realism. Most “ordinary” people struggle not to show emotion, try not to get angry, and avoid crying. As an actor, however I must try my hardest to show those emotions, and more so, to emote on cue. My tasks are to feel and be true on stage, as well as conceal my emotion just as true people in society would, off stage.

Acting allows me to have different experiences, live another life, and be another person. It enables me to change my viewpoint on life, by completely changing the answer to the question; “What is my purpose of my life?” To be true, I must first understand how I would honestly react to rejection, to my best friend passing away from cancer, or my sister having her first child, and many other scenes of life. I observe others and understand reactions, and rehearse, and rehearse some more, to stand up at the end of the play and be surrounded by the thunderous applause. Actors are entertainers, here to evoke happiness, sadness, anger, frustration, jealousy, and most of all to hear the screams, claps, and roars of the crowd. Actors are here to show you how to live.