Posted by I’ve been thinking a lot lately about talent and hard work. And the stories we tell ourselves about the extent to which natural talent plays a part in excellence in any given endeavor, specifically in the arts.
It is a truism that “hard work beats talent when talent doesn’t work hard.” Society often laments athletes who squandered their natural talent because they couldn’t put down the joint or the smartest kid in our high school class who delivers pizzas now instead of working at some advanced research institution. Now, I don’t want to minimize the real structural or social inequalities that might prevent someone from achieving his/her potential academically or athletically but that’s not my focus. Suffice to say that we often think, “if only so-and-so had worked harder, they wouldn’t be struggling in life.”
But in the arts…
I was privileged enough to be cast in a musical recently, Bubble Boy, at Arcade Comedy Theater in Pittsburgh. The first night that I went to rehearsal, I introduced myself to everyone and sat down. We were going over music for the first time. The music director says, “okay altos, measure [blah blah] and go!” She starts to play and away they went! Bam.
It certainly takes talent to hit those notes. But it also speaks to a ton of training. And experience. I… might have a little singing talent. But what I don’t have is much training to take advantage of what ever level of talent I have. And experience. It was evident throughout the production. Now, no one made me feel bad for it. The cast was phenomenal and I got a ton of help. I’d like to think I acquitted myself well enough but I know that it’ll be difficult to land more musical theatre parts without taking voice lessons.
It is absolutely true that Kenneth Branagh, for instance, is one of the finest Shakespearean actors of his generation. But he was also educated at the Royal Academy of Dramatic Arts in London. Kristin Chenoweth is an accomplished and awarded singer/actress but she also holds an MA in Opera Performance. Patrick Stewart is an incredibly well-regarded actor who brought nuance and gravitas to the role of Jean-Luc Picard on Star Trek: The Next Generation but he’s an classical London stage actor who also attended the Bristol Old Vic Theatre School.
But methinks the general conversation around actors such as Stewart, Branagh, and Chenoweth centers around talent and talent alone. Is it my blinders, my relative inexperience or does society often give short shrift to craftsmanship and training in the arts?
