Last week I attended a workshop at my studio Anthony Meindl Actor’s Workshop (AMAW), with Tracy ‘Twinkie’ Byrd. I shot through the roof, when the email came through that she was to be added to the September calendar. I’d been tracking her pretty steadily for the last 2 years, but never had the opportunity to get in front of her. I rarely see her pop up for workshops and her annual Monologue Slam has never fit my schedule.

I don’t know how to exactly explain it. In recent years nothing has particularly gotten me nervous in acting. It’s not that I’ve mastered the craft or that I’m good at all or that I’ve run the gamut of experiences (if I’ve said I have to any of those, it would be the biggest lie I’d ever told). I’m a baby in this game, but a brave baby nonetheless. SO I go into any of these experiences with an attitude that either I’ve done the work and that will lead me through or simply ‘fuck it, lets do it’. However with Ms. Byrd I had a physical flutter to me, that I hadn’t had in a while.  To reiterate, in a past life I’d met and interacted with a number of recognizable musicians and actors, never really felt any nerves. This was just different.

I suppose it was the anticipation of the event, the fact that she potentially holds the keys to further opportunities, or simply to find another person to believe in me. Then you meet Tracy and she’s the coolest person in the business. Straight up and down, she was the realest I’ve met in this business, on so many levels.  She was forthright about what she loves and hates about the business, sex in the business, the status and politics of the business. I would say in a nutshell, it was like speaking to a senior when you’re a freshman. It was adult, informative, on the level, and fun. Often workshops can be pretty prescriptive: actors wait, CDs come in, actors ask the same regular ass questions, CD answers (usually stock), we perform, CD gives feedback or redirects, and its over. The real difference between Tracy ‘Twinkie’ Byrd’s and many of the other CD workshops is personality. She didn’t hide hers to create some sort of distance; she didn’t come in seemingly bitter; she didn’t talk down to us; and she didn’t make it feel like we were an item on her itinerary.  Maybe I haven’t done enough workshops but it felt revolutionary. This is not to say that all workshops I’ve done had a negative dynamic, it was simply that Tracy came in refreshed and interacted with us actors in the fashion that she actually wants us to succeed. As an actor that is a phrase repeated ad nauseam by everyone in the business, that the CD ‘loves actors’, ‘wants you to succeed’, ‘they (CD) have no job without you (actor)’, but its interesting how rarely that translates in person.

I’d be remiss in not stating this could be largely because she is a black CD in a 90% room of #blackactors, there is undoubtedly a familiarity, ease, and considering the times and politics of this industry a desire to raise us up and elevate our abilities. However I’ve, more often than not, been the 10% w/ a white CD and there is often a distance set between us and them, which is unfortunate. I understand in a real casting situation there are nerves and money at stake, but in a workshop there is literally nothing at stake except for our $35; the CD gets a check and maybe finds an actor that has potential, seems like a win win.

Not complaining, these are just my thoughts, right or wrong, just what I was feeling at the time.