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The Real Coach of Emerging Artists started with the idea that theatre training is an ongoing thing and that maybe theatre history can be merged into today's contemporary theatre and performing arts scene. In a series of YouTube short episodes, I talk to teachers and beginning and intermediate artists about acting and theatre history.

My niece Sara has been cast in a boy's part (Josh) in Bang, Bang, You're Dead by William Mastrosimone. She was bewildered at first, but a good working relationship with her director has given her confidence and the bewilderment has turned into study and discovery. She is finding out what the playwright intended and is stretching her skills and instincts. She is, I believe, also getting a real gut-level lesson of what it means to be simply human.

When I last spoke with her last, I couldn't help but ask what she was doing to play the part as a boy. She said something completely at odds with what I expected. She said that she doesn't think about that. She is just playing it. Talk about a Zen experience!

(Sara Turner (center) in rehearsal for Bang, Bang, You're Dead.)

But good old Aunt Mary had already dug up her theatre history books and started researching gender reversals and found even more than good old Sarah Bernhardt playing Hamlet. It has turned into a series I call Gender Blender. It will look at gender reversal roles in classic theatre through some modern incarnations in film and television.

There will be twelve episodes in all lasting under six minutes and they begin with me talking about acting and gender, then another about some of the unexpected things a drama teacher often faces when making decisions about what plays to produce.

On last note about YouTube. There is a ton of related clips and I'll let you find most of them on your own, but when it ties in so neatly to illustrate the point I'm making, I'll include it under Favorites. For instance, there is a terrific clip that illustrates Kabuki, a theatre form from Japan in which male actors play all parts, a tradition that still continues.

The Real Coach of Emerging Artists on the Theatre Follies Channel on YouTube.

by Mary Turner, posted October 2010

The Real Coach talking about theatre in today's world

from the Theatre Follies Channel on YouTube.

Check back to see what happens with Bang, Bang, You're Dead.