Actor Paul Adelstein ’91 on Hollyood, Beckett, and the Value of a Liberal Arts Education

Today's film and TV environment, transformed by industry consolidation and the impact of artificial intelligence, is very different from when he graduated, says Adelstein. "It's always been an industry that's constantly changing, although I think in the last ten years it's probably changed more radically [than] since, maybe, 'talkies' were introduced."

Despite this challenging environment, the best general advice Adelstein offers remains the same as it's always been: "Whether it's directing, writing, or acting you're into, find a place you can do it. Take whatever opportunity you can to actually be doing the thing, not just studying it," he stressed. "There's nothing more valuable than that, and it invariably leads to other opportunities that you couldn't have imagined."

Adelstein also sat in on an English and theater class taught by his former teacher, Harrison King McCann Professor of English Marilyn Reizbaum. "I did my honors thesis on Samuel Beckett and James Joyce under Professor Reizbaum," says Adelstein, who majored in English with a minor in music. "She was teaching a class on Beckett's Waiting for Godot so I talked to the students from the perspective of an actor, because it's a text that can be approached in so many different ways, and the nuts and bolts of it are quite different when you're putting it on its feet and acting in it."

His own path saw him take to the stage as an undergraduate, acting in one official Bowdoin production and one student production. For much of his college years, however, Adelstein acted professionally, taking up with John Cusack's trailblazing Chicago-based New Crime Productions theater company after his sophomore year. "I always wanted to be in film and television, but I also knew theater was the best training I could get. I also loved doing theater." Adelstein took his own advice and seized the opportunity to become a professional actor, spending his junior year in Chicago, where he was able to stay enrolled at Bowdoin by taking some credits at Northwestern University and doing a summer class.

During this time, Adelstein admits he was considering dropping out of Bowdoin, going to drama school, and throwing himself fully into acting. He's glad he didn't. "I had a really wonderful teacher in Chicago who told me I had to go back to Bowdoin. 'You need to read the good books,' she told me. 'You need to learn how to think; you have to expand your mind as much as you possibly can, because that is what you draw on to act. Do not undervalue a liberal arts education.' She was absolutely right."

Paul Adelstein's visit to Bowdoin was hosted by the Departments of English and Theater and Dance, the Cinema Studies Program, and the Bowdoin Film Society.