This is New York: Noam Tomaschoff, Acting Student at NYU

Like many others in New York, Noam Tomaschoff made the pilgrimage to the Big Apple with stars in his eyes: he came to be an artist.
This is New York: Noam Tomaschoff, Acting Student at NYU
Noam Tomachoff spontaneously preforming a scene from Macbeth on the street. (Gidon Belmaker/The Epoch Times)
10/11/2011
Updated:
10/1/2015
<a><img class="size-medium wp-image-1796588" title="Noam Tomachoff spontaneously preforming a scene from Macbeth on the street. (Gidon Belmaker/The Epoch Times)" src="https://www.theepochtimes.com/assets/uploads/2015/09/Noamomaschoff.JPG" alt="Noam Tomachoff spontaneously preforming a scene from Macbeth on the street. (Gidon Belmaker/The Epoch Times)" width="320"/></a>
Noam Tomachoff spontaneously preforming a scene from Macbeth on the street. (Gidon Belmaker/The Epoch Times)

NEW YORK—Like many others in New York, Noam Tomaschoff made the pilgrimage to the Big Apple with stars in his eyes: he came to be an artist. Originally from Toronto, Tomaschoff moved to the city to study acting at NYU’s Tish School of Arts. He is now in his second year, dividing his time between the classroom and the studio. It is a tough balance, he says, and when he needs to work on a monologue for the next day, or finish an academic essay, the monologue always wins.

His focus is mainly on study and training, but he is making his first steps toward finding a place to perform. He dons the character of Macbeth later this month in Washington Square, with Shakespeare in the Square, a student-run company performing in public spaces.

In the free time he has left, Tomaschoff markets Scooter-Bikes, a funny looking hybrid, threatening to take over the streets of New York.

The Epoch Times: What is your favorite role you ever played?
Noam Tomaschoff: I really enjoyed in Julius Caesar to be Cassius. It was nice just to be such a mover and a shaker and a manipulator. Very passionate play.

The Epoch Times: How do you go about finding work in acting?
Tomaschoff: I haven’t actively searched for an agent in New York. I will. It is all about being robust and going in personally and doing everything you can to set yourself apart from others. There are so many people, all the time, for every show. I cannot foresee a situation in which a show is casting in New York and there are not enough people showing up for the audition. You have to have a really nice package to give the agent. You need to have a neat little resume, you have to have a video of really good film stuff of things you can do. The good thing about NYU is that the film kids are always looking for actors. After I leave here I am going to do one, just a short, two minute, silent thing.

The Epoch Times: Does the city inspire your work?
Tomaschoff: A lot of the imagination work that you do comes from your world outside. There is so much to see here. Seeing things in the city, you stop and notice. For example, I had to stop for a second because a bridge was striking. Now I know that if I build a scenario in my mind, I need to imagine a big bridge there, because a big bridge makes you stop. There is so much stimulus in New York to build an arsenal of images in your mind. There is also something about the pace here. The heartbeat is faster here. You are always moving and avoiding stuff. Something like that has to trickle in. Something about pacing, speed, urgency, quick changes.

The Epoch Times: To which direction do you want to navigate your career to?
Tomaschoff: That changes all the time. It changes according to what I see as important. Different things affect what I see at a particular moment. Sometimes I want to live modestly in one of the boroughs and do something meaningful in shows—new shows, new concepts in shows, great repertory theater. What an idea to have a steady stream of work like that. Sometimes I want to do something huge on a stage: Being part of a big Shakespeare company, or being part of a Broadway cast. It is not that farfetched. A lot of NYU acting grads go on to do big stuff. I can’t even speak about film because I’ve hardly done it and there is a lot to be done in that department.

It is daunting to think about the future as an actor, because you can never know. Maybe I will be a director. I don’t know! Ask me in two years.