Today we’d like to introduce you to Laura Hooper and Audrey Francis.
Laura and Audrey, please share your story with us. How did you get to where you are today?
Audrey and I met at the School at Steppenwolf when we were cast as lovers in Balm in Gilead. During our “big moment” in the play, we got in a screaming match that ended in a knife fight. It was thrilling! After rehearsal one day, I went up to Audrey and said, “We need this to be the best knife fight ever. Wanna stay after and work it?”
Audrey said “yes.” And our knife fight was badass.
From then on we continued to team up and work together professionally. We shared a desire to work hard and take risks. And to have fun. And we scared the shit out of each other.
A few years later, Amy Morton, Steppenwolf Theatre Ensemble member, and our mentor, took us under her wing. She taught us how to teach the Meisner Technique, which is the acting method that serves as the backbone of the Black Box curriculum. We taught at the School at Steppenwolf, and started teaching a few private classes here and there.
During that time, Audrey and I were auditioning. We were both dealing with rejection after rejection – we weren’t getting any acting work. Oh, and we were in the middle of the recession! It was pretty bleak. We were frustrated and uninspired. But we loved teaching and loved Meisner. Our conversations always circled back to, “How can an actor take risks in auditions and onstage, if they never get the opportunity to practice?”
And that was the birth of Black Box. Black Box Acting was built as a home for actors to practice working hard and being fearless.
So Audrey and I wrote up on our mission statement, a business plan, developed the Black Box curriculum, built a website and then somehow managed to find 12 people willing to take a huge risk on a couple of unknown, non-working actors. It was magical.
That was 10-years ago. This year we are running two full-time ACADEMY conservatory classes and 25 STUDIO classes.
Has it been a smooth road?
We’ve survived a variety of challenges – some struggles were harder than others. The first big hurdle came early on – there was demand for our classes but just the two of us teaching. And we were busy answering phones, managing the finances and marketing. We needed help. We needed to hire and train instructors and administrators. So we looked to our student base.
Hiring and training our own students to replace us in the classroom was a surreal experience…. We had to put our egos to the side and train our students to be better teachers than us; Black Box couldn’t grow if we didn’t figure out how to start letting some pieces of it go.
Letting go is the hurdle we continue to face, over and over, as the business grows. Coincidentally, “letting go” is something we talk a lot about with our actors in class! “You have to be willing to let go, in order to be truly free.” Audrey and I are both total control freaks, so it was, and is, a constant battle.
The biggest upheaval Audrey and I experienced though, happened just last year. From the outside, I don’t think it looked like much happened…. I don’t think our community felt any turbulence. But for Audrey and I, a cosmic shift took place that rocked us personally; we needed different things from Black Box, and Black Box needed different things from each of us. It was a painful discovery.
That realization led to an internal restructure. We took all the work that happens at Black Box, set fire to it, and rebuilt Black Box from the ground up. Now a year later, both of us are feeling more free and inspired than ever – Black Box is growing, getting stronger, and is positioned to move into our second decade.
Audrey and I still talk about that restructure every day – we are best friends and our personal and professional lives are very entwined. So when we feel turbulence personally, it can affect Black Box professionally. But we also continue to grow together, challenge, and support each other. We are willing to acknowledge that each of us needs space to evolve.
We’d love to hear more about your business.
You know that feeling you get right before you go down the big hill on a rollercoaster? That’s what our training feels like – it’s what we are best known for. Our training is rigorous but totally exhilarating – we want students to walk out of class feeling ALIVE.
Laura and I developed this program to push actors to be honest and brave on stage and screen, in a way they might not be “allowed” to be, in real life. So we train actors to do two things: Work Hard and Be Fearless. Our hope is that actors leave our classes and enter the industry as leaders in the community.
One of the biggest things that sets us apart from other training programs is our curriculum. Students walk out of each class feeling challenged, knowing exactly what they have learned, and how to apply it to their audition or rehearsals tomorrow. On top of that, our instructors are all artists who live and work in the industry. We ask an incredible amount from our students because we ask the same of ourselves. That is what makes our classes so unique and powerful.
As a company, we are most proud of the community of artists that choose to train rigorously, believe in holding themselves accountable onstage and in their work backstage, and continue to revolutionize our industry.
Is our city a good place to do what you do?
Absolutely. Chicago-style acting is known to be raw, honest and thrilling – we love to create edge-of-your seat theatre here. And the training at Black Box was designed to give actors the acting process they need in order to be honest and raw. Black Box is inspired by, and serves, Chicago. We love it here.
If you are an actor and you are thinking of moving here, DO IT NOW. Actors move to Chicago every single day because of the city’s reputation for community and great training. We have 100’s of theatres, big and small – so actors can be auditioning and seeing shows all the time. Also, the TV/film industry here is awesome – tons of TV show are filmed here.
Chicago is absolutely the place to be, in order to earn your stripes as an artist. And if you want to move to LA or New York after that, you are well positioned to do that – and you have a built in community in your corner. You might see Black Box there in a few years as well, so you can get your Black Box fix.
Pricing:
- STUDIO classes (5-week sessions, 2x a week): $450
- ACADEMY conservatory (5-months of training, daily): $9000
Contact Info:
- Address: 2625 W. North Ave
Chicago IL 60631 - Website: blackboxacting.com
- Phone: 323-487-2691
- Email: info@blackboxacting.com
- Instagram: www.instagram.com/blackboxacting/?hl=en
- Facebook: www.facebook.com/blackboxacting/?ref=br_rs
- Twitter: twitter.com/blackboxacting
- Yelp: www.yelp.com/biz/black-box-acting-chicago
Getting in touch: VoyageChicago is built on recommendations from the community; it’s how we uncover hidden gems, so if you know someone who deserves recognition please let us know here.
