The Working Actor's Journey

In this episode, Randall and Annie share insights into working on Shakespeare through the appropriately chosen piece, Hamlet's "Advice to the Players"—the one that begins "Speak the speech I pray you" .  You'll hear Randall and Annie discuss: Some of the most important advice that actors can take from Hamlet's words How an actor can use and develop his or her own "discretion" How to look at Shakes...

It's a special one today—a double-bill! Randall Duk Kim and his lifelong professional partner—and wife— Annie Occhiogrosso are one of the great teams of the American theatre. They have worked together their entire professional lives and are dedicated to the classics, and in particular, to the works of William Shakespeare. They, along with their partner Charles Bright, founded American Players Thea...

Mike Moreno hosts The Actor CEO Podcast (available on Apple, Stitcher, etc) and he dives into the knowledge and skills that allow actors and artists to embrace their creative entrepreneur spirit, along with the reality that you both run and own your own business from the moment you choose to be a professional. Its focus is to help you learn the skills that make a more successful actor by taking co...

L. Scott Caldwell , or "Scotty" as she is also known, has been a working actress for 40+ years, from Chicago to New York to LA, and many other places! In fact, right after we chatted, she was off to shoot episodes of Facebook's Sacred Lies , ABC's A Million Little Things , and HBO's Insecure . She stays busy! Scotty has over 100 onscreen credits, including recurring characters on Lost, The Secret...

In this episode, Simon shares how he worked on a couple of different audiobook projects : first, dealing with a practically unreadable chapter in Alan Moore's Jerusalem and then, a bit on The Wake by Paul Kingsnorth.  You'll hear Simon discuss: The research and immense work that went into the audiobook of Jerusalem How he made sense of unusual spellings, and dialogue without punctuation in The Wak...

Simon Vance (@SimVan) has narrated over 1000 audiobooks in his career, with such a diverse range of works, from George R.R. Martin and Steig Larsson's Millennium series (which we discuss), to Brent Weeks and Charles Dickens! He's also focused on getting back in front of the camera as an actor, which we talk about at length because of how much success he's had in audiobooks, and he still wants to e...

In this episode, Jeanne discusses a monologue she worked on from the TV show Threat Matrix . She plays a Cambodian woman who recounts her experiences of escaping the Khmer Rouge. I've visited Cambodia and seen first-hand some of the atrocities that happened there—just horrific, as we talk about. You'll hear Jeanne discuss: how a book she had read two years earlier helped her initially with the aud...

Jeanne Sakata  has had a 30+ year career spanning theater, film, television, and voiceover. She was in two different stage productions this past year, both with notable companies, jumping from Shakespeare to new plays: appearing in  Othello  at A Noise Within in Pasadena, CA and in  Do You Feel Anger?  at the Vineyard Theatre in NY. For her first play, Jeanne wrote the celebrated and  award-winnin...

Audrey Moore hosts the wonderfully-named podcast Audrey Helps Actors (available on Apple, Stitcher, Google Play, etc), and it's exactly what it sounds like! Every episode Audrey invites someone from the business to chat about everything from advice for auditions and getting a new agent, to the nitty gritty of exploring different theatrical markets and information about how you can better use your...

In this excerpt, Richard discusses one of Leontes' speeches in The Winter's Tale by Shakespeare —it's in the first act where he has his suspicions about his wife and his best friend having an affair. Leontes is speaking with his trusted advisor Camillo, who cannot bear to hear these accusations and Leontes responds "Is whispering nothing?" and goes from there. You'll hear Richard discuss: how Shak...

Richard Riehle (pronounced "Really!"), has had   a nearly 50-year career, he's still going! With 400+ onscreen credits to his name, plus years and years of regional theatre, he is truly a working actor! You've probably seen Richard in dozens of things, with very memorable parts in the films Glory, The Fugitive, Office Space , and Casino , as well as appearances on Modern Family, Grounded for Life,...

Coming up in the next round of interviews, actors that continue to work in all different mediums: a Tony winner with plenty of on-screen work an actor/playwright who has worked around the country a Shakespeare actor who ran his own theatre and appears in several big movies an actor with over 400 tv/film credits (plus years of theatre) and a voice you've probably heard reading books to you! Now the...

Arye Gross (@thataryegross) is an actor with 40+ years in the business who always gives a memorable performance, wherever he pops up. He was absolutely one of the inspirations for this podcast. It's a personal episode too—as Arye has been a friend, mentor, and teacher to me over the years. Don't miss our actor marketing advice » Click here for full show notes and links. Arye has had a pretty amazi...

Alan Mandell (in his 90s and still working!)   is an actor and director, and he's also been a general manager of multiple theatres. He's considered one of the leading interpreters of Samuel Beckett's work, and he even collaborated directly with the playwright several times! It was really fascinating to hear all about Alan's career— his story is a combination of being in the right place at the righ...

In this excerpt, Tony Amendola ( @tmamendola ) from Ep #18 discusses Sonnet 130 by William Shakespeare. As Tony shares, it's almost like an "anti-love" sonnet, that it makes fun of sonnets that are too flowery, as it has a very different tone and style with its message. You'll hear Tony discuss: how he approaches a pieces of text like this how he might set the scene in his mind when doing this why...

Tony Amendola  ( @tmamendola ) was an associate artist, actor and director at the Berkeley Rep Theater for ten years. Regional theatre work includes the Mark Taper Forum, South Coast Rep, ACT, the Old Globe, La Jolla Playhouse, Williamstown Theater, CenterStage and the Oregon, California and Utah Shakespeare Festivals. He has 120+ credits on film/TV, including as a series regular on Continuum , an...

Kristine Oller  guides successful creative professionals through the process of designing and aligning the next chapter of their lives and careers – always with an eye towards helping them expand their brilliance and increase their resilience. She is here to discuss a rather tricky topic for creatives: having enough money to really pursue your career. Sure you can get that stereotypical job waitin...

Robert Goldsby  started out acting during World War II, in a touring production for the troops in the Philippines. He earned a B.A. in French and Comparative Literature from Columbia and, along with directing studies, an M.F.A. in Acting from Yale. He was an actor, resident stage director and conservatory director of San Francisco's American Conservatory Theatre, running the first Training Congres...

Paden Fallis  hosts the podcast In and [Out of] the Arena  (available on Apple, Stitcher, etc), and it's an atypical interview show: he creates a very cool roundtable discussion with working actors out there, people from all over the country. Actors with credits on Broadway, network TV, indie films, voiceover, and everything in-between. It's a weekly, topic-driven show, so each episode focuses on...

Ray Porter from Ep. #16 talks text work in John Webster's The White Devil . This is a Jacobean play and comes in the period right after Shakespeare. As Ray shared, plays in this period were much darker and a definite departure from many of the themes you'd see in Shakespeare's work. It's not a play I was familiar with and really glad these guests are introducing us to other classical works. As I m...

Ray Porter (Tw:  @Ray__Porter ; IG: @rayporter_narr8s ) spent 18 seasons with the Oregon Shakespeare Festival playing all sorts of roles, including many leads, and has since narrated more than 300 audiobooks (including the Joe Ledger series by Jonathan Maberry), all while still appearing on film, tv, and onstage. He has multiple Earphones Awards, has been nominated for Audie awards for his narrati...

We have a special episode today. It's a tribute to the actor Philip Bosco. In this, you'll hear the voices of  Armin Shimerman ,  Peter Van Norden , and Phil himself as Malvolio in Twelfth Night . Phil was quite a legend in the theatre scene, and he recently passed away, so I decided to finally sit down and put this together. Yes, it is sad, and at first, I thought this episode needed to be really...

Dawn Didawick   is an LA-based actor who has worked at numerous regional theatres, has lived and worked in both DC and New York, and also has a number of film and TV credits. She appeared on Broadway in Arthur Miller's All My Sons,  with the production winning a Tony Award for Best Revival. She's also a founding member of the Antaeus Theatre in Glendale, CA. In today's episode, Dawn and I cover: d...

Francis Guinan from Ep. #14 talks text work in Jessica Dickey's  The Rembrandt,  which premiered at Steppenwolf Theatre in Chicago in 2017 with Francis in the cast, alongside John Mahoney, who many people know as the dad on Frasier (one of my personal favorites), but who was also a longtime Steppenwolf ensemble member. You'll hear how Francis found his way through the text, and the deeper connecti...

Francis Guinan grew up in Iowa and went to college pre-med, but then changed directions and ended up meeting the actors who would go on to create the Steppenwolf Theatre Ensemble in Chicago. He has been a member for 30 years and appeared in over 40 productions, and also has 80+ film/tv credits including Boss , The Last Airbender , and Eerie, Indiana . Just a bit of what we cover: discipline and fo...