#alanblumenfeld

I have been very blessed to have grown up in a theatrical tradition hundreds, if not thousands of years old. I’m sure others of my generation have had tastes of this, but I was lucky through a set of circumstances I couldn’t understand at the time, to have come closer to something like the master/apprentice relationship than most… At least younger than most, and for longer than most.

To explain further: For ages, actors learned their craft from the older generation, in theatres and troupes, passing down the wisdom that had been passed down to them, in the action of playing, not in the safety of a school. I fear that we don’t live in an age where that is the case anymore. Most actors can point to a teacher or mentor that set them on the track, and from there perhaps went to a university program… I have had a long set of mentors, and perhaps out of habit, or willingness, or luck, have continued to find and cultivate relationships with them.

Around 10 or 11, Shakespeare was introduced to me via my elementary school, by a visiting instructor who taught us A Midsummer Night’s Dream. We did a very, very cut down performance of it at the end of the class. I loved it. Madly. I regret that I cannot recall that teachers name. After the class, my parents, recognizing my passion, placed me in the youth summer programs at The Will Geer Theatricum Botanicum, an Equity house in Topanga Canyon, CA, where we lived. I made my professional stage debut that summer in their mainstage production of The Threepenny Opera. I played a beggar. Early in those summer programs, I met the first of a long line of important mentors:

He is the only one I will not name, for reasons the following will make clear. Let’s call him Chris… Chris was perhaps a bit of a stereotype of the mad and damaged artist. He was crazy, but brilliant. He was an alcoholic, who consistently showed up to class very drunk. He stank of it, and once or twice I saw him take a long slug of something in his car before approaching the class. He was also a chain smoker. Our classes were outside, and smoking was more socially acceptable at the time, but I remember being surprised to see him constantly smoking around a group of kids (or at least I’m surprised to think back on it now). I later heard word from a few sources that he was a speed addict… and I believe it. He would ride high, drink to come down, and smoke throughout. Needless to say, I adored him. And he took a particular shine to me. His was the earliest shaping of the artist I am today. Often he and I would stay after class to continue working on my Shakespeare. Three district memories among many, stand out:

1. We were working on the nunnery scene in Hamlet. At one point the melancholy Dane says to poor Ophelia, “I loved you once.” I was delivering an accusational attack with it. After the scene, Chris said to me (in his somewhat manic way), “Good Charlie, good, good, good… but what if… but what if you take a caesura (a verse pause) before “once”? With that small shift, the line became brutal, and painful, and personal. I’m not saying it was the “right” choice, but it was a revelation to me about verse work, and how a brief silence (chosen!) can shape both a lines meaning and intent.

2. We were working on the “pretend” wooing scene in As You Like It. After going through it once Chris asked, “Do you think Orlando is attracted to Ganymede?” I stuttered, a bit confused (remember, I’m 11, maybe 12), “Uh… well he’s attracted to Rosalind. And Ganymede is pretending to be her…” “NoNoNoNoNoNoNo…” he broke in, “Do you think Orlando is attracted to Ganymede, the man?” Again I stuttered, this time in youthful, adolescent discomfort, “No... NO. That doesn’t make any sense.” He let it drop, but in retrospect, I said no to an incredible possibility. Again, not the “right” choice, but a fascinating one. It was a revelation about how deeply Shakespeare is working, how many possibilities the text contains.

3. Finally, in a mainstage production a year or two later, Chris was playing a writer, and before the show I caught him with a black permanent marker marking up his finger tips… “What are you doing?” I asked, entirely confused. I remember, clear as day, him looking up at me, weighing whether he would or should explain himself. Finally, “He’s a writer Charlie. He, he’s… He can never, never stop writing. Constantly. And the ink… the ink you, you see? It gets all over his hands. It stains him.” This may seem like elementary “method” work, but I was maybe thirteen, and was blown away. 

Within a few years, Chris’ habits got the best of him and he was fired from the theatre. He’s cleaned up since, from what I’ve heard.

Around the time of that third story above, I came into contact to Alan Blumenfeld. A regular at the theatre, and a brilliant and generous man. He was incredibly kind to me, always ready with a bawdy comment or a theatre story… Once backstage he saw me looking through one of those terrible Sam French books of Agents. I was lost and overwhelmed, not knowing where to start. He walked right over, took the book from me, and started flipping through it. He spent the next half-hour highlighting names and jotting notes, telling me to call this person or that, and that I could use his name with this person, and so forth… I learned so much by watching him on stage, and was so lucky to come into contact with such warmth and generosity so young. To this day he remembers a Don Armado I did when perhaps 16, in a Love’s Labour’s the high school students put on. He reminds me of it every time I see him, and says he knew then I had it in me. I believe him. And love him dearly for it.

Around 16, I was cast as Jason’s Slave in Medea at the Will Geer… one of those terrible Greek messengers that say nothing all show, until they come running on with a huge speech. Jason was played by a wonderful actor and man named Steve Matt. A great bull of man, african american, he took me under his wing immediately. We had our first long scene together (me saying nothing) and then we’d come off stage, “C’mon Charlie, let’s go have a nail.” A nail is a cigarette, as Steve would clarify: another nail in the coffin. We would go over to a bench a little ways away and smoke a cigarette. Night after night, he would share stories, give me advice… He cursed like a sailor, and was an incredibly no-nonsense kind of guy. For those he disliked, his scorn was a scathing and monstrous thing. I loved him dearly. He gave me my first two theatre books: Olivier’s autobiography, and an huge biography on Richard Burton. Old hardcovers he made me promise to give back… I devoured them. And never did give them back. I used to wonder if he knew I still had them, when one day, years later a book came up in conversation that he told me to read, “Could I just borrow your copy?” I asked. “Oh, no. You already have a few of mine, if I recall correctly.”

It was around this time that I first came into contact with Larry Moss. As he’s probably the most famous acting teacher alive, you may have heard of him. He was consulting with my dad on a script of his, and my pops offered to trade him services, putting me in his class. He agreed to an interview with me, in which I lied about my age (saying I was 18), but otherwise had no idea what to say. For whatever reason, he took me.

I cannot begin to explain how much Larry has shaped my life as an artist and person, so I won’t try. He’s a genius. And the finest teacher I have ever encountered. I’ve been studying with him, on and off now, for 15 years. I love him dearly.