The Big Break Interview:
Lights On for Sande Shurin
by Margo Curry

Sande Shurin, author of Transformational Acting, and her talent agent husband, Bruce Levy, did not make me feel I was conducting an interview, but catching up with old friends. The type of people who encourage, “please stop by if you are ever in the neighborhood.” Bruce made it known by turning the lights on; it was her moment to shine. Sande commented, “He loves the dark. I love the light.”
Bruce adjusted by keeping his sunglasses on and complimented Sande, “She turns actors into rockers! She wants her people to be those kinds of stars.” They exude the kind of energy you want around you.

BIGBreakNY: Tell me about your new book, Transformational Acting.
SANDE SHURIN: This is the first technique that is not Stanislavsky based. It relies on the power of self, the inner, invisible, creative self and the power of present. Living in the moment and responding instinctively. You are not working with the part of yourself that is the personality or ego.

BBNY: Tell me about the personality or ego.
SS: Ego is the part of you that is limited and has judgments. You question yourself. Oh how did I do? Did they like what I did? When you are with your inner self and using Transformational Acting you are beyond that. You are playing out of your box and you are expanding whatever your limitations are. Transformational Acting is very freeing. Also, you are working with your emotional body. You are using all of your emotions available and staying very focused and present.

BBNY: You have to be brave to take on Transformational Acting.
SS: It will affect your life. If you want to be cerebral and analyze then it is not a technique for you. If you want to be raw and bold and open then it is totally a technique for you. This is going to be like getting on a roller coaster.

BBNY: Robert Fowler, one of your students, spoke of an audition experience where he had to sing and could not remember the words. However, he was told he was the only one who got it. He credits you. What is “it”?
SS: Presence. Working this way you are using whatever is going on for you at any given moment. You are feeling whatever you are feeling, not what you think the character should be feeling. It has to come from your gut. Writers and directors want to work with you. I know actors who absolutely had parts written for them because they were palpable. The moment they walk into a room the director, the producer, the casting director want them to succeed. Their charisma or their inner self is turned out. The personality does not want you to transform. It wants to be who it is.

BBNY: How were you inspired to write Transformational Acting?
SS: Well my husband, Bruce Levy. Tripp Hanson, my friend. But Bruce is really the unsung hero. He is part of everything that I do. The inspiration for the book was very much based on the period of time that I grew up in.
Bruce Levy: That period of time was the beginning of the great rock legends, The Rolling Stones...
SS: Mick Jagger and David Bowie.
BL: She had said to me, “I need to teach something where the actors give the audience a performance like Mick Jagger or David Bowie do.”
SS: Open it up. Break down the fourth wall.
BL: With that I did not get a night’s sleep for a week. She would jump out of bed in the middle of the night and start writing. When she woke up in the morning she didn’t even realize she had written. And that is how the technique came about.

BBNY: What was it like to teach that first class?
SS: Well, as a girl I was trained and later taught Stanislavsky to a class at Irene Dailey’s School of the Actor’s Company. It included David Soul and Kathleen Quinlan.
BL: Cut to ten, fifteen years later, we were one of the first tenants of No-Ho. We held our first class in the basement of the Co-Op on LaGuardia Place.
SS: We started with five actors. The next week we had over 27 students. Luckily, we had relocated to a 3,000 square foot loft.
BL: The word got out so fast. She teaches actors to take risks. Go from their gut. Come from their soul. She wants her people to be stars.

BBNY: Your recent work shows you practice what you teach.
SS: I coached Method Man.
BL: Tell her about decoding the script.
SS: It was a very heavy film. Very edgy. I work on very edgy material. So, I just thought this would be a piece of cake. Well, I am just sitting there and I don’t understand a word of the script. As the night wore on, I was able to interpret a few more sentences, rather than have someone transcribe it. It got into my body. (Imitating her rapper moves, head bopping, slouched.) You should get my hat, my little rapper hat. By the next day, I bought a hat. I was like so into it. I decoded the script. There was one word I did not know, "po-po." Someone had to tell me it meant the police.

BBNY: You coached a new show also on TLC, Faking It.
SS: The job was to transform Andy, a racing truck driver machinist from Wisconsin into a lip-synching drag queen.

BBNY: With Faking It, what did you teach him and what did you take away from the experience?
SS: I use the technique. I go in like a surgeon. Open up the script in front of you and try to figure out how to open up to that particular person. It is very individual work. Where do you start? Do I work with his psyche, his outer self, his emotions, his lip synching? Like acting, you have to go with your first choice. Don’t waste time thinking about it. I came away from this experience with another affirmation of how successfully the technique works. The farther out you go the more you meet yourself.

BBNY: How would you sum up Transformational Acting?
SS: Performance is a mystical experience and everyone has to find their own way to get there. It is not an ordinary way of being. It takes the ability to surrender, to focus and take action, just as an athlete does. Everything you encounter on the way, you can surmount with your own commitment.

Sande Shurin and Bruce Levy are opening a retreat for actors in Woodstock, NY this spring. This “Hudson Valley Greenwich Village” site will allow actors the opportunity to stay on premise while immersing in the technique. Their main studio, Sande Shurin’s Acting Studio and Theater is located at 311 W 43rd Street, Suite 602, Manhattan 212-262-6848. All information regarding classes and coaching can be found on www.sandeshurin.com. Eight of her students have credits at this year’s Sundance Film Festival 2003.

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