An actor portrays a character in a play or in a movie, in a dance performance or in an opera.  Drama, whether live or on film, is a cooperative endeavor.  By that is meant that to make a movie or produce a play, or a dance performance, or an opera, requires a number of people including artists such as writers, directors and actors and technical personnel such as set designers (who are also sometimes artists), lighting technicians and others.
        Drama begins with the author, whether a playwright or a screenwriter, a choreographer or composer and librettist for opera.  He or she creates the story and the characters.  A director then interprets the written work and directs its performance by actors.
        This does not mean that an actor merely mouths the words of the author and follows the instructions of the director.  The actor must also interpret the role that he or she is to play by understanding the character to be portrayed in that role.  Therefore, a successful dramatic performance requires the input of, and interpretation by, three people to communicate to an audience the thought and purpose of the play, movie, dance or opera.  The one person of those three that the audience sees is
the actor.
FIRST NIGHT

        Cissy was perspiring and the perspiration was causing her makeup to run.  She feared that it would cause the audience to pay attention to the makeup rather than to her performance.  After all her work and effort her first professional performance would be ruined by perspiration.  She hurried to the dressing room to fix it.
        Years of hopes, of dreams, of labor and of disappointment had brought her to her first night.  And now it was going to be ruined because she could not stop sweating.
        Cissy had been dancing since she was a little girl of five.  She had taken lessons and danced at recitals and school productions, at auditions and competitions.  She studied dance, acting, movement, theory and other subjects.  She had endured heat and cold, aches and cramps, injuries and illness but she continued to dance because she loved it.  It was all that she wanted to do.  Her parents sometimes questioned whether it was worth the effort and the disappointments when she failed auditions or when competitions went to others or when her dancing was criticized by teachers or reviewers.  But Cissy knew that it was worth it.  After all, she had made the company.  Thousands of dancers never succeeded.  Most never danced professionally after all the training and effort.
        She had a small role tonight because she was a new member of the company.  She would play a lonely young woman.  The dance was choreographed by Lydia who was herself a famous dancer who had performed all over the world.  Now that she was too old to dance any longer, she taught and she choreographed her own works.
        The hall was filled with people who had paid to see the company perform.  The applause was loud when the curtain rose.  Cissy danced without perspiring; her makeup was just fine, as was her performance.  When the show was over, the audience applauded loudly and for a long time.  Cissy and the others smiled broadly as they came out to take their bows.  She found her parents in the front and smiled to them.  Now she knew that they understood that it was worth all of the effort.

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