RISK.   FAIL.  RISK AGAIN.   This phrase has become a mantra for NTI. Prospective students tell us that they respond quite strongly to seeing those words up on their theater department bulletin boards. I impress this "philosophy" upon each incoming class of students. "I don't want you to fail. But you better risk it." As a core ethos for an actor, or any theater artist, I have no doubt that it pays off.

Kevin Kline has spoken of rehearsal as his time to fail. That he actively seeks to find that place where his choices will hit a brick wall, or that the director and other actors will stare at him with open mouths, aghast at his stupidity and foolishness.

The ability to make choices that exist on that edge, this is what makes for exciting theater. Think of an environment that supports and encourages risk-taking, and where the price of failure is...nothing. Not your casting in next semester's production, not the next reading of your play, not your future career.

Beyond this, the challenge of risking failure exercises your sense of pride. You've risked, perhaps this time you've failed, now what? The most powerful choice you can make is to go back to work.

Over the course of the fourteen-week semester, NTI students develop their ability to create such an environment. As they become a company, the students help each other take the risks necessary for growth as artists. The working professionals who make up the NTI faculty challenge them to do so.

NTI students discover that it needn't be painful, or a struggle, to push oneself. To challenge oneself to go further in choices. It can be exhilarating, even joyful. The thrill of making Shakespeare's text sing, or fully inhabiting the Chekhov character, or bringing a Paula Vogel scene to life...these theatrical moments can make an entire semester. Just that brief moment of risk.