Have you ever acted before?

[Bones2]

Hi everyone.
It's not often I post in this forum, but I'm interested to know if anyone's ever acted before. I'm aware there are quite a few writers here (professional and amateur), but acting is of course quite a different thing in that anyone can try writing (not to sound disparaging of it or anyone), whereas for acting you generally have to be chosen.

So anyone done any acting in any capacity?

 

[RoJoHen]

I was almost in a play in college, but I opted out of it. I honestly hate acting, and I only initially agreed to do it as a favor. Most of my friends were in theater, and they always tried to get me to be in shows.

I prefer the backstage stuff.

I did take a Stage Combat class, though, where we had to write and act out our own scenes. My roommate and I basically used it as an excuse to fake-beat the shit out of each other.

 

[Jax]

I would love to try acting someday and came up with a web series idea but its more of a on/off affair that I will probably nevee get round to fully writing. I probably would avoid acting though despite being interested in it because I simply don't have the clear voice to do such a task.

 

[sojourner]

If by "acting" you mean "lie", then yes. I have.

 

[Mysterion]

Did some comedy stuff during my brief radio career. Went to broadcasting school with a guy whose sense of humor collided perfectly with mine - or it might have been the other way around. Anyways, I was able to do a few voices that were funny, in particular my Carl Sagan impression seemd to work pretty well. So we wrote and produced a lot of little three or four minute things rhat we put on the air much to the horror of the adult supervsion. Then there were our air-shifts. There was the Cross Country Bowling play-by-play, the Indoor Zepplin races, the show we did live from the space shuttle, etc. sadly I did not have the foresight to make permanent recordings of any of these.

 

[spinnerlys]

I did some acting in the fifth grade, were we even had an entire class dedicated to acting and other improvisational methods.

In tenth grade I played a stupid guard in Much Ado About Nothing, who got at least a laugh by tripping over a fake bush, and in eleventh grade I played a drunken janitor in a play about a failing production of the Christmas pageant. That was the most fun part to date.
I also played two roles in Joshua Sobol's "Ghetto", on one evening the leader of the guards of the ghetto, on another evening a Jew that has been tortured. In retrospect I would have put more effort in those two roles, but at that age I wasn't really thinking about it in more than one dimension.

I think I played some small roles while I studied for some short films, but I can't really remember.

My last role though was a prehistoric man for some kind of fake commercial. It was fun smearing oneself with all the dirt, but to eat the raw meat was quite disgusting.

 

[Squiggy]

I flat out lied to Campbell Brown...does that count?

 

[TorontoTrekker]

I was in a theatre company in university called FASS, which writes and performs a 2.5-hour musical every year. I was in the shows from 1989 through 1992, and I wrote for 1990 through 1994's shows.

I've also played Lysander in A Midsummer Night's Dream, Lord in The Taming of the Shrew, and Gaveston and Leicester in Christopher Marlowe's Edward II.

The last time I was cast in a play would have been in 1996 - I got the part of the American boyfriend in an Agatha Christie play (I forget the title), but I had to turn it down as I hadn't realized before going to the audition that I was actually going to be out of the country during the run of the show.

More informally, I was in 5 or 6 Star Trek musicals that were performed at various conventions, some of which I also wrote and directed. The last one was in 1994, at the Worldcon in Winnipeg, where we did "Kai Me A River, Or Dukat Came Back". I've also done a number of sketches for a video troupe called Brains On Toast (some of our stuff was up on funnyordie.com - I don't know if it still is, but the sketches that were up there included a sketch I was in called "Beaver?" in which I played Beaver Cleaver). We also did a feature-length film that never went anywhere because one of the actors was also the co-executive producer and hated her own performance, so she refused to allow it to be shopped around. (I played a reporter for a National Enquirer-type tabloid who finds Elvis Presley performing "Losing My Religion" in a karaoke bar.)

Oh, and in 2001 or thereabouts I went to a cattle call for "Rent" to keep a friend company, and ended up auditioning. I didn't get a callback, but on my way out, I saw a sign indicating that I had just auditioned for the Broadway production. I had thought it was a local production... good thing I didn't know going in. I might have been nervous.

 

[Admiral Buzzkill]

Yes, quite a bit but never professionally. I'm not very good at it, but apparently not awful since I get selected out of auditions over some pretty good people.

My favorite didn-t-get-the-part audition was for Felix Unger, quite a few years ago when I wanted some distraction from a relationship separation I was going through. I was cast in another part, and in doing so the director told me "you weren't bad, but you were the angriest Felix Unger I've ever seen."

 

[Major Chord]

I've been in quite a few school musical productions, starting in 5th grade with Oliver Twist, The Music Man in 6th grade, Bye Bye Birdie in 7th, Oklahoma! in 8th grade...I stopped for my first two years of High school though. Now I do the dramatic theatre productions put on by the Drama Club. Last year I was Sam Craig in Our Town, this year I am Thomas the Butler in The Philadelphia Story. That show debuts in March.

So yeah...I've done a bit. I intend to continue in College, but since I'm not majoring in theatre or anything, I doubt I'll do much acting over the next few years. I kinda prefer performing in an ensemble to acting on stage though.

 

[auntiehill]

I act every time I go on a job interview or when my in-laws are over.


But I did act in college--in fact, I double majored in English and Theater Arts. I had bit parts in several college productions and even did a small amount of directing. I took an acting class, a directing class and even a playwriting class. Not that I ever did anything with that---having no talent is a bit of an obstacle---but I did learn a lot from it.

I was the teacher in "Baby with the Bathwater" which was loads of fun, was a servant (re:no lines) in "Taming of the Shrew", and a blood-thirsty worshipper in "The Bacchae."

In high school, I played The Devil in a pantomime (typecast!) and I played Jonathan in "Arsenic and Old Lace"---an all-girl Catholic School production of it, no less. *shudder*

 

[Jono]

Like Ludacris I often "Act a Fool".

 

[Zulu Romeo]

My job can be considered a performance of sorts.


But in the entertainment sense.... well, yes, there's my job again. But seriously, I have performed in a lot of school productions (including two musicals) plus as an extra in a local opera.

 

[Mr. B]

I played Lord Montague (Romeo & Juliet) in the 5th grade... that's it.

 

[Geckothan]

I played a bad guy in a primary school performance of Bugsy Malone, in which I got to shoot people with a water gun full of custard. Does that count as acting?

 

[Mark de Vries]

Most of my theatre experience is backstage, but I have ventured out from behind the curtains on a few occasions.

I started out in secondary school musicals, in bit parts with no singing (thankfully!), but in university I started with 'proper' plays. At first I was just the voice of an unseen guard in Goodnight Desdemona (Good Morning Juliet), then I played a wheelchair-bound con man in Tom Stoppard's The Real Inspector Hound (which I also co-directed), a butler in Oscar Wilde's An Ideal Husband and finally an unnamed officer in Ionesco's Macbett. The latter two were mainly comedy roles, although the officer had a sadistic edge which was a lot of fun to play.

My most challenging role was that of Midshipman Harry Brewer in Our Country's Good; I was an alcoholic and schizophrenic man with the mind of a twelve-year-old, and in one scene I had a drunken conversation with two of the voices in my head (children who had been convicted to death because of me). That was awesome to do.

I miss it, actually. I'd love to be involved with a play again.

 

[Daneel]

Nope, never. And since I'm a liar, by that I mean yes, lots of times. In fact, I'll be performing on stage later this evening in a farce -- I play a Clouseau-esque C.I.A. agent who is completely inept at his job. It's lots of fun.

A sampling of other roles I have played:
-Peter Cottontail (this was my first acting experience, in kindergarten)
-The Cowardly Lion in The Wizard of Oz (my first show in high school, as well as my first musical)
-Benny Southstreet in Guys and Dolls
-Two different characters in 7 Stories, a play by Canadian writer/actor Morris Panych
-Benvolio in Romeo and Juliet
-Andrew in I Hate Hamlet
-Thranduil the Elven King in a stage production of The Hobbit (as well as various goblins, Laketown men, etc.)
-Lorenzo in The Merchant of Venice
-Billy in Tom Stoppard's The Real Thing

I also have a bit part in a forthcoming independent film that will probably begin shooting sometime later this month or the next.

So yeah... as you can probably guess, I love acting. It's really a passion of mine. I'd love to be able to try it professionally, but it's a very tough business to get into. Still haven't quit trying, though. At some point, I may, but for now, I plan to continue my "starving artist" phase.

 

[captcalhoun]

my acting CV largely consists of being a shepherd in nativity plays. never got to be a Wise Man. pissed me off no end. even one year when we did a play about people on canals, i ended up as a frigging shepherd because they bolted a nativity scene on to the end.

one year i was supposed to play a postman delivering Cinderella's invite to the ball but was ill.

in secondary school i was supposed to be in a play and again was ill.

other than that, i've 'played' assorted parts in dramatic readings of various plays in English class, including The Crucible, Mephistophiles and Wrath among others in Marlowe's Faustus, Hamlet and others in Hamlet (i did the Big Speech ) and various parts in Juluis Caesar, Merchant of Venice and a few other plays i forget the names of.

 

[TheLonelySquire]

Hi everyone.
It's not often I post in this forum, but I'm interested to know if anyone's ever acted before. I'm aware there are quite a few writers here (professional and amateur), but acting is of course quite a different thing in that anyone can try writing (not to sound disparaging of it or anyone), whereas for acting you generally have to be chosen.

So anyone done any acting in any capacity?

I took theater class and was in a few plays when I was a lad. However, it just wasn't for me.

 

[Yeoman Randi]

Theater major in high school and college. Did some local theater work for a couple of years. Was an extra in a small movie called "Rocket Gibralter" with Burt Lancaster (never met him), Kevin Spacey (met him and hung out with him. He's awesome) and John Glover (he was a snob). Other than that, no. It's a hard business.