As I am currently training to be an actor in Vancouver’s film industry, I often get involved with other actors and occasionally practice by doing script reads with them. One meet up I go to once in a while is the Vancouver Actor’s Drop-in.
At this meet-up, actors often get together at a soundstage in the same building as the Cinematheque and go over lines in a script. The scripts are sometimes material written by some of the members, but most of them are just scripts of movie and TV scenes. Occasionally before the session starts, some of the actors warm up with some improv, which is always interesting to watch as well as get involved in. Sometimes the well known members make announcements about their progress as well.
Last night’s session started with one actor getting evaluated by everyone else on what roles he could possibly fill, based on his appearance. The actor was going to meet a casting agent and those people are very particular. After a slightly difficult session of evaluating the actor, we proceeded to read some scripts out loud. It was an interesting night as some new people came in and tried out script reading. Most of the scripts were TV scenes, but a couple scripts were written by members, two of them were actually my own. Normally, in the past actors would take another chance at reading again after some evaluation but the group has gotten out of that habit recently.
The entire session of the meet-up lasted about 2 1/2 hours and then everybody went straight to karaoke at a bar afterwards. As usual, it was a fun and interesting night. It’s a great meet-up for actors looking to practice their skills and improve on anything they might have trouble with while practicing or figuring how to act.
