Broadway Star Billy Porter Gives Students at Kean Receive Career Career Advice
Billy Porter has presence. That’s one thing the Broadway star made clear to the Kean University students who attended his master class in April. “You have to stand out in an audition,” he said. “You have to own your space. When I walk onto a stage or into a room, rest assured people are looking at me because I have presence.”
Porter implores young people to stop looking down at their phones, to stand up straight and walk with confidence.
“You have to empower yourself,” said Porter, who starred as the original Lola in Kinky Boots. “Don’t look at the floor or at the piano player. Don’t ask for validation. You can’t be an actor and be on stage if you don’t want people looking at you. Take your power.”
Five Kean University Theater Conservatory students including Brianna Javis of Union; were given the opportunity to work one-on-one with Porter during the master class. Earlier this season, the talented students were among those who sang in front of a sold-out audience alongside Broadway legend Patti LuPone.
“His confidence on stage is what I aspire to,” said Javis, a junior theatre major. Javis used her gospel-like voice to belt out ‘I am Changing’ from Dreamgirls. Porter stressed the importance of proper breathing in order to finish the song without running out of steam.
“That voice is fabulous and you have to trust it, and you don’t trust it,” he said. “You think you do, but you don’t. You have to learn how to breathe and how to release it all. And release your expectations of what it should sound like, because it doesn’t have to sound like anything but you.”
“It’s not easy,” Porter said. “It’s not supposed to be easy, but you’re supposed to make it seem easy. You’ve got a beautiful voice in there.” As an actor, director and writer, Porter spoke of the importance of learning all different aspects of theater in addition to singing and acting.
“For me, the work dried up for 13 years,” he said. “The only thing that saved me was going to the page. I wanted to tell stories that aren’t being told, to represent people that aren’t being represented.”
Javis is grateful for the lessons she and her classmates learned from Porter’s master class. “He saw something in us that can be pushed, and can be tweaked and improved, and he used it and made us understand ourselves,” she said. Holly Logue, who heads Kean’s Theater Conservatory, was pleased to have Porter conduct the master class for the students.
“Any time you have the opportunity to be coached by someone who has made a career in theater is an invaluable learning experience,” she said. “Our proximity to New York affords us these opportunities. It’s one of the things that is very special about Kean University.”
(above) Junior Theatre major Brianna Javis from Union gets some sage advice from Tony and Grammy Award winner Tony Porter..
