VP's BLOG: Television Sucks for Actors

BroadwayWorld.com is excited to introduce its newest blogger - VP Boyle! VP BOYLE is one of the most sought after Broadway audition and life coaches for professionals in New York City and works with actors at every level across the country to spread his irreverent approach to theatrical wellness. He wears many hats in the Broadway community (director, casting director, actor, writer, producer) and is most known in the theatrical casting world for creating The Musical Theatre Forum, a professional casting workshop with every major Broadway casting agency in NYC.

VP currently serves as the creator and Chair of the New York Film Academy's new cutting-edge Musical Theatre & Film Conservatory Program. The two-year program merges conservatory musical theatre training with Broadway professionals and an intensive acting on film curriculum that culminates with an original movie musical film project.

VP will be blogging weekly for BroadwayWorld.com...

Not being on television you dork, that is awesome and welcomed.

Watching hours and hours and hours of crap when you could be doing something productive with your time. Or playing video games. They suck, too.

There are finite amount of hours in this lifetime and unfortunately (or fortunately) you don't get to see the balance sheet. I have spent many hours considering the wonderful, life-changing contributions of Jonathan Larson and how he gave so much to our world in terms of a powerful legacy before making his very early exit at the age of 35. I wish I could travel back in time to meet him at the Moondance Diner just to say hello and thanks in advance for your gift to us. But we don't get to do that except in the movies.

Use your time and resources to create a life you want. I guarantee you might do better to read a book once and a while and forgo some mindless television time, particularly hours of commercials. If you need to do television homework (and you do!), then rent or catch relevant episodics on the internet. Pick one or two shows to be your guilty pleasure and enjoy them for all they are worth, but don't make the couch your study zone. Being proactive includes continued learning. The best way to not get stuck or feel stagnant is to keep yourself moving with education. If you are not learning, you are dying. The learning never stops, but more on that later in future blog entries.

Here are ten ideas to stimulate you to avoid the boob tube and remember that you are an artist dedicated to creating things that matter with those hours you have in the bank of life.

1. Read some Sam Shepard. Better yet, make a list of 50 Americanplaywrights and read a play every week.

2. Clean your closet and purge your wardrobe of everything you haven't worn in the last two years. If you want to be hardcore, then make it one year. Donate them immediately.

3. Go to Lincoln Center and watch both parts of Angels in America back to back.

4. Write a ten-minute play that you can star in powerfully.

5. Rent every DVD you can find on vaudeville, comedy and the masters who perfected the art form. If you learn how to be funny, you will work more than most.

6. Grab your camera (the best camera is the one you have at any moment) and go capture some of the wonderful world we live in.

7. Paint your living space new colors.

8. Write out ten pages in your journal on "why you love your life as an artist."

9. Listen to a musical score or soundtrack that you don't know and research it on the Internet while you listen to it.

10. Turn off your cell phone, email and iPod for twenty-four hours