 Hello, this is Jim again at the House at Poo Corner. And major change of pace today. We're not doing monetary reform. We are doing acting reform. That doesn't make much sense, does it? We are talking with Peter Boynton, who is the empresario at the Skinner Barn and an actor for most of his life. And we're going to be talking about the kind of training that we have had. Because it's been different, I assume. And certainly our careers have been different. And I thought that would make for a very interesting conversation for me personally, and hopefully for Peter. And if it's not an interesting conversation for you, then you can turn it off right now. No, actually, I'm hoping that this will be of some use to budding actors. And anybody interested in going into the field, and we'll talk a little bit about what that's like in Vermont, because Peter Boynton runs the Skinner Barn. And I do occasional productions under the name of Ernest Productions. And so I'm looking forward to this greatly. And I hope that if you are watching it, you'll tell your friends who are actors that it could be of benefit to them in terms of their skills in particular, I make bold to say, in terms of their acting skills. So without further adieu, we will go to Peter Boynton and he will tell us about himself and his career and the kind of training that he went through to get where he is, assuming the training was relevant. It's probably a little different from yours. It's amazing for actors how varied their backgrounds are. It's not like everyone said at age 10, I want to be an actor, and then all of their training subsequently led to that ultimate goal. I know a lot of actors who had very different ideas of where they were going to end up, myself included. So first off, hi, I'm Peter Boynton. Skinner Barnes in Waitesfield, also here in Vermont. My background was all music. I grew up outside of Boston in Foxboro, Massachusetts, where the Patriots play. So as you would expect, I'm a rabid Giants fan. I don't really like the Patriots. But in my town, there was a very strong music program in my Episcopal Church where I grew up. So I had a very, very strong, not just vocal training, but also theory composition of just unusual talents at the people who led the junior and senior choir in that church. And I wasn't too interested in the services or the religion part of it, but I loved the music part. So when I got out of high school, I went off to college at the University of Massachusetts in Amherst and pursued a career in music. I got my degree in theory composition. And had the only show I had been in was I was the fourth cowboy from the left in a high school production of Oklahoma. That was it. My older brother was the big actor in the family. He played Will Parker and was very interested in theater. So when I was at UMass, I did have the opportunity. I met a couple of students. Western Massachusetts, there's five colleges there. UMass, Amherst College, Hampshire College, Smith and Mount Holyoke. And they have what they call a five college exchange. So if you're a student at any one of those schools, if you have the time, you can take a class at any of the other institutions. So I happened to be curious and took an acting class at Amherst College and enjoyed it and met some kids from Amherst who had done a program called the National Theater Institute which is at the Eugene O'Neill Center in Connecticut. And basically what it is is college kids from all over the country take one semester off and go to this Eugene O'Neill Theater Center and there's usually a group of about 30 of them. They've done it for decades and they do an intensive theater study working with all professionals from New York like for movement we worked with Lee Theodore who was from the American Dance Machine. This is back in the day, but very famous choreographer. So that was, I decided just to immerse myself in it to see if I kind of liked it and took off the first half of my senior year, did that National Theater Institute or NTI they call it program, went back and finished up my music study program in that second semester of my senior year and made a decision to go right to New York. And a buddy of mine from UMass was already there. He graduated a year ahead of me and I had an apartment set up with him and just started auditioning. So I really had very limited acting training when I first got into New York but I worked right away. I was just one of those lucky, I sing well, I'm tall, I had no idea what I was doing so I was fearless. Sometimes when you know a lot about something you can really tie yourself up mentally worrying about, am I doing this? I had no idea what I was doing. I just went out and was me which is really the essence of acting if you can just be yourself and get out of the way. So I worked a lot and I really would have to say that my first jobs, including I did, I got a job right away in a national tour of a production of the musical Cabaret. Even played my old college, UMass Amherst, where in the music department they told me I couldn't sing which is why I was a theater composition major. But of course I went back with a lead in a singing role so that felt great. There's nothing like motivation when somebody tells you. No, you can't do that. So that's, I always tell the students I've worked with if someone says you should think about doing something else use that as motivation to prove them wrong because that's a big part of any performing is just determination and sticking with it. So once I had a few shows under my belt I think that's when I started to realize I have some natural affinity for this and I need to learn some technique because when you look at a script and you look at a role and it comes to you, great. But what do you do when it doesn't? You know, if you're stuck with something it's like I have no idea what to do with this. You gotta have some technique. You have to have a roadmap and some skills as to how to approach a part and the work. So that's when I started studying I went through a program with Bill Esper who teaches the Neighborhood Playhouse kind of program. It's a two year program. I did the first year of that and was lucky enough to be partnered in that class with people like Jane Summerhaze. You can look her up. She was a Broadway actress. She was like my acting partner when I'm kind of taking my first acting classes at all. So I'm working with a, I'm teamed up personally with an experienced Broadway actor. She had no idea how green I was and I learned a ton in a year and I didn't go back the second year because I got another job that took me out of town. But I continued to, when I was in New York I was in the city from out of college at 21 until I was 40. So I was there for about 20 years. And all the way until my last show in New York which was a two year Broadway run of She Loves Me. If I was between shows or I wasn't doing television work which I did a fair amount of soap opera work, I was taking classes just because I enjoyed it and it is definitely not a, I've learned it, I'm done kind of, you know, it's a lifelong, if you're in the performing arts, it's a lifelong learning experience, I think, you know. Oh yeah. I mean, I'm in my mid-60s now and I'm just starting to go, ah, about certain ways to work or certain things about myself that I go, why do I do that or what is that coming from or how could I bring that to a part, you know, to a role? So that's my basic background. I ended up, I had a nice career in New York. I always worked, I did a lot of regional theater at Lort theaters, league of regional theater. Lort, I got to do new productions and get in the Samuel French, you know, first edition, this role first played by, I did some shows at the Actors Theater in Louisville which was awesome, but I got to go around the country doing regional theater and doing national touring so it's a great way to see the country as you're working and when I made a choice not to go out of town anymore, that's when I started to get more work in New York which, you know, off-Broadway, Broadway and eventually, I said to my agent, I think I was about 27 and I said, okay, this is great, I work all the time but I have friends not in the industry who can look ahead and say, hmm, I could get married, I could buy a house, I could have a car, all the sort of things that even as a working actor, you know, you don't make much money. I mean, Broadway today, today, these dollars which is way more than when I was there, it's about $1,900 a week, I think, for equity minimum for a Broadway contract. $1,900 gross before taxes, et cetera, is nothing if you're living in New York or the New York area, whether you're in Queens or Brooklyn or Manhattan. So most actors either have in the city pursuing a professional career, either have a very lean lifestyle or a partner who makes money perhaps and supports their artistic endeavors or and or they're doing many things beyond just theater to make a living. I always laugh because I did a lot of bartending between jobs when I was first in the city and I can remember the first time I got a gig at Actors Theater Louisville, which everyone wanted because it's a great credit on your resume. A lot of shows came out of there and moved to New York. So it's a well-respected theater. And I couldn't wait sometimes to finish what I was doing there and get back to New York because I made a lot more money bartending. So it's an interesting profession. I don't really know your whole arc. For me, it was just pretty much either television, I did some film work and theater work until I was basically 40 and then I came up here with my daughter to raise my family here. And of course, in Vermont, it's pretty unlikely someone's gonna piece together a professional career trying to work full-time as an actor. There's just not enough opportunities nor enough funds. There are opportunities to work but not to string them together and make a living unless you're teaching or doing some other career and can carve out time for either community theater or the very few professional theater opportunities in Vermont. They are there. So I don't really know what tell me your arc. Well, no, I didn't know yours and you didn't know mine. And there's something that I, before I forget, there are two things that I learned personally that I learned much later than you did. And one was allowing yourself to shine through the character. I was always afraid of that. I thought that it was better to shut that person down and come up with something else. Not consciously, but I was just subconsciously doing that. And then a fellow actor said to me, you're not putting yourself. I was 40 probably when he said this to me about that. You know, sometimes you hear information and hear it and hear it and hear it and it just doesn't sink in. But I was right to hear that at that time. You've seen me since, it's like me, no matter what I layer on. So Jim has done a few shows at the Skinner Barn. And you were the old actor for us one year, weren't you two? At least one year, I think twice. Twice, I would see old actors. For the Fantasics and you played the lead grave digger in the Fantasics. But also Mystery of Edwin Drude was our grave digger. Did you do other shows beyond, what have you done beyond those three? Yeah. Have you done some with us? The one where I fell off the roof. Oh, Manamaccia. Right, right, right, it's a great show. So it's interesting to what you said about learning to bring yourself to it because what I enjoy about you is you have, you certainly have learned since, in the time I've known you, you had already learned that you were very, you have a very specific personality. And I have always felt that that does come out in your performance, which is what makes you interesting. The hardest thing for younger actors, they overcomplicate it. It's like you get a script and you look at the part and younger actors are usually trying to put on sort of the wardrobe of that part separately from themselves, as opposed to just saying, how do I feel about that? How do I, Peter, or I, Jim, feel about that? And what would that mean to me? And if it's close to your life, which is when it's easy, I was talking about technique earlier, if it's close to your own experiences, it's usually really easy. You just let it go, oh, I know what that feels like. I can step into this character, but it's still you and you're drawing from your own experience. When you have something that is completely alien to your experience, that's when it really gets dicey. But to be honest, you don't usually get cast, especially on a professional level, you don't usually get cast in that role. If it's really alien to your experience and just in the audition process, which is stressful often anyway, it's really obvious, because I've been on the other side of the table, it's really obvious if someone's gonna have a natural affinity for a certain role. So you're usually not gonna get that one. But the better actors, actors with training, they're, boy, there's people that have training, much more intensive than what I went through and can stretch or they have a facility with Shakespeare or the classics or a lot of the theater that doesn't get done as much. You don't have that opportunity as an actor unless you're going through a theater department training or a professional actor training course somewhere. Everything today is, even from when I started, it's so much more just naturalistic, whether it's all of these series on Amazon or Netflix or HBO or even what's left of prime time television, there's very little performing in that television medium that isn't just small and totally naturalistic, whereas put those actors on stage and you gotta really bump them up because they're used to, very small. When I first started doing soap work, I did three soaps and the first one was One Life to Live and when I first started, they were in rehearsals before you go to taping, you're like, well, you can reign that in a little bit and I was like, what do you mean? You mean emotionally? Well, no, more physically and how you move and your gestures, because the camera's right there. It's actually a three-camera setup like this when we did soap operas and it kind of passed away now but it's what they call a three-camera shoot. So the cameras are ones like right there, ones like right there. You don't, they don't really want you making too big a movement because they're rarely doing a wide shot. So that's very technical, but if you're going into that for the first time, it's like, you don't know what to do. You've got to hope you've got a good director or your coworkers will say smaller, whatever. Most of my experience in Vermont since I've been here, obviously, has been producing, directing and being in shows in our space and a few other theaters around. I did a few shows at Lost Nation when I first came up. But I'm usually working, especially with younger actors who are coming from a high school experience or whatever, or even the local community theater actors. I spend most of my trying time to bump up their energy. Especially, it's like us old farts talking about the kids today, but they don't know how to project. It's not really something that's emphasized. And they don't believe you. That was one of the things that drove me crazy when I was directing in high school. They simply don't believe you, that the audience isn't going to understand what they're saying. And even look at most high schools now. Even most high school theaters, I'm around musicals mostly, that's my experience, are mic-ing everything unnecessarily. That's, we have our space, you work there. It's a hayloft in a barn, 4,000 square feet. So it's not a huge space. And as long as there's no electric instruments, like electric bass, electric piano, electric guitar, drums, some shows require that. So for those, we have to mic the actors even in a small space. But as long as the accompaniment is acoustic, we can stay away from mic-ing, which I love. Maybe some area mics just to enhance, but as a producer and a director, it's so great to get away completely. Eight minutes and 21 seconds. To get away completely from mic-ing. Well, the other thing that I noticed was much different than yours is that I was actually told for a while that I couldn't sing. And then I started to get some singing training. And then the same thing that happened, I started to get leads as a singer. And I began to find that I could blow the doors off in terms of volume. But occasionally, if I was in a production, I worked with Michael May a lot in New Jersey. He was the music director for the Masterwork Music and Art Foundation. So he helped me a lot. I was in some professional productions with him where the audience after the show was over, this was with opera singers. And he said, well, there was you and there was then everybody else because my voice had become something that I had no idea that it could ever become before. So that was like a revelation to me that I had to be told over and over again that yes, you can do that. Yeah, after being told you couldn't. Yes, after being told that it just wasn't, but I learned how to develop my voice. And that was much later. I was in my 40s when I studied in England. We spent three hours, three times a week. So like Monday, Wednesday, and Friday, three hours on voice. And when I got back, my girlfriend said, she just couldn't believe it, that my natural voice sounded like a megaphone. That's perfect. And I had my teacher there, well, it's not teacher, my acting coach there. When we started, he said, well, you don't really have much of a voice as a speaking voice. And now I'm getting over a cold. You hear that? But I studied adamantly. And by the time that six weeks or eight weeks was over, I had a huge voice. So it shows that the training, if you get it and you learn it and you do it, the training can change your whole vocal structure. So I started to teach voice more after that with some confidence that what I had gone through, other people can go through and people with relatively small voices can learn how to project and get them out there. It's so powerful when you can pick up a skill or a technique that you've been told or suspected yourself that you couldn't do. It's really, the fun thing about the stage is that whether I'm teaching a class or I'm working with high school kids or college kids or a group of actors that I've cast for a show we're about to do, it's a big leap of faith. It's a real, on one hand, it's the cliche of like a sports team where you really have to have each other's back and you're really only as strong as the weakest link. All those things, those cliches around teams and sports are equally true for a theatrical production to use that specifically. But even more than that, the fact that you're going to reveal yourself, if you do get comfortable letting your personality be shown in front of other people, to some people it's amazing what we do. And I understand that as I get older because as you meet more people in life and you're in more circumstances you realize how unusual that is. Actors are a very interesting demographic. And they're in many ways much more interesting. It's like anything, if you go to a dinner party and there's one person at the table who just is so comfortable and they tell great jokes and the whole place laughs, that's the natural storyteller in that group. Same thing with your family. There's someone who's usually maybe the kind of the storyteller, entertainer, performer in your little family nucleus. It's like that's, those are the people that drift towards other people that are also comfortable doing that. And it's interesting when you put them all together. Well, we have a mutual friend. She'd probably like it if we said her name but maybe she won't. And she was comparing you and me because she knew us both quite well. Do I know who this is? Oh yeah, you know her very well. And she said, Jim, you wrestle apart to the ground. Peter is easier for him. He can grab it and just do it. And they said that about Olivier too. Olivier did not just grab a partner that he put on false teeth and he put on makeup and he put on costumes and he experimented. And that's what I do. I experiment with the character, lots of different voices, different physical things. And sometimes I just can't get it, I can't get it. And then it'll come. And with Druid, I sensed from the beginning that I just wanted to do Michael Cain. And I got him down cold, listening and practicing and listening and practicing. And that's why those people came up to you. You told me one day who were English. And she said, well, he's English. Everyone else, we thought was American but you've got an Englishman in your cast. And that's hard work. That's not something I just, oh, I'm gonna do Michael Cain today. It's very difficult wrestling the part to the ground. I get it. Bit by bit. To a point wrestling. There's the great marathon man, the film. So everyone knows this story, but maybe young people don't know this story, but there's a famous industry story. Olivier plays the older villain. The dentist, right? Well, he's a dentist in Nazi, he's a terrible villain. And Dustin Hoffman plays the young hero and he's been abducted. And Lawrence Olivier's character is torturing him, drilling through his teeth without novocaine. You know, it's terrible. So to prepare for that scene, this is a difference between, Olivier talked about as a difference between sort of a British approach, which is working outside in and the method approach of Americans developed at Udohagen and all those people in New York where it's all interior working its way out. And both styles can work. But in this particular example, Dustin Hoffman had to do this scene where he's getting his tooth drilled. And to prepare for it, he didn't sleep for like three days. He got a cold and he was physically a mess when they went to shoot it. And they had multiple takes of the scene and couldn't get through it. And Olivier looked at Hoffman and said something to the effect of, my dear boy, why don't you try acting? I don't remember that part of the story. Yeah. But I- And that was, the point was, you don't have to actual, it's like Jake Lamada, De Niro gaining 60 pounds and injuring his health to play the role. That's quite a commitment and that's amazing. 32 seconds, just so you know. Oh my God. Okay, well, thank you. We will continue this conversation. Thank you very much for spending a half hour with us if you have made it. And this is Jim Hogue, House of Poo Corner. We have been speaking with Peter Boynton and I'll go further on with some of my training and we'll see where that goes. So thanks again for listening and we'll see you right away. Thank you.