Are you asking the right questions?
Sarah: Do you know where the door to the labyrinth is?
Hoggle: Oh, maybe
Sarah: Well, where is it?
Hoggle: Oh, you little... [spraying a fairy]
Sarah: I said, where is it?
Hoggle: Where is what?
Sarah: It's hopeless asking you anything
Hoggle: Not if you ask the right questions
-Labyrinth
It was late evening, and I was hunched over the departmental newsletter—a major part of my work-study job in the theatre department—attempting to get everything formatted correctly before our print deadline the next day. As usual, I was putting in unpaid overtime to make it happen while my coworkers were already gone for the night.
My directing professor knocks on the door, just stopping in to ask a question. Afterward, as he is about to leave, he pauses in the doorway, regarding me thoughtfully.
"You know, if you put as much time into your acting as you do into this job, you'd be great," he said.
Later, venting to my best friend, I was irate. What the fuck did he mean by that? I AM putting in the work!
I auditioned for every show, earned A's in all my acting classes, practiced monologues in the dorm study lounge until they kicked me out. I took every available acting and theater class, dance classes, even enrolled in Shakespeare through the English department. Hell, I even took Business of Acting, a class most theater students avoided.
Admission to Advanced Acting required an audition. The professor who taught the course rejected me twice, telling me that I “wasn’t ready.” He told me he thought I needed a Meisner coach. I considered it, and I read the Meisner books that he recommended, but ultimately, I stopped short of actually getting a coach. Wasn’t that what I was paying the university for? To teach me to act? As a student, I didn’t have the extra money to throw at a coach, and I didn't have parents who would pay for it either, not that I would even consider asking them for something so seemingly frivolous.
Meanwhile, certain students got cast over and over again. I knew they were better than me, but couldn’t see any path to get to where they were. We were taking the same classes, doing the same things. The only difference I could see was that they got cast and I didn’t. My admiration for my more in-demand peers festered into silent envy rather than fostering connection that might have given me answers about how to improve or get access to opportunities through allies in the department.
I would keep plugging away, I decided. Keep working hard until I made it.
But now, looking back, I see there was probably a way I could have made it easier on myself.
Looking back now, I see the questions I should have asked:
"Professor, what did you mean by that comment in the office?"
"I can't afford a Meisner coach—what else would you recommend?"
"Hey, successful classmates, how are you actually doing this?"
The newsletter was easy because it had clear steps, a defined process.
But towards my real goal—becoming a great working actor?
Beyond auditioning, networking, and hoping, I had no idea what else I could do, because no one had told me in school or otherwise that there WAS anything I could do.
So, my path to becoming proactive in my acting career took a LONG time. I made it up as I went along. I plugged away, auditioning, doing whatever work I could get, got a few agents…
A year or two after graduation, I ran into a former classmate—one of those people who'd been cast in everything. When I mentioned some recent auditions, he asked where I'd heard about them. "Casting sites and Craigslist," I told him. "Hey, would you send any good ones my way?" he asked. Fat chance. Not that I didn’t want to help my friends, but this resource was available for free to anyone. Why should I do the work for him when he could set a reminder and check the sites daily like I was?
The real turning point came with a receptionist job that left me with a lot of downtime to fill. I started reading plays—not because I had to, but because I wanted to. Most actors I knew only read scripts when forced to. The idea of reading plays as part of my job was a new and novel one.
From there, I developed a system for gathering new monologues: marking intriguing passages in the plays with Post-its, photocopying, and then cataloging them in a binder by style and period.
My lunch breaks became memorization sessions. I would walk through downtown Minneapolis, paper in hand, reading and re-reading my monologues until I could recite them from memory.
When I lost that job and started training at the Guthrie Theater, I got even more strategic: setting Google alerts for season announcements, being first to request scripts from the library, reaching out directly to directors about roles. Bringing scenes to class to prepare the characters I wanted to play before I even auditioned for them.
And after years of being in class at the Guthrie, bringing scenework to class only a few times a year, in the last year before my teacher retired, I started bringing a scene every single week. A few times, even two.
Once I started the accountability group, then I really started cooking! I was able to make a lot more happen in less time.
Just imagine if someone had been able to lay all of this out for me when I was in school. To give me the actual formula for being a working actor. What if I had been a little braver and asked those questions?
There’s still no guarantee I would have done everything right away, nor that I would have been successful at it, but at least I would have known what actions might lead me to the result I wanted.
My professor had been right all along—I had the work ethic. I just needed to redirect it. Sometimes the hardest part isn't doing the work—it's knowing what work to do. And sometimes, the simplest solution is just asking the question.
Why do we do this to ourselves?
We come to the conclusion: “I don’t know” and that’s where we stop.
Stop waiting for answers to come to you. And ask the right questions.
