William Esper

Rutgers, the State University of New Jersey (retired)

By Ellen Orestein

Esper is the founder of the BFA and MFA professional actor training programs at Rutgers University, which he headed from their beginnings in 1977 until his retirement in 2003. Under his leadership the school achieved national recognition as one of America’s top five professional actor-training programs, and in 2003 he was awarded the Warren I. Sussman Award for excellence in teaching. Esper has been the head of his own studio in New York City since 1965. He is a graduate of the Neighborhood Playhouse School of Theatre, where he was trained as a teacher and actor by Sanford Meisner, with whom he worked closely for 15 years. A Back Stage readers’ poll recognized him as the best acting teacher in New York in 2006 and 2007. He has directed more than 100 plays, and has directed and acted both regionally and Off Broadway.

Actors have such a strong desire to please whoever is watching them. How do we address this in their training?

That’s what makes them actors.

But, there must be some kind of independence —a kind of working for themselves —right?

That is a two-edged sword to actors because the very thing that makes them want to act—really have to act—is that they particularly want to please. What did Dorothy Parker say about actors? “The whole world’s love is not enough; one man’s love is too much.” (Laughs.)

But real artists are inner-directed. You can’t make art for other people. I mean, if you do it for other people, you’re going to make bad art. It has to be done for yourself. That’s part of an actor’s journey, learning that creativity is very personal and that he or she is a unique individual. The cultivation of that uniqueness in each actor is very important. I think Sandy Meisner understood that and acted on it.

You have to bring the actor, eventually, to a place where the craft belongs to him. There are no lessons to be learned; there are principles to understand, and habits that have to be drilled into the person. That’s what craft is all about. And it’s when the craft part of it all becomes unconscious that you can put all of your focus on questions of interpretation.

Everyone says to the actor, “You have to be yourself.” But then the first question the actor’s got to ask is, “Okay, I want to be myself. But who am I?” And that question can’t really be figured out intellectually. Everything we do in the first year is meant to push the actor into total spontaneity and to take away from him the ability to think. The way exercises are set up, it’s as though there is no opportunity to think because the actor’s so focused on some task that he’s performing—some complicated, difficult task that takes his whole concentration even just to attempt it, so it ties up his whole conscious mind. He’s constantly being thrown off balance, off guard, and can’t watch himself, and that’s when all the good stuff starts to come out. The inventing of obstacles is a big part of the training.

The only real way I know how to combat a lack of confidence and independence is getting them to a point where they really know what they’re doing. There’s nothing like really knowing your job to give you confidence.

And, there’s no such thing as being perfect. You’ll never get the perfect performance. The people who are so serious—they want to get it, you know, and they want to do good work—they are so desperate about it—they can’t relax enough to do good work.

Did you experience that desire for perfection yourself, studying with a teacher as important as Meisner? Did the attempt to please him overpower the work?

No. (Pause.) I mean, the bar was set very high. And his sense of truth was unbelievable. And his eye, for seeing into people, was very good. And so...(long pause)…you knew whatever you brought there had to be the very best that you were capable of.

Was Meisner an authoritarian presence?

Very much so. He followed the premise that he was there to teach something and we were there to learn it. (Laughs.) I feel the same way. I’m an expert in this particular area and I’m here to teach you and you’re supposed to be here to learn. And that’s the agenda.

But on the other hand, Sandy Meisner was extraordinarily sensitive toward good work and also in understanding the nature of the young artist’s struggle—that actors should feel entitled to struggle, to fail. That’s very important. He used to say it’s okay to fall on your face—endlessly—as long as you’re falling in the right direction, diving after the right thing.

I always tell students this story about Thomas Edison: At one point, while he was trying to invent the light bulb, he had gone through 1,700 different substances trying to make a filament that worked—and none of them worked. A friend of his said to him, “How can you keep pursuing this, in the face of all these failures?” And Edison said, “Failures? These are not failures—these are discoveries. We have actually discovered 1,700 substances that don’t work. Now look how much closer we are to the one that will.”

I think sharing stories like that with students helps them understand that you understand. And that you support them in the struggle—as long as they’re struggling. If they’re not struggling—well, then, there’s nothing you can do about that.

What does “not struggling” look like?

Well, somebody who’s superficial; who’s just going through the motions; who’s not really preparing; who has some fantasy about what it means to be an actor, without really doing the work to excel; who’s not willing to fail at it.

Another important thing is that most people who come to acting are very out of touch with their feelings. They know what they think, but they don’t really know what they feel. And, so, you have to get them out of their heads and in touch with their real responses, and in every way encourage them to express it—to say it. If somebody’s got an ugly dress on and that’s your real feeling about it, you tell them: “You’ve got an ugly dress on.” (Laughs.) The moment you start to work with yourself as an acting instrument—and I think that whole concept that you are an instrument is very important—then the only thing that counts is the truth.

Actors can’t be outer-directed. You have to encourage them to be inner-directed. I don’t say exactly this (laughs)—but, you know, I tell them just to say, “The hell with Bill Esper, the hell with the class and the hell with everybody. I’m just going to do what I’m prepared to do, and if they like it, okay, and if they don’t like it, what am I going to do about it?”

Ultimately, you want your students to say that?

Oh, absolutely.

I’ve had students come up to me in tears, saying that nobody ever, in their lives, asked them how they felt about anything. That is very empowering, as they begin to make contact with that, constantly asking themselves: How do I feel about this? What does this mean to me? How do I feel about this moment?

To have a point of view. And to acknowledge a point of view.

Yes—and to rely on the fact that this is me , this is mine; I don’t care about what anybody thinks, that’s how I feel about it, that’s what I think. That’s very empowering. And it carries over—carries over into their lives, and carries over into their dealings with the business.