Assuming exceptional skill as a singing actor, what attitudes can help begin and sustain a career? When CS asked me to write on the subject, my first thought was that I was overly prepared for the topic, having spent most all of my adult life in the theater observing the wide variety of my colleagues’ good, bad, and sometimes bizarre attitudes, and often struggling with my own. But I posed the question to dozens of my colleagues hoping to include as many viewpoints as possible.
Of all their replies, I think my friend and colleague David Maze put it best: “My short response would be to mention what Confucius, Hillel, Jesus, and virtually every other philosopher taught: Treat others as you would want to be treated.”
What follows here simply expands on that response.
The attitude which I believe should be the foundation of all work in the theater is one of service. Service to the great works and characters we’re charged with bringing to life. Service to our audiences and community by telling the story of our character in the most compelling way we can so they may be moved, inspired and, yes, entertained. And service to our colleagues.
The most inspiring and successful attitude I’ve experienced in many of my colleagues, and one I’ve striven for in my own career (with varying degrees of success), is to approach the work as though it was all done to make the production more fulfilling for our colleagues as well as our audience. We over-prepare our music and thoroughly research our roles so all our colleagues can hit the ground running in productions which are always pressed for time. We have up-to-date and honest measurement sheets so the costume staff has fewer alterations to do. We research and learn something about the company and its city to be informed at donor gatherings and fundraising events.
We must understand that our collaborative partners are not just other singers and our conductors and directors but they are also the stage managers, costumers, makeup artists, management, box office staff, board members, apprentice artists, and chorus and orchestra members. Every one of these people is as important to the production as we are, and they all take their work as seriously as we do (sometimes more so). Learn their names. And be familiar with their jobs enough to show appreciation for their talents—regularly.
Oh, and let them do their jobs. I have never had a makeup artist tell me how to sing and, although I’ve done my own makeup many times, I assume my makeup artist is in contact with the director and, together, they are working on a specific look. I assume they know their craft at least as well as I know mine, unless they absolutely prove me wrong (which has been on exceedingly rare occurrences).
The concept that singers are not the only artists in the theater with my same passion for the work was driven home some years ago when I was singing frequently with the Lyric Opera of Kansas City. A stagehand named Corky was in charge of raising and lowering the main curtain, among many other things. Corky’s obsession for timing the movements of “the Grand Rag” precisely with the music equaled any other artist’s commitment I had ever known. I would come to stage early just to watch his work.
Open your mind and eyes. The many dedicated artists around you will astonish and inspire you. Compliment them and thank them sincerely and often. They typically work far longer hours, are often paid less, and get a much smaller share of the limelight than we do.
We also have to understand that, at any moment in a production, our colleagues may have more on their plates than we do. Stage management may be under pressures we can’t imagine. (And, by the way, the best ones will likely never show us that stress expressly so that it won’t negatively impact our work as singers.) The conductor may be trying to deal with an unresponsive orchestra, or the orchestra may be struggling with a conductor who makes their job more challenging than it is already. Be kind. Be generous. Be gracious.
We usually also don’t know what our colleagues are dealing with personally. Life events such as the death of family members or loved ones, the endings of relationships, or personal health or financial challenges have absolutely no consideration for what we do in the theater. Be kind. Be generous. Be gracious.
A year or so ago a singer came to me, frustrated by cast members in a production who were being malicious to their colleagues. I remembered either reading a Richard Miller article or hearing him speak on the grace we show, or withhold, from our colleagues. I wrote him and asked where I had come across the idea, and the following is Miller’s response to me (in an e-mail on April 8, 2008):
I did indeed write an article that I called “The Three Graces.” If not, then I mention it so frequently in masterclass teaching that I feel I did so. However, neither Mary nor I have been able to find it in any source I have published. It might have been in one of the old NATS Bulletin issues from the ’80s. Anyway, here is what I have always suggested.
All major religions make reference to a divine grace. In my Christian tradition it is the Grace of God that is extended to all, so much discussed by St. Paul, St. Augustine, and Martin Luther among others (I am neither Roman Catholic nor Lutheran). Man either accepts God’s grace or refuses to do so.
The second kind of grace is Human Grace, which we extend to each other, but not when relationships, friendships, marriages, peoples, and races withdraw their grace from each other.
The third is Animal Grace, which is what makes a puppy able to wiggle its tail, a child to crawl and take first steps, adults to walk without giving thought to the action, etc.
Perhaps what you had in mind is the human grace that good performers extend to each other on stage (and off!). There is nothing worse than singing a duet with an unsympathetic colleague. That is a withdrawal of human grace. The wise performer extends grace to his colleagues on stage (and off stage!). There is little worse than singing a duet with someone who does not match his or her grace with yours.
I would expand on that by pointing out that if we get in the habit of “withdrawing grace” from our colleagues—constantly focusing on what we perceive as wrong with their behavior, their singing, or whatever it may be about them—there is likely to be a significant part of ourselves that assumes (perhaps subconsciously) that others harbor similar thoughts about us and our work. Additionally, the energy and time we waste on what is not within our control is typically just that: wasted.
When I asked my friends and colleagues to share their thoughts on attitudes, several recurring themes developed which often included the same descriptive words: prepared, grateful, open-minded, flexibile, fearless, confident without arrogance, complimentary without being obsequious, curious, kind, helpful, attentive, focused, calm, friendly, patient, positive, enthusiastic, and non-defensive.
As I read my colleagues’ replies, it looked like many were describing a combination of Gandhi and Mother Teresa. But is such an attitudinal utopia even possible while dealing with our own very real pressures and personal challenges, often while we’re in the middle of a performer’s adrenal rush, and while living in what is often one of the loneliest and most insecure businesses known to man?
I don’t believe I’ve ever attained, let alone maintained, this sort of “saintliness” in any production. I do think I’ve tried, but I recall failing miserably many times. One of the most unfortunate was the time I completely lost my temper with the business manager of a company over what I was mistakenly interpreting as a paycheck discrepancy. I regretted it shortly thereafter—but, just so you know, that is one of two companies in my career that I have not had return engagements with.
We are, as everyone in a production is, human—prone to good days and bad, successes and failures. Being human, our goal cannot be perfection but excellence. Perfection is unattainable. Consistent excellence is attainable, even in our attitudes.
Does this mean we singers need to be nice always, keep our opinions to ourselves, and never express anger? Absolutely not. There will always be differences of opinion in any creative process. If no two people have the same interpretation of the color blue, how can we expect the director to see Mimì exactly as we do? And why should it matter? Mimì is a fictional character in an opera whose libretto was brilliantly patched together from a fictional novella. Certainly there is some wiggle room in our creative imaginations for interpretations other than our own. Keeping an open mind just might allow us to learn something, helping us grow as artists and people.
When you experience serious differences with your colleagues, make time to talk through those differences in private. I have rarely seen it productive for a singer to confront a director, conductor, or colleague publicly. And when you do make private time to discuss your opposing views, make the purpose one of understanding rather than winning. I’m very fond of Joseph Joubert’s quote, “The aim of argument, or of discussion, should not be victory, but progress.”
And, yes, there will be times when those differences with colleagues are so extreme that, in the two to four weeks of the production, significant common ground simply will not be found. In that case, continue to do your job as best you can and try to remember that it’s only a few weeks of your life. You can choose to focus on what is awful about the production and spend every day of those weeks being miserable, or you can find other aspects about the experience that are positive, fulfilling, and enjoyable. This could simply be the fact that, for those few weeks, you have the honor of being employed as a singing actor while countless others would like to be in your shoes.
I believe I have nearly achieved the impossible here: to write an article on singers’ attitudes without mentioning the “D” word. It’s been my happy experience that the professional singers who regularly display such an attitude, although they quickly become the things of legends, are few. Suffice it to say that this type of attitude is not tolerated. As one general director friend of mine replied, “I have fired singers on the spot over uncooperative, negative, non-team-player attitudes.” And I myself have witnessed this happen several times in my career. Or, if bad behavior appears to be tolerated, quite often the singer is giving (usually without knowing it) what I have heard the staff of several opera companies describe as their “HLP” with the company: Historic Last Performance.
I’ll close with two quotes. The first is from George Bernard Shaw (in the 1903 dedicatory epistle to his Man and Superman), speaking of the joy found in making our work about something bigger than ourselves:
This is the true joy in life, the being used for a purpose recognized by yourself as a mighty one . . . the being a force of Nature instead of a feverish selfish little clod of ailments and grievances complaining that the world will not devote itself to making you happy.
The second is what I try (with varying degrees of success) to impress upon singers who work in my studio at UT Austin’s Butler School of Music, slightly modified for polite company:
Know your [stuff] and play well with others.
