Theater majors face job difficulties after graduation

At 9 a.m. the sidewalks and courtyards of campus are empty, with students either tucked away in bed or looking bleary-eyed at their 8 a.m. professor. In Room A200 of the theater building, graduate student Samuel Wootten leads his seven sleepy students through a series of yoga exercises to wake them up.\n"Think of your body as a corkscrew," Wootten said, twisting his long body around itself, "with a string pulling you up through your head."\nWootten's class, Acting II: Scene Study, is one in a line of acting classes available for the aspiring actors at IU. Unlike students who aspire to be lawyers or doctors who have a very concrete process to complete, the best way for aspiring actors to make it big is to simply act, Wootten said.\nWootten hands out sheets of paper with titles of plays written on them to his students.\n"Find six of these and read them," he says. "The best way to become more accomplished as an actor is to know the text."\nWootten tells his students to focus on characters who are age-appropriate, characters to whom they can relate.\n"My hope is that you come out of this with an audition piece," Wootten said.\nAuditions play a key role in theater majors' lives, giving them the chance to practice their skills and gain experience if they are cast.\n"Auditions are coming up at the Bloomington Playwrights Project," Wootten told the class. "If you don't have a project going on now and have some free time in the evenings, and you want to be an actor, you should audition. Remember, the best way to get better is by doing it."\nSitting in the empty room after class, Wootten again emphasized the best way to become an actor is to act as much as possible.\n"Go to an audition and get cast," he said. "If you don't, get involved in an independent project, but continue to act."\nWootten's students, including juniors Buki Long and Josh Cole, are self-described aspiring actors and directors.\n"When you say you want to go to Hollywood, no one ever believes you," Cole said. \nThe two said they were actively involved in school-sponsored drama productions in high school, but since they've come to college, they have mostly concentrated on independent projects.\n"I'll pick and choose what I want to do," Long said. "I won't work on a project unless it's something I'm interested in."\nIn the morning class, Wootten took his students through a series of exercises based on the ideas of Rudolph Von Laban. He had them move around the room based on different words such as flick, glide and wring.\n"Put it in your hands. Put it in your hips. But try not to control it too much," he said as they paced across the floor.\n"Flicking makes me feel like an interior designer," one student said.\n"Good, find something, commit to it and live with it," Wootten said.\nWootten said an actor's instrument is his body and voice, and the best thing students can do is to perfect their instrument, partly though exercises like the ones he used in his class.\n"(They) will eventually become more adept and less likely to ask questions," he said. "The movement becomes instinctual."\nWootten said it is also important for students to act as much as possible to surround themselves with other actors.\n"Then you too will become more professional," he said. "Continue to find ways to act, and get better."\n-- Contact senior writer Kathleen Quilligan at kquillig@indiana.edu.