Acting Creativity as Lifestyle! www.gruy.biz

Being somebody else came easily to me as a child...
As a matter of fact it was my second skin! Naturally I was very shy and "slipping on" another person made it possible for me
to explore within and without - to find my place and in the sense of realizing the limits - "me!
That way I found myself in many sets and characters and played it to the limit: Clearly the world was destined to be my stage!
I never called it acting - it was just being somebody else and throwing everything in that was me - for the time being.
Playing a daylong-game, I would not react in a predictable way. Studying acting later on seemed to be the next step...
If I would have only known: For years teachers tried to connect me to methods and systems.
If you're basically - and in reality I was! - in your head most of the time, thinking about what you do, you should do,
your role thinks and does, ... instantly removes any flexibility, inspiration and creativity -
we start to act instead of re-acting to the character. Performance becomes stiff, we freeze and what was fun before
turns into something scary. I tried hard and lost myself in the long run. Everything became predictable,
I tried to please and played the "fake and fail" game.
I gave up ... to wondrous gazes of those who'd seen talent before and couldn't understand...
Unfortunately I hadn't known HAROLD GUSKIN back then and he hadn't written his book on "HOW TO STOP ACTING" yet:
Thank him I now know that I was on the right track and just wasted a lot of time
(and money) when I already was what I wanted to be - ME, the "me" who sets out to be!
The "me" who still cannot open a book without becoming a character and reacting to it until the book is finished.
The me who will turn every single day into rehearsal and use every chance to try out different approaches...
Teaching young children was a better workshop I could have ever asked for!
Children see through every acting, whatever you do, say or want to "sell" them - it has to be authentic -
a truthful reaction to what went on before or they will walk out on you!
On the other hand - in the social field you meet a lot of people who want the opposite:
Be - what they want to see - but truly BE and be true to that role, or it's ... next!
So, Life is still my stage and now I have YEARS of the true training and experience!
Willing to demonstrate - I never quit to see beyond!