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Friday, November 20, 2009
Playwright Taught Acting Classes
By Lloyd Jojola
Journal Staff Writer
Michael Ray Lloyd was once in a small, grade-school play, his role being that of a janitor who simply reacted to all the silliness going on around him.
Lloyd was effective, he later told his students, because all he had to do was react.
"And of course as that was one of his tenets for being a good actor, in general, he used that as an example. An example of how that served him well even as a kid," said Ernest Sturdevant, a student of Lloyd's at 2B Or Not 2B Actor's Studio in Albuquerque. "So it was apparent that acting was always something that was with him, that he was interested in."
Michael Ray Lloyd, who died Oct. 5 at age 74, most recently appeared in the locally filmed TV show "Crash," playing the role of "Hooper," a character likened to an "old fart."
"It was only in the last couple of years I think that Michael started really pursuing the acting stuff again, that he became reinterested in that," Sturdevant said. "My impression was that it was just reinvigoration of that from his teaching."
Lloyd was an "actor, singer, writer, artist" who ran Acting World Books and opened 2B Or Not 2B Actor's Studio after relocating to the Duke City.
The Arkansas native was veteran — a Marine — a baseball player and court reporting student in St. Louis before moving to the Los Angeles area, where he lived from the mid-1970s to the mid-1990s, according to biographical information pieced together by friends and family.
On his resume: Lloyd served at one time as artistic director at the Met Theatre in Los Angeles, directing a production of playwright Roger Karshner's. The working actor was part of the GMA Talent Agency, Ellis Productions and a Screen Actors Guild member.
He began teaching acting in Hollywood using the Lawrence Parke method, according to the biographical information, and after he "developed and implementing his own teaching method, he moved to the Actor's Workout in North Hollywood."
"He was remarkable for prescribing phrases that had the effect of transforming actors, sometimes even the most difficult ones," said Mark Mandell, a student of Lloyd's at the Actor's Workout. "He had a remarkable patience and perseverance with the most difficult cases. ... I was privileged to have studied with him."
Lloyd would take over the business Acting World Books, which was created by Parke, and published "The Hollywood Agencies," "The Personal Managers Directory" and "Acting Teachers Directory."
After moving to Las Vegas, Nev., in 1995 — there he worked as a counselor for young adults — he moved to Albuquerque.
"I think as he became more introspective he became more interested in teaching," Sturdevant said. "I think the other thing that encourages any teacher is when they have students who excel."
Lloyd's acting classes in Albuquerque were filled with such studies as improvisation and cold reading.
"Michael was very into naturalistic work and really disdained what I think he would call 'creative acting,' which is over-thought out, planned, over-rehearsed. Rather than just living in the moment and letting the moment and the text and the emotional content of the situation provide the reality and creativity that you need in order to give a naturalistic performance," Sturdevant said.
"The thing that was so brilliant about Michael was he was so on one level totally uncompromising and just very self-assured about what would work and about how you could get there and what tools you could use to aid yourself.
"Yet he had the capacity for such great patience with his students. We would get more frustrated in class than Michael would become with us. He'd always be trying to nudge people back onto the right track and was very effusive and complimentary with the reenforcement, and with letting people know when they were on the right track."
Many times, Lloyd called his students while they were out of class just to say such things as "I hope you guys knew how great you were last night." "A total cheerleader," Sturdevant called him.
"At the same time, you knew a cheer like that from Michael was really valuable. It wasn't just somebody blowing smoke up your keister."
Lloyd could quote the Gettysburg Address at the drop of a hat — he used it as an example of how not to deliver monologue with any prethought when you had it memorized, and he did the same thing with biblical text, using it by way of example, not to proselytize. He loved the author and spiritual teacher Eckhart Tolle and quoted him often to show a way to give up preconceptions or a steady way of response.
Lloyd enjoyed going up to one of the truck stops at Nine Mile Hill and watch people, watch the city. It's there that a memorial gathering is planned for Saturday.
"The 'giving him back to the universe' thing is so much of the way he talked about life and so much a part of his teaching that it was so appropriate to kind of go up there and remember him and give some of him back to the universe up there," Sturdevant said.
Friends plan to meet at the Nine Mile Hill Chevron, 12504 Central SW at 3 p.m. in the north parking area. (Exit I-40 at Paseo del Volcan, then go south to Central, then east to the Chevron.) From there, they will go to the gathering spot.
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