Meet Eric Rau

We were lucky to catch up with Eric Rau recently and have shared our conversation below.

Eric, thanks so much for taking the time to share your insights and lessons with us today. We’re particularly interested in hearing about how you became such a resilient person. Where do you get your resilience from?

Growing up, my model of resilience was my maternal grandmother, June, whose adverse life experiences and severe health problems would have devastated someone with less ability to grow and adapt and keep moving forward, which she always seemed to do with grace and loving-kindness.

As an adult, my recovery from alcoholism and addiction gave me a program that saved my life, a community to support me, and a fellowship that shared its experience, strength, and hope with whatever I might be facing. Resilience was a natural outcome that emerged over the years of this support system, allowing me to grow and strengthen and be flexible enough to “live life on life’s terms” without needing to pick up a drink or a drug to numb or embolden myself.

Let’s take a small detour – maybe you can share a bit about yourself before we dive back into some of the other questions we had for you?

After 25 years practicing criminal defense for indigent clients in state and federal courts, I was able to retire early from my longtime federal employment as a trial attorney. In my new retirement and approaching age 60, I am now focusing on my long-neglected love of performing, and specifically, acting in community theater.

Since 2017, I have been a part of the company of the Tucson Improv Movement (TIM), a fantastic local improv theater. In addition to my involvement at TIM, I’ve loved performing and studying at other improv venues, such as Unscrewed Theater and the now-defunct Comedy Temple in Tucson, long weekends away at Camp Improv Utopia at several locations in California and Ireland, and appearing at numerous improv festivals around the country.

What I love about improv is our ability to create something beautiful, hilarious, or emotionally powerful, seemingly out of thin air, and to create an experience for the audience and the performers that is ephemeral yet still magical. Long form improv is a joy, and I have a particular affinity for genre improv – especially improvised plays in the style of Tennessee Williams and improvised Film Noir.

My time in improv has been a delight, but it has also reenergized my love of scripted theater. I have had some fantastic experiences performing in community theater in the last few years, doing concert readings as well as fully staged plays, and I want to do lots more of it!

Despite an over-committed schedule in high school, I still managed to fit in near-daily reading of Broadway plays in the school library, developing my adoration of Tennessee Williams early. Even though I participated in a summer theater program for students at the Arizona Civic Theater (the previous incarnation of the Arizona Theatre Company, our state theater) when I was in middle school, and even though I had plenty of beloved “drama geek” friends in high school, it somehow never occurred to me to join them.

I didn’t study any theater until college, and only took Visual Arts of the Theater (an overview of set, lighting, and costume design) as a freshman at Pomona College. I didn’t take an actual acting class until I transferred to the University of Arizona and took Acting for Non-Majors in my early 20’s.

Feeling creatively stifled while practicing law in 2010, I sought the advice of one of my attorney supervisors, who is also a talented and experienced actor. He recommended a course with an acting teacher who had run his own acting conservatory before retiring to Tucson. I enrolled and took classes with him for about a year until the homework and scene preparation that the class required became more of a stressor than a creative outlet or challenge, due to the demands of my legal work.

Starting in 2011, I joined a theater troupe at my church under the direction of a clergy member from New Haven, Connecticut (a longtime theater community) who had an extensive theater background. My husband and I led a monthly play reading group at the church, and I took great pleasure in the roles I got to read. Years later, and after performing in Improv for several years, I began serving as an actor-reader for a local playwrights group and auditioning for community theater productions and started appearing onstage in Tucson.

Although I majored in foreign languages rather than theater and lack the formal training that so many of my fellow actors have pursued over decades, I’m still eager at this relatively late stage of my life to learn and grow personally and artistically, and now devote my time and energy to developing my acting through formal workshops and private coaching.

I’m very much a work in progress and don’t aspire to regional theater work (though I would love to reach that level if it enters the realm of possibility as I develop as an actor) or film, television, or commercials. I simply want to become the best stage performer I can be at the community theater level. I can still move and educate and amuse and inspire audiences in such local shows and in those shows my audiences deserve my best.

Looking back, what do you think were the three qualities, skills, or areas of knowledge that were most impactful in your journey? What advice do you have for folks who are early in their journey in terms of how they can best develop or improve on these?

For my journey from attorney to actor the qualities and skills that have had the greatest impact have been (1) my willingness to learn and grow as a person and as an artist (always seeking to have a “beginner’s mind,” one might say, and remaining mindful of how much I have yet to learn); (2) my genuine enjoyment of engaging with others, not only my castmates and crew, but also with the energy of the audience; and (3) my flexibility and ability to make adjustments and implement the notes and feedback of my coaches, teachers, and directors.

For those actors who are even earlier in their journey than I am, my best suggestion to progress in these three areas is to always remain open, even if it’s an effort, to learning something new every day, recognizing areas of needed improvement and seeking support and guidance to address them, and adapting to change onstage and off.

Thanks so much for sharing all these insights with us today. Before we go, is there a book that’s played in important role in your development?

My acting coach recommended legendary acting teacher Uta Hagen’s “A Challenge to the Actor” as preparation for a five-week acting workshop I attended at the Arizona Theatre Company. It has been a revelation in its emphasis both on an exacting philosophy of art and on practical techniques – detailed exercises and a concrete yet thought-provoking set of Six Steps for preparing a role (now widely used by actors) that I could use not only for plays but also for audition monologues.

The book was written more than 30 years ago but still feels timely. It will be insightful and impactful for many years to come. It’s something that I will happily re-read again and again, not only to ponder its ideas but also to practice its techniques.

Image Credits

Gretchen Wirges, Wirges Photography, and Scott Griessel, Creatista Photography.