Acting and voice-over coach brings her talents to San Miguel
By Linda Lowery January 25, 2008 San Miguel de Allende
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“Let’s find the truth together,” says Taylor Korobow as she encourages a student to delve deeper into hidden aspects of the character he is studying. For Korobow, emotional truth is the core and cornerstone of acting. “If you can’t find it within you, it isn’t going to play,” she says. |
Founder of The Voice Factory, a voice-over and acting studio in San Francisco, Korobow moved to San Miguel in 2005. She was ready to leave the ego-soaked Hollywood mentality and 12-hour work days, but she was not ready to leave her career behind. She has continued to accept gigs in the US that include television reality shows, acting and media coaching and voice-over training, and in February will begin to teach acting classes in San Miguel.
Korobow believes that acting is not just about performing. “It’s about life, from the inside out,” she says. It is a release for emotions, a confidence-builder and a way to gain self-understanding. Lifetime habits of denying and suppressing feelings can put us out of touch with them altogether. If actors, however, do not access and allow their instinctive behavior to come to the surface uncensored, they run the risk of stifling the very source of their creativity.
There are many schools of acting theory and Korobow essentially bases her work on the Stanislavsky method, which draws emotions and character from within the actor rather than forcing it on the character from the outside. The real magic happens when the actor forgets about ego and how things should be, allowing the creative process takes over. Korobow describes it as the actor climbing deep into an event from his own experience and then waiting to let the truth rise to the surface, to come into being. She often coaches her actors to wait—and wait some more—before they say their line. What are they waiting for? For the superficial ego to quiet down so truth of the character can shine through.
In addition to coaching professional actors, Korobow does cross-industry training. Casa de Sierra Nevada hired her to coach the waitstaff to be less self-conscious and more forthcoming. Non-theater work—from litigation to education to medicine to waiting on tables—benefits enormously from studying acting.
The tools learned in acting classes also translate to everyday life tools. Even if you're not feeling particularly confident, you can learn to look as if you are, training to harness your voice and posture to bring energy to your presence and to enter a room radiating purpose. Korobow explains that all students—whether they have aspirations for the stage or not—begin to discover “a new sense and understanding of self, of the many riches that can be accessed from within and of the emotions and feelings they’ve kept locked away.”
Self-doubt and fear often get in the way of our ability to achieve or set goals. There are those nasty voices in our head telling us that we will never succeed, so why try? Korobow says San Miguel is the ideal place to let go of those fears and act. “It’s safer here, not a competitive environment like New York or LA, and there’s plenty of theater, plenty of opportunities to get on stage.”
As creativity teacher and writer Julia Cameron puts it: “I have learned, as a rule of thumb, never to ask whether you can do something. Say, instead, that you are doing it. Then fasten your seat belt. The most remarkable things follow.”
Linda Lowery is a New York Times bestselling children’s author.
Acting classes with Taylor Korobow
Beginning in February, acting classes are available for adults and teens in the Sala Quetzal and Teatro Santa Ana at the Biblioteca Pública. Adults, with or without experience, will learn and hone acting skills for theater, film, TV and commercials. Teens will be taught the basic skills of acting.
Adults: Thursday evenings
US$30 or 300 pesos per 2-hour session
Teens: Tuesday evenings
US$20 or 200 pesos per 1½ -hour session
Taylor also offers private lessons set according to the individual’s schedule.
Class size is limited, so please register in advance by contacting Taylor at
152-0918 or taylor.milagro@yahoo.com.
Actors Lab retreats from Moscow
By Murray Kamelhar
Theater
Retreat from Moscow
Mon–Sat, Jan 28–Feb 2, 8pm
Sun, Feb 3, 5pm
Teatro Santa Ana
Biblioteca Pública
Reloj 50A
100 pesos
Most plays that make it to Broadway are written and designed with Broadway in mind, and so they should be. Now, what do you do with a play that reads like eavesdropping on a very private family matter? Rewrite comes to mind—cut out the stuff that hurts too much, make it sound like it was written for audience appeal, make it more exciting, more humorous, less real.
Once my mother confronted my father in a moment that has stayed with me to this day; the pleading, the accusations, the love, the anger, the despair, the whole meaning of life pathetically thrown into that moment, and the humor that slipped out of that sad confrontation. It was drama, unrehearsed. It was theater, too strong for Broadway.
That Retreat from Moscow by William Nicholson did make it to Broadway, to rave critiques, told me that I was wrong, that flat-out reality, voyeurism, if you will, can play well on Broadway. More than that, Retreat from Moscow gives thought to the hateful things we do to loved ones, gives understanding to the lies husbands and wives tell each other, gives insight to the betrayal of ones we love and finally, embraces us with forgiveness.
We don’t have John Lithgow, Eileen Atkins or Ben Chaplin to stage their Retreat from Moscow, but we do have our own fine talent: Geoff Hargreaves, Cleo Stevens-Kamelhar and Seth Sharp, with Murray Kamelhar as director.
Tickets are available at the theater11am–1pm and 3–7:30pm. Tickets for open seating also may be available the evening of performance. For information, contact Murray Kamelhar at 152-4942.
Murray Kamelhar is directing the Actor’s Lab production of Retreat from Moscow.
The divas are coming!
Theater
DIVAS
Mon–Thu, Feb 25–28, 7pm
Teatro Ángela Peralta
Mesones 82
Willowbend Productions announces the world premiere of DIVAS, conceived and written by Michael Whaley. DIVAS pays homage to the ladies who became Broadway legends: Gertrude Lawrence, Mary Martin, Carol Channing, Barbara Cook, Gwen Verdon, Angela Lansbury, Julie Andrews, and of course, “The Queen of Broadway,” Ethel Merman.
Audiences will relish the music in DIVAS, which is from some of the most famous and classic shows ever to play Broadway.
The Boy Friend, Camelot, Candide, Chicago, Curtains, Damn Yankees, Gentlemen Prefer Blondes, Gypsy, Hello Dolly, How to Succeed in Business, etc., The King and I, La Cage aux Folles, Mame, The Music Man, My Fair Lady, Redhead, She Loves Me, Showgirl, The Sound of Music, South Pacific, Sweeney Todd, Sweet Charity and
Victor/Victoria.
The cast consists of some of the best actors, singers and dancers in San Miguel: Amy Chankin, Sharon Frantz, Clara Dunham, Martha Holmes, Judy Marzulli, Nancy Nugent, Peggy Powell and Michael Sudheer as the Narrator. Michael Whaley directs and Liz Stone is musical director, with choreography by Peggy Powell and Michael Whaley.
A portion of the proceeds will be donated by Willowbend Productions to Casita Linda, the Mexican nonprofit organization whose primary goal is to construct simple, decent housing for the most disadvantaged families in the Municipality of San Miguel de Allende.