Mark Evans Studio

  Allow room for failure I’m getting real and personal here for a moment, which I think is important as a teacher of artists and an artist myself. I recently had a therapy session where I described the week I had just completed to my therapist.  This was the list and the role I was in for each thing: I shot an episode of a show that’s on Netflix - Acting I ran two rehearsals of The Play That Goes Wrong - Associate Directing I private coached 15 students - Coaching I presented a brand new class that I created to a large group of actors. Some of whom I’ve never met - Teaching I taught two additional classes that I created the concept for - Teaching I started potty training our daughter (along with my husband) who is a year and ten months old - Parenting And…… I had friends over to our house for an overdue catch up and fun night together - DRINKING!!!!!! ;-) I explained to my therapist that I felt a little overwhelmed and he said he understood because that’s a substantial list. H...

  Breathe a Sigh Of Relief I am currently reading ‘Freeing The Natural Voice’ by Kristin Linklater.  She gives an incredible amount of detailed guidance to breathing in a way that frees you into your most authentic, expressive self. She talks about inspiration and expiration (breathing in and breathing out) and teaches an exercise where the small, simple, honest expiration (outward breath) should be focused on as a ‘ sigh of relief’ I want to encourage you to think of as many things as possible that you can free yourself up from by giving them a metaphoric and literal sigh of relief.   Do you have tension in your shoulders? Give it a sigh of relief and let it go. Has your day been challenging and made you feel stressed? Give it a sigh of relief and let it go.  Do you have a bunch of thoughts racing around your mind right now? Give them a sigh of relief and let them go.  Do you have someone in your life who no longer SHOULD be? Give them a sigh of relief and l...

  It’s all about you When discussing an approach to auditioning I said this to a student recently.  “It’s all about you, then it’s nothing to do with you” Write that down so you remember it and can glance at it before your auditions and now let me explain what I mean:  When you’re preparing for an audition, find every opportunity possible to bring yourself into the material. Your voice, your point of view, your sense of humor, your uniqueness, your experience, your trauma, your LIFE! Then when you step into the audition, know and trust that you deserve to be in that room. You deserve to occupy that space and their time and demand their attention because THEY deserve to get to know you and see you in the material. It’s the only thing that you have over every other person auditioning. The audition happens.  Then, once you step out of that room (or turn the camera off with a self tape), you must remind yourself that it now has NOTHING TO DO WITH YOU . You have no...