Recently I have come across a situation which really underscores why it is so important to be sensitive about how the way you talk about your art is perceived by people who are not familiar with it.

For the first time in a long time, a couple sections of the Acting I courses are really under enrolled. One theory attributes it to the extremely low unemployment in the state. In an attempt to attract more students to the classes, the drama department put signs up all over the campus, some of them saying “Give Your Brain a Break, Take Acting.”

Now I understand the point of the posters. The class has you getting up and moving around. One of the key steps to acting well is not to over analyze or allow your ego to edit what you do. On the other hand, preparation involves a lot of hard work. There are so many intangibles involved, studying harder doesn’t necessarily improve you.

What the students see on the poster is–easy class. I know this is already the case thanks to an online professor rating site which had comments about the course being too hard for fine arts elective.

I am glad that the course does have rigor. I have stated my concern though that while the students who do enroll will be disabused of the notion that the class is easy, the students who don’t enroll but see the flyers will have a false impression about acting.

Of course, a lot of people have an incomplete idea about the arts anyway. Acting, you just get up and pretend something, right? Yell when you are saying something important. Dance you just do like you see on MTV, right? Doing old style painting is tough. Can’t do a Michaelangelo. Jackson Pollack’s style is simple though!

Part of the problem is, if you are good at your art, you make it look effortless. Other part of the problem is that familiarity breeds contempt, as it were. Used to be circuses could sell themselves on the thrill of high wire and trapeze acts alone. These days it takes no less skill and discipline than it did to swing around 70 feet off the ground, but people are blase and want something more.

Most times when I talk about learning to speak to the uninitiated about ones art, I refer to language that might alienate. I suppose being too simplistic and lowering expectations is just as bad in the course of arts advocacy.