Cool.

Tonight, in class #4 of my "Art of Voice Acting" Tele-Course (more on that in a later post), I received instructor critique for the Stud Terkel "Working" monologue I mentioned a couple of days ago.

James Alburger told me I had very nice change-ups and rhythm, and could tell there was a whole lot going on behind the spoken lines. Both he and Penny Abshire liked the attitude in the delivery, and though I wasn't crazy about the read I gave, they gave me a "very nice job on the Arny Freeman script," and my first critique from them that didn't have a "constructive criticism" component.

• Hear it here: "Working" (Studs Terkel)

They weren't so crazy about what I did with the "K-Mart Optical" spot, with which I had a lot of fun.

• Hear it here: "K-Mart Optical"

At the end of class, I got some personal coaching time with James and Penny, and got to do a few different reads with some new direction and context. Interestingly, the lead-in line they gave me (interviewer asks, "All you do is bit parts! Why do you keep trying to be an actor?") was surprisingly like my lead-in line (just asked by a different person) ...

Also interesting, after complimenting my last readthrough, Penny suggested I strike all punctuation and start over. Since this is actually the first thing I do with a script, it sounds like I may need to watch myself to ensure I'm not unintentionally slipping back into the text punctuation.

Man, I really like working...