For the last year, The BGB Studio has been on borrowed time. The lease on the building that has housed us the last 6 years was ending and the owner didn’t want us to stay (something about too many actors roaming around, clogging toilets, etc). We’d been actively looking for new space for two years but nothing had worked out. One of the challenges of maintaining an acting studio is that you need large class spaces in geographically desirable areas, and in Los Angeles, those spaces are pricey. We were just looking for a space to do some acting work and were getting out-bid by multi-million dollar companies. As our lease-end date approached it was all looking grim. And we were feeling it. Not having a place to go triggered old stuff for both of us. We weren’t sleeping. Our anxiety about it all was taking a physical toll.

At one point, after running the numbers and knowing that our lease would likely end without us having a place to go, we had to ask ourselves the questions. Are we done? With no hope of finding a space for classes, do we just celebrate the community we created and the work that was done, wish everyone well and move on?

It was gut-check time.

But the great thing about discomfort is that it often brings clarity. Because the view from beyond one’s comfort zone often reveals the “why.” The discomfort forced us to weigh whether or not the pain and effort was worth it. It’s only when you can’t have the thing you want, and are forced to suffer for it, that you really address whether or not you really do want it AND how badly you want it. The Buddhists say that suffering leads to awareness. No mud, no lotus, they say.

Turns out, the anxiety and the triggers were clouding our “why.” We’ve dedicated our lives to creating and defending physical, mental, and emotional space for artists of all kinds to discover and express their voice because we believe that art can change the world. But now we were sweating lease payments, sleazy real estate agents, and city permits. Our “why”- rooted in the fact that we are both hyper-sensitive, in deep need of connection, and must be in and around artistry or else our life lacks meaning- renders all that petty shit irrelevant. None of it will stop us from doing what we do.

It was around that time that we both had family trips planned. We left Los Angeles in a place of more acceptance and faith than we’d had in the last two years. Days later, while out of the city, our real estate broker (our 5th, and a really good and decent one this time) called to tell us that an amazing building- in a central location, whose owner had passed on us in favor of a fancy company months earlier- was available again. The company dropped out and we were in. Just like that we found our new artistic home.

It was when we realized that we have always done this work and will do this work till we die- no matter where- that it all fell into place. And it fell into place because anything that happened after the acceptance of our truth and the reminder of our “why” would have been perfect. Not without challenge. But perfect.

Every week, we hear actors question why they invest their whole being into three lines of some TV show for an audition across town, sit in a hot waiting room for an hour, walk into a room where they are barely acknowledged, walk out and never hear from anyone about it again. The business can’t care for you, it can’t satisfy your needs. Its love is fleeting. The only way to endure the slings and arrows is a deep and consistent reminder of why you are an actor- why you felt something as a kid, or were so moved by a performance that you knew you had to be in that work forever. Your work matters. You do it because in your bones you’re an artist. You need human connection, you need to explore and express the human condition. And any step you take from that clear understanding will be sure-footed.

We believe in what we do. We are made better by it. We have no choice but to do it.

And now we’ll do it in a new space.

Join us. Change your career, change your life. NEW 8-WEEK CLASSES ARE HERE

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