Acting out

Young Chang

Alex Golson’s book on acting is for industry hopefuls who have kept

their questions to themselves.

The text -- a word almost too formal for the colloquial, humorous

style in which it’s written -- suggests, for example, ways to better

memorize a script. How to improvise. How to use your voice. How to get

over stage fright, and why it’s something essential to get over.

With answers to questions most fear are too dumb to ask, Golson said

he wrote “Acting Essentials: Just Say Your Lines Like You Mean Them and

Don’t Bump Into the Scenery” for students who prefer a more approachable,

readable tone over academic-sounding words. The 150-page book is for an

audience Golson calls the “MTV generation.”

“I don’t dwell on any one topic for more than two or three pages,”

said the chairman of Orange Coast College’s Theatre Department. “If you

talk about anything for over two minutes, you lose concentration. I think

we’re all that way.”

An OCC professor for 22 years, Golson grew up in Costa Mesa and said

he fell in love with acting almost accidentally while a senior at

Estancia High School in 1968.

He was part of the school’s chorus, which encouraged students to get

involved in musicals. Golson did for the sake of getting a good grade,

and since then has acted with such names as Lee Strasberg and William

Ball and taught at UCI, Cal State Long Beach and Cerritos College.

“Acting Essentials” is aimed at students in community colleges, lower

division theater courses at four-year universities and maybe even high

school, said Golson, who is directing OCC’s production of Shakespeare’s

“The Tempest,” which ends Sunday.

Improvisational exercises, tips on how to memorize lines, what to do

when you blank on stage, illustrations and even cartoons make up this

acting tome.

One of the author’s suggestions is to read aloud everywhere -- in

front of people, by yourself, at the breakfast table with the back of a

cereal box.

“There are some who believe that acting is not teachable, and after

awhile talent has to come in, but anyone can be taught to act,” Golson

said. “It’s a matter of getting rid of stage fright.”

This common performance syndrome is, in the author’s opinion, one of

an actor’s most crippling hurdles.

“That’s where improvisation comes in,” Golson said of situations in

which people forget their lines on stage because of nervousness. “If they

know the character and the situation well enough, they can’t blank. They

can just go with the situation . . . so they can never get lost.”

Tina Munoz, an OCC student who has worked with and been taught by

Golson, isn’t surprised that her 50-year-old professor can tap into what

young actors really need to learn.

“He’s a wonderful teacher,” she said. “He cares about his students a

lot . . . he knows the right things to say to draw out of you what he

needs from you.”

Her favorite tip? Memorize first. And there’s a reason for Golson’s

wisdom, she said.

“People want to know how to do Shakespeare well, how to do anything

well,” Munoz said. “You have to memorize first. People think it’s not

that important, so you put it off and put it off, but they don’t

understand [that] your character will grow more if you don’t have to

worry about memorizing the lines.”