Today we’d like to introduce you to Sonya Cooke.
Hi Sonya, we’re thrilled to have a chance to learn your story today. So, before we get into specifics, maybe you can briefly walk us through how you got to where you are today?
Oy, which start to start from? Well, I grew up in Texas and got out of there as soon as I could. I attended NYU’s Tisch School of the Arts to study acting, and during my education, I started professionally acting in regional theatre. Upon graduating, I explored every venue and medium of film, television, and theatre.
From being a company member for a non-profit theatre company to originating roles in new musicals to producing theatre in Times Square, to hosting television shows, to acting in independent films and mainstream television shows. During that time, I discovered my interest in writing about acting techniques which coincided with a newfound love for coaching other actors. I soon had a big roster of students but felt inadequate to fully support their work. So, I decided to pursue an MFA in Acting, which led me to University of California at Irvine. UCI is an excellent program, and I loved my time there. When I started, I had formulated six pillars of acting, but it was during my studies that I settled on Seven Pillars Acting, and I started teaching it in my action 101 classes and in my private studio. When I graduated, I was ready to pursue acting professionally again, but my heart ached to focus on my teaching. At that time, now ten years ago, a series of incredibly synchronistic events took place, and I ended up buying a small acting studio: Actor’s Studio of Orange County. I had graduated from UCI only six months prior. It quickly became my passion: developing curricula, building a program, recruiting students, leading a team of teachers… it all was so fun, challenging, and inspiring.
After a couple of years of building ASOOC (the acronym for short) into the #1 film/tv acting studio in Orange County, I opened Seven Pillars Acting Studio: Los Angeles in North Hollywood. The LA studio was a labor of love, and we attracted students who were unsatisfied with the guru-ism often found at other studios, as well as the bizarre hoops that actors often have to jump through in order to work with the main teacher. I was very accessible to all students who came to my studio, and I wanted to teach them a technique that was 1) modern, 2) wholesome and healthy, 3) comprehensive, and 4) practical for all mediums. After a while of teaching, I got tired of repeating myself to my students, so I started writing down what Seven Pillars Acting was. The reason for the book was as practical as this: I just needed to be able to point my students to something so I could hold them accountable to the work! My book, Seven Pillars Acting, was published in 2018, and it has since been very successful and in consistent use across the country. Around this time, my husband and I wanted to start a family, and the pace of being a small-business owner did not seem to support the lifestyle I sought as a mother. I grew up with two academic parents; I knew there was a way to raise children and pursue my academic and creative goals. So, I applied to professorships around the country. Louisiana State University attracted me the most, with its resident Equity theatre on campus, and the MFA acting track, and illustrious faculty. Interestingly, it was close enough to my home state so I could see my immediate family more frequently. So, in 2019, we moved to Baton Rouge, Louisiana, where me and my husband both teach in the School of Theatre.
I am the Head of the Undergraduate Performance Concentration, and I am the primary acting teacher for the MFA program. In 2020, I started a Certification Program to train and certify qualified teachers in Seven Pillars Acting. Since then, teachers in the craft have gone on to teach at universities and programs around the country with this method. Most recently, UC-Irvine has adopted Seven Pillars Acting into its foundational training, an amazing full-circle moment for me, as I had just started to solidify the pillars while I was there. I believe that acting training needs to adapt to our students today, and methods from the past do not serve them. We need an approach that is empowering, inclusive, deep, specific, and flexible. Actors should have autonomy in their process, and after leaving their place of training, they should not need a teacher’s approval or input. They should have the tools necessary to stand in their own work and be able to support, guide, and correct themselves as needed. Therefore, my mission is simple: to improve the way we teach actors at our institutions of learning. To elevate the game to be worthy of our students. I am still a working actor. This summer I will be performing Shakespeare in rep at New Swan Shakespeare Festival in Irvine, CA, and I returned last week from Chicago where I was acting in a network television show (to be announced!) I now have two small children, and I love the balance that me and my husband are forging: a creative life amidst raising our children.
Can you talk to us a bit about the challenges and lessons you’ve learned along the way. Looking back would you say it’s been easy or smooth in retrospect?
Oh god, no. Lots of obstacles. Well, first of all, I am a white woman, so although I had more access than most, I also felt doors closing as a woman in the theatre. Regional theatre in particular is male-centric. I hope that is changing, but it’s hard to do that when the canon performed is male-centric. While in Los Angeles, I decided to focus on film and television because I found it to be more inclusive of female-identifying characters. I do see a major movement happening towards inclusivity on stage, so I’ve been motivated and encouraged to return to my love of theatre. This summer, I will be playing to traditionally male roles: “Julius Caesar” from the self-named play and “Duke Senior” in As You Like It. As a teacher, I experienced similar blocks. Many administrators looked at me like I was crazy… “YOU have your own acting pedagogy?” I felt the age-ism and the sexism of their prejudice. Some students also were unsure of me at first. Which makes sense in some ways, I was a late-twenty-something woman. Who was I to have ideas? This is largely why I took the risk to own my own studios. I needed to prove myself before others would take a chance on me. I am grateful for the hundreds and now thousands of students who I’ve worked with, either in-person or through my studios. They believed in this work because they saw it working in themselves.
Presently, my biggest struggle is time. I have so much work to do, and not enough time to do it. Currently, I am a junior faculty member at LSU, I am on several committees, I head up a program, I run the annual certification program, I am a member of multiple academic and professional organizations, I am working on an article and two grants, I audition between 1 and 7 times a week, while still owning and running Actor’s Studio of Orange County. Oh, and, my son who is four is in pre-school but my 1-year-old is at home with us because I don’t want to miss out on this precious time with her. Life is very hard, but I just keep swimming. Basically, modern motherhood is simply impossible.
Appreciate you sharing that. What else should we know about what you do?
I think the thing I’d like to share is that since Seven Pillars Acting published five years ago it has continued to adapt and evolve. I look forward to when I can write the 2nd edition because it feels like we live in an entirely different world since 2018 (actually Fall 2017 when they stopped accepting my changes to the text!) #Metoo happened, and the racial awakening of 2020, the pandemic…. we are not the same. And neither are our students, who are wiser than my generation was at their ages. I was always proud of the fact that Seven Pillars Acting gave greater representation to women innovators and leaders in acting training. But, I have been coming to terms with the pervasive whiteness of my field of study. We have marginalized the global majority since forever, but that is now changing. I’ve been researching and identifying BIPOC acting teachers and theoreticians, and I’ve begun to center them in the Pillars. I’ve also been designing techniques for how we tell diverse stories by reincorporating research into the creative process. Intimacy training and choreography has become a major movement in directing and acting, and I’m applying some of the principles of consent into the classroom. Lots of exciting advancements! I enjoy getting to evolve as an artist myself, as I know that will inform how the Pillars grow as well. Presently, my focus has been on PLAY. I am great at spelling out a technique, but I’ve always struggled with the release of it all. For that reason, I’ve joined an improv team, and I am re-learning how to play and trust. I don’t think there will be an eighth pillar, but I am excited to see how I can infuse more freedom and abandon into the process.
How can people work with you, collaborate with you or support you?
Lots of ways: If someone wants to train in the Pillars, they can attend classes at Actor’s Studio of Orange County. Or if a student is at an institution that doesn’t have Seven Pillars Acting, request it! I travel to schools and do workshops and master classes all the time. Teachers are welcome to apply to the certification program. I am running it in Fall 2023, and it is entirely virtual. It’s also one of the best-priced training programs you can do. I don’t like finances to be a block for the right people to get the training. Actors are encouraged to audition for LSU’s MFA Acting program, where I teach Seven Pillars Acting myself. I also train and certify the cohort every two years so they have that additional certification under their belt. Everyone is encouraged to engage with me at @sevenpillarsacting on Instagram and on Facebook. What else? Friend me, I am @sonya.cooke on Instagram.
Contact Info:
- Website: www.asooc.com, www.sevenpillarsacting.com
- Instagram: @sonya.cooke
- Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/cooke.sonya
- Yelp: https://www.yelp.com/biz/the-actors-studio-of-orange-county-santa-ana-2
