One of the most difficult things for actors to learn is live in the moment and respond truthfully to fictional environment of the scene. This is particularly observable in the way they cling to old line readings even though the circumstances of the scene have evolved since they arrived at those line readings. The impulse is to do what has worked before rather than trust oneself to step into the unknown and offer a new response based only on characterization, character objectives, and the immediate circumstances.

This unwillingness of the actor to trust him/herself in the moment can based in a number of things: (1) it could be laziness or intransigence; “I learned it this way, and I’m not going to change now.” (2) It could be that the actor believes that s/he has found the “right” reading, and anything different would be “wrong.” This, of course, means that if the scene goes in a different direction from the way it was last performed, then that new direction is “wrong.” These are the sorts of actors who believe that the goal of rehearsals is to perfect the performance, which then stays constant no matter how many times it is performed. Experience teaches that this is not the best approach to live theatre (or probably any performing art, or perhaps any art). (3) It could be fear (about which I have written a couple of times: here and here). Stepping out into the unknown is scary business, particularly when there are people watching. What if one were to make a bad choice in front of an audience?

The actor’s reasoning could be based on any of these, or some combination, or something I haven’t thought of. Whatever the reason, s/he sticks to yesterday’s plan, fails to adhere to the truth of the moment, and creates bad art.

This is not just an actor’s problem. Almost all artists are faced with creative situations where success demands flexibility. The characters in a novel take the plot in a direction unforeseen in the writer’s outline. An unexpected heat wave modifies the malleability of the sculptor’s materials. Rain mars the outdoor wedding photography. Every artist is likely, in the course of creation, to encounter some factor that modifies the work being attempted. The artist can respond in the same way as the actors above, refusing/declining to change what they are doing or how they are doing it. Or they can be flexible, see the situation for what it is, and respond to that situation in a spontaneously creative way.

Undoubtedly, those who are more flexible and can respond to the moment will be more productive, since they don’t wait until conditions are restored to optimum; indeed, that may never happen. And it is likely that they will—in the long run—be more successful. The actor who only repeats the same readings at every performance is soon considered stale and boring. The photographer or painter who will only use the one lighting setup will likewise find him/herself producing repetitious and uninteresting work.

So whether we are actors or musicians or painters or writers or photographers or sculptors, we need to stay open to the possibility of momentary change and be flexible enough to embrace those moments, modifying our procedures and practices as the situation demands. The bonus is that being that flexible has the potential to open doors that we didn’t even know were there.

The subject matter of this post is a bit unusual. However, the topic is one that can impact anyone who works in the arts, whether commercially or not. In my experience, arts people, on the whole, are fairly honest and trusting. This can make them particularly vulnerable when it comes to the internet, where there are many people who are anything but honest and trusting. So, this cautionary tale; I hope you find it useful.

In addition to Unnatural Light, I have several other web sites. This week I received two emails in less than three hours through the contact form on one of those sites. The contact form is a favorite of spammers and phishing expeditions, but these were different. Both purported to be from content writers and demanded that I order some of their services. If I did not, they threatened to create thousands of backlinks from porn sites to my web site in order to hurt my rankings in search engines. One gave me two days to comply; the other vowed to remove the backlinks once I ordered their services. Interestingly, both had the same contact link although they allegedly came from different people. One, which Gmail had flagged as a probable phishing email, stated that it was the only way the writer had of getting work and asked me to not take it personally because it was “strictly business.” It was the first time that I have ever heard extortion referred to as “strictly business.”

These emails were, I think, delivered by bots. Evidently, these bots did not analyze the web site before posting their emails. Had they done so, they would have discovered that that particular web side uses no written content—it’s photos only. Thus there is no real market for written content, no matter who wrote it.

The second thing the extortionist(s) didn’t know is that this web site is not in competition with other web sites, so SEO (search engine optimization) is not a major concern. The web site was never intended to appear on page 1 of a Google search; it exists for people who already know it’s there. Thus the promise of dropping it in Google’s (or any search engine’s) rankings is not really a significant threat.

My first step was find the technology to prevent bots from sending me mail. Such technology exists, and does not seem all that difficult to implement. I am in the process of doing that; I suspect my volume of mail coming into that contact form will drop dramatically.

My second step was to learn something about malicious backlinks. Although I did not find mention of the sort of extortion I was facing, I found instances of unscrupulous site owners who used the technique against competitors. Evidently it is not terribly difficult or expensive—and it works. Some webmasters who depend upon search engine to drive traffic to their sites reported significant revenue loss after such attacks. Combine that with criminal intent and you have a virulent form of ransomware which targets your web site instead of your hard drive.

As of this writing I do not know whether the threat to my website was a bluff, a bit of phishing, or real. What I did discover is that Negative SEO is a thing and it impacts your search engine rankings. The good news is that there are tools to minimize the probability of such attacks and even ways of dealing with the situation if you have already been attacked. Just Google “malicious backlinks” or “negative SEO,” and you will find everything you need.

Well, everything except the time it takes to implement the tools. It turns out that website security is, in itself, almost a full-time job. You may not be able to protect your web site against all possibilities, but perhaps, armed with this information, you can at least improve the security of your web site.

A couple of weeks ago a friend of mine, a theatre director who was between shows, had both his front and back yards landscaped. He did not, however, acquire an automated sprinkler system to water the newly-landscaped area. Much to his dismay, he learned that virtually every plant-care site on the internet advised him to water his new plants and grass early in the morning. “Watering” in this case consists of hand-watering a few plants and turning sprinklers on and off. Now, this is a man who has spent his whole adult life working afternoons and evenings and normally sleeping from roughly 2:00 am to 10:00 am. This was a schedule that he could not maintain and water his landscaping early in the morning.

His answer was to completely change his schedule. He said that he had to protect his investment, so he would have to get up early to water the yard, an act far outside his comfort zone. Instead of getting up, watering, and going back to bed, he decided after much thought that he would try getting up, staying up, and adjusting his bed time. I had my doubts. But he did it; his new schedule puts him in bed eleven-ish and gets him up at seven. This represents quite a change. He said that the first thing he learned was that after watering, he had a “huge” block of time before he had to go to work. This contrasted favorably, at least to him, to the smaller blocks of time he normally had between rehearsal and sleep and between waking and work. He said the larger block allowed him to be far more productive because he could delve deeply into a personal project instead of having to break it up into smaller chunks to fit his available time.

So, in order to protect his investment in real estate, he completely changed his lifestyle of many years. It’s not a choice everyone would make, simply because it is so far out of his ordinary comfort zone and because it has effects on so many other aspects of his life. Yet, he is determined to try it. In fact, after two weeks on the new regimen, citing the healthful effects of being outside every day, he says he feels better and is far more productive than he was prior. He seem to have had no trouble adapting to the different sleep/wake times. He even decided to maintain the same schedule even on days he didn’t water for the sake of consistency.

(But remember, he has been between shows during this period, so making such a drastic change has been a little easier than if he were rehearsing until 10:30 pm. He goes back into rehearsal next week. It will be interesting to see how his new lifestyle holds up.)

And the point of all this, you ask. Aside from being a curious story, it points out several things that should be of interest to artists, particularly those who have day jobs.

1. The capacity to “display adaptability” when faced with a significant problem, a practice advocated by both Bobby and Douglas McArthur Shaftoe, is a desirable trait to have.
2. Sometimes one area of our lives will impact other areas in unexpected ways. We need to always stay alert.
3. Change that initially looks onerous, may, in fact, bring unexpected positive consequences.
4. Different, even radically different, can be better.

After a time, we take our “normal” schedule for granted; it becomes a significant part of our comfort zone. Perhaps re-examining it from time to time might be worthwhile. We may not want to make as dramatic a change as my friend, but we might want to consider alternatives.