Everything I Wish I Knew Day 1 of Freshman Year of College

My workshop taught at UF’s student theatre organization, Florida Players!

Teaching and learning are two great passions of mine, and I had the honor and pleasure of teaching a workshop to my old student theatre organization at the University of Florida, Florida Players!

Having been a working Artist in NYC for a little over a year now, they asked me to come back and talk about life in NYC. While I was certainly happy to discuss and advise on all things Big Apple, I thought it would be more relevant and helpful to go over everything I wish someone had told me going into my first day in my collegiate theatre program.

Here’s the problem I was working to solve: High school programs largely focus on getting you into that dream theatre program. Okay, great! You got in! You’ve landed on the moon…now what? What about the day-to-day of a college theatre major?

Here are the bullet points summarizing my tips, but for the full experience, check out the video above!

Hacks:

1. Look for your required textbooks/plays in your school’s library. If they don’t have it, see if it’s online for free. If that doesn’t work, try the libraries of the city your school is located in.
2. Record yourself doing the monologue/song/dance from a show when it’s tech week, because it’s already in your bones! Record yourself in general with monologues/songs so you have them at the ready for inevitable last-minute auditions (and as content for your YouTube/social media/website)!
3. I bought 100 business cards and never used them once. They’re not necessary in this day and age.
4. Be very selective about student films. Most student filmmakers, no matter how well-intentioned, do not know what they’re doing. Most of them are wastes of time, unfortunately.
5. Florida Prepaid does NOT cover 4 years of college. It covers 120 credits. Learn the difference according to your specific path, and plan accordingly so you’re not caught off-guard like me!
6. Study abroad scholarships don’t kick in until after you’ll have already needed to pay. So, you need to put up the money first, then get paid back later by the scholarships.
7. Apparently, deleting your school email post-graduation will also delete any contacts you’ve added to your smart phone since starting college. So, if you’re going to delete your school email, make sure your contacts are backed up somewhere else!
8. If you go to enough free events, you’ll get free shirts. I own 35 or so UF shirts…and I think I’ve paid for maybe 7 of them.
9. Get out of your dorm. Study in the library/public places. Only use your dorm as a place to get ready in the morning, store your stuff, and sleep at night.
10. Name your essays/homework assignments to double dip and make them part of your writing portfolio.
11. Record lines and listen to them as you otherwise would listen to music to help memorize!

Philosophies/Mottos:

1. You need to feel “right” on campus. Forget about the program. Forget about the fact that you’ve always dreamed of going there. How do you feel on campus? As someone who likes to put everything in a box, this was very difficult for me to come to terms with, but it’s true: If you don’t feel at home on campus, it doesn’t matter how good the program is.
2. Don’t think of yourself as a theatre major. I was a Gator…who happened to study theatre…and played intramural basketball…and worked for a non-profit fighting blood cancer…and did this and that. If you want people to be interested, you have to be interesting. And that means not barricading yourself in the theatre building, but actually getting out! And then bring those experiences back to the theatre with you!
3. “No, no they can’t take that away from me.”-Crazy For You. They (being society, school, your friends, parents, etc.) can’t take away your respect, your work ethic, your love of theatre (no matter how much they try)!
4. They say, “One door closes, a hundred open.” But one door opens, a hundred close. Sometimes you want the door to stay closed!
5. Power of No. But Power of Yay is good sometimes, too. Say, “yes” when you can, but don’t say, “yes” just because you feel like you need to say, “yes” to everything.
6. “Being in the right place at the right time is a skill, not luck.”-Peter Schneider
7. Egotistically, it’s nice to have Tom Hanks’ agent. But they’re going to spend a lot more time/energy on Tom Hanks than they are on you. Start out smaller with an agent as hungry as you.
8. The two holiday seasons that I’ve had a manager, I’ve gotten him a $15 gift card each time. It’s a small financial investment, but big sentiment.
9. Maintaining friendships is a skill. You can’t just wait to see someone. You need to make an effort!
10. I hate the expression “If you can see yourself doing anything else, go do that.” It feels like they’re saying, “You don’t have the GUTS”. No. If you can’t see yourself NOT doing this, then you need to do it! It’s okay to not need to do theatre. It’s okay, it’s not an easy life. But if you can’t not do it, then you need to do it, plain and simple. I wrote my first ten-minute play, Unfinish-, because my body literally wouldn’t let me sleep until it was written. I couldn’t NOT write it!
11. “The harder I work, the luckier I get.”-Pitbull
12. Be nice to everyone. You’re actors, I promise you can do it.
13. “They’ll give you a compliment when they think you need it, but they’ll give you the role when they need it.”-Acting Professionally
14. Come into the first rehearsal fully memorized. And if you can’t on the first rehearsal, then the second. And if you can’t on the second, then the third. It helps set the tone, and you can’t truly start acting until you’re memorized.
15. Have fun! It sounds cliche, but it truly makes a difference.
16. “Technique is for when talent doesn’t come to work with us.”-Michael Chekhov
17. “If you don’t care what people call you, why should anyone else?”-Tiza Garland
18. “Loving the game is playing each one like it’s your last.”-Michael Jordan
19. Separate work from play. If you spend your vacations not working, but instead just worrying about the work you’re not getting done…you’ll come back from vacation not well-rested, and with no work done!
20. Do all the homework in your theatre classes. You’re a theatre major. Nobody is forcing you to study this. Your parents, your friends, society at large will implicitly/explicitly tell you to choose another path. You’re here because you chose to be here…why wouldn’t you give it your 100%?? It’s not like, “Oh, I wanted to be an artist, but my dad is making me go into banking so I’m not passionate and I do the bare minimum in my Economics classes”. Your homework is to read plays!! And you’re not going to like every play you read, but reading bad plays is better than any homework I had in high school for AP Chemistry!

Auditioning:

1. “Hi my name is ___ and I will be doing ___written by ___ and playing the role of ___” you’ve already used up two minutes just slating. Instead: “Eddie Datz. Biloxi Blues. Twelve Angry Jurors”.
2. Keep an Audition diary with all the details of every audition you go on.
3. When casting directors say, “Make sure your headshot looks like you”, I think what they really mean is, “Make sure your headshot captures you.” Think about how you’ve felt when you meet someone in-person that you matched with on a dating app, and you’re disappointed. Do they technically look like the same human being? Sure. But are they the same person? No. Why? Because their pictures didn’t capture their true essence, soul, personality, energy, aura, being, whatever you want to call it. When you see my headshot, you see “Eddie Datz” in a picture. You don’t merely see something that Siri would recognize with facial recognition.
4. Have fun with the audition, and don’t do what you think they want to see, do what you want to do. Because then you’ll have more fun, which will make for a better audition. I used to think, “Ooh, Oscar Wilde and Eugene O’Neill, they’ll respect that!” I did much better when I did an audition with Can’t Buy Me Love and The Prince of Egypt, because I loved the pieces so much more that it showed so much more of Eddie at his best.
5. Dating/interviewing/auditioning is so similar. Be yourself, but friendly, not flirty. As in: Don’t try too hard/force anything. Some of my best auditions as of late are ones where I actually messed up during the audition, but they got to see more of the real me because I made a joke of it (opposed to being wound up and “perfect”, but less real).
6. In this business things really can lead one to another (sometimes, over the course of entire years). I got my Associate Producing Off-Off Broadway debut inadvertently through a zoom acting unpaid gig over 2 years earlier!
7. Recognize the difference between a perfectly fine audition and a finished product. Some auditions, you can give yourself a pat on the back, because it was perfectly acceptable. And maybe, with a lack of competition, you could book the role. But if you want to compete at the highest level, you need to give A+ (stellar grade), not just C- (merely technically passing).
8. If you’re called back for an original musical, save the sheet music, because you can use that for auditions because no one else is going to sing it because it’s not on the “market” yet!
9. If you have 2 minutes for an audition slot, pretend you only have 1.5 minutes. This will ensure that you never come close to rushing and allow room for spontaneity.
10. For callbacks, wear the same clothes as you did for the initial audition.
11. Don’t become a “20-hit-wonder”. If you practice self-tapes on your own time and give yourself all the takes in the world, you’re actually sabotaging yourself because you’ll never have that many takes on a real set. Practice getting “the” take in fewer and fewer takes.
12. Your resume can look as young as you are. It’s okay to have white space!
13. Remember, you’ve already been in shows. You don’t need to practice being in shows in college. You need the training here. Let that be your priority, and then the shows will come!
14. For self-tapes, use the measure app on the iPhone to make sure your phone is balanced.
15. Assume the Sale: if you’re lucky enough to get sides or even the entire script for an audition/callback, don’t just read it-analyze it and start making notes on it as if you already got the role. Best case, you get a head start on the work you should be doing anyway once you do get the role, and worst case if you don’t get it, you’ve just gotten more practice at script analysis, plus you can always keep those notes for the next time you audition for that same role/show in the future (if it’s not a new work, you’re bound to audition for it again, and if it is a new work, hopefully it will become so successful down the line that you’ll be auditioning for it again!)
16. Don’t wait for that great big role to come along-treat every role like it’s that career-changing role!
17. It’s not the chef’s job to like the food. It’s the chef’s job to make sure everyone else like’s the food.
18. Don’t play the game like you want it. Play like you NEED it.
19. At any point, we’re the youngest we will ever be, and the oldest we’ve ever been. Meaning we always have the most potential we’ll ever have again, and are the most experienced we’ve ever been!
20. I realized when I was casting for the first time that for the initial monologue audition, I couldn’t tell you one word that was spoken by the auditioners, because all I cared about was the energy. But for the callback, I did care and ultimately cast based on the script in that I wanted to see who could really pick up what I was putting down. This is why reading scripts not only makes you a better writer, it also makes you a better actor! It shows you more and more what the author is doing, making your ability to make choices that much faster and better.

New York:

1. A professor at UF said that one shouldn’t go into NY without “at least $2,000 in your bank account.” Which, in college, seemed like such a high number. Looking back, that is a grossly irresponsibly-low number. If you want to sleep easy at night, I wouldn’t go in without at least $20,000 PLUS a survival job at the ready. Every time I move, it costs me another $1,000. Most rent is more than $2,000/month, so already you’re out of money after one month, and that’s not including food, transportation, and theatre tickets to support your friends’ crappy off-off-off-off Broadway shows. This may not be a sexy thing to say, but you might want to consider moving home after college and saving up before heading out to a place like NY or LA. Rather do it right than rushed.
2. Get a credit card with cash back out of college. Build your credit, and treat it like a debit card in that you pay it off daily so it can’t build.
3. Don’t do free projects (unless you absolutely love the script/role/production team). This isn’t a hobby of yours. It’s your profession.
4. I avoid unnamed projects. If they don’t love it enough to even give it a placeholder-name, they don’t love it enough to be worth your time.
5. Being a multi-hyphenated artist is tough. But it keeps things from getting boring, gives you multiple baskets, and sometimes one helps the other. The first short film I booked in NY, the director said, “Oh I know you’ll be good, I saw your standup.” This wasn’t a standup film-it was a comedic acting film. I booked the role not just because of my comedic acting skills, but because of my multi-hyphenated skills!
6. I recommend Background/Extra work, especially in your first year to help make money, meet people, get experience on set, and become SAG-eligible by working on 3 SAG sets and getting 3 SAG waivers. Central Casting/Grant Wilfley are what I use the most!

Homework:

1. Read plays! Find playwrights you enjoy, and read everything they’ve written. While reading, take notes: Any good monologues/scenes? Would this be good to direct with my school’s student theatre org? What do I like about this, what do I not like, and why?
2. Watch movies/tv/all entertainment and study everything you’re not supposed to pay attention to. I’ve seen The Dark Knight a hundred times, and it has arguably the best opening scene of all time. I finally watched it in a way that didn’t pay attention to the plot or the things you’re “supposed” to pay attention to at all. I paid attention to the lighting, sound, editing, when they cut to the next shot, etc. And it was like I was seeing the scene for the first time again!
3. Keep track of scripts/monologues/scenes. People will come to you as a resource!
4. Build a Contact Map with all of your theatre and non-theatre contacts, so that when you’re deciding where to move post-college, you see where all of your “people” are. My move to NY has been much smoother since I have so many friends and family members up here!
5. Make a table of contents for your notes (comedy, playwriting, acting technique, directing, etc.)
6. Make an order of what you think you’ll be cast in. Then an order of what you want to be cast in, and see how it compares.
7. Make a list of your 5 strongest selling points, and then the 5 things holding you back as an Artist.
8. Make a list of Actors playing the roles you think you can play.
9. Make/buy your website. I use Wix, which I’m not in love with but I am proud of the website I’ve spent countless hours perfecting!
10. Pay attention to the opening/closing credits in movies/tv shows.
11. See as much art as possible! You can’t say, “Support the Arts” without supporting the arts yourself.
12. Study all forms of entertainment, not just obvious ones like theatre/film/tv. Remember when I mentioned Unfinish-, my ten-minute playwriting debut? That was inspired by a 7-page Batman comic! Who would’ve thunk it!

Datz all, folks! For more things Datz, check out eddiedatz.com!