CLASS RULES
WORK HARD OR YOU WON’T GET TO WORK
If you’ve never worked with us before, the first 3 weeks of class will be a learning curve. Unlike all other acting studios, on the first night of class, we give you many scene options to choose from so you and your partner are happy. We only hope that your partner works just as hard as you. However, we cannot control the level of discipline an actor arrives with, particularly in the beginner classes. Therefore, if you don’t work hard by the second week, if you don’t come in memorized with lots of creative choices ready to go, if you are causing scheduling problems for your partner, you will be asked to sit and watch and not be allowed to perform. Your partner won’t be allowed to perform either if YOU don’t do the work. So work hard to avoid becoming a pariah in the class.
NO REFUNDS, NO MAKE-UP CLASSES, NO COMPLAINTS
Be on time. Be a team player. Work hard on your own. If you don’t show up – You will be replaced. If you don’t show up prepared, you will be replaced. As it states all over the website, there are no refunds. Instead, recognize that AC has an incredible success rate. We’ve turned beginners into working actors in every generation of our studio. If you are new to the process – don’t be quick to judge it. It takes many months to start understanding it. Be patient, and don’t expect to become Meryl Streep in three weeks. It doesn’t work that way. Keep an open mind, work hard, and before long, you’ll start to feel the muscles grow. Do not complain about your scene partner. At every level of the business, even in feature films, you are going to work with people who you don’t like or who don’t do their homework, or you just have no chemistry with. Acting classes train you to deal with the fact that nothing is perfect. If you are having issues with your partner, the material you are working on, or the class itself, feel free to come to us with any issues. But again, having a scene or a scene partner you don’t like just isn’t your call in the training environment or the professional world. So do your best to make things work!
DON’T BE A SWEATY MESS
These are professional acting classes. Do not show up a sweaty mess. Do not have onion and horse-radish on your breath. Have mints. Come in clean; smelling nicely, etc. Do not dress for the Oscars and do not come in scantily clad. Make sure you have eaten BEFORE class and not during. Water bottles are fine. No wrappers, no chips, no noise is made when in the audience.
FILMING
ActorClass reserves the right to film all aspects of class and use our footage on all platforms and social media. If you’ve seen our TikTok, you’ll see we never expose anyone in a negative light. You are training to be actors – be prepared to be filmed. You can ask for copies of footage. We do not charge extra for this.
NO PHONES
If you are filming or taking pictures that’s fine. But if you are scrolling through your phone or texting, class will stop and I will focus on you and give a giant speech about class etiquette. If it happens a second time – you will be asked to leave for the remainder of the evening. Save your phone use for when you are in the hall. DO NOT use your phones for any reasons except for filming or taking pictures. If someone next to you is fiddling on their phone, gently tap them and tell them to turn it off. Phones should be powered down before class. If your phone starts making noise in your back-pack during class – we will stop and I will give another big speech about proper etiquette in a creative environment.
ETIQUETTE
We are not only training actors to properly behave in a professional environment onstage or on camera — but we also teach you how to behave when you are offstage or waiting in the wings. If you are in a professional environment watching actors train, you respect them: you do not twitch, shake your feet, click pens, open candy, audibly sigh, roll your eyes, or have whispered conversations. Treat the people onstage the way you want to be treated when it is your turn to act. Our students all learn to respect the craft of acting which includes how you behave as an audience member. RESPECT EACH OTHER’S TIME ONSTAGE.
STUDIO ETIQUETTE
When at Open Jar Studios, we are always QUIET in the hallways, we are respectful to the staff and, under no circumstances, do we sneak into rooms to rehearse nor do we rehearse in the hallways. If you need to run lines with your scene partner, you may do so in the cafeteria area, or downstairs in the building lobby. We are lucky to be working at Open Jar Studios and we must respect the space.
REHEARSING
Unless given specific permission, we do NOT rehearse with our scene partners outside of class in any format other than Zoom. You and your partner can Zoom with each other as much as your schedules allow – but you are never allowed to meet outside of class in an unsupervised environment without permission. If your scene partner doesn’t want to rehearse with you — that is your problem. If you are in a movie with Matt Damon, you don’t get to ask Matt to rehearse at a coffee shop. On the contrary, he will come in fully prepared and you should do the same. We are training to be professionals – we are not training to mimic an academic or college environment. All of that said — we strongly suggest you rehearse with your partner on Zoom for at least 6 hours a week (on top of rehearsing on your own for another 3-6 hours daily). If you do 3-6 hours per day of rehearsal on your short 3 page scene — you will be amazed by the results. But if all you do is memorize your lines — you are setting yourself up for disaster. We can discuss ways of rehearsing. Feel free to ask me about the best ways to rehearse. Acting is not magic — it requires enormous amounts of discipline. If you want your investment in these acting classes to pay off – please recognize that success comes from what you do OUTSIDE OF CLASS, more than what you do in it.
STAGE TIME
Sometimes a scene deserves or requires extra stage time. When this happens, we sometimes run out of class time and 1 or 2 scenes might not get to perform that night. In these circumstances, whichever scene did not get stage time, they will go at the top of the next class. Please do not come to me and complain that you didn’t get to work. We do everything we can to accommodate everyone. But our classes are coveted, they fill up quickly, rehearsal spaces are expensive, and we can’t have classes running for four hours and upwards. If you don’t get to work one night, be patient, and accept that these things happen on film sets as well.