"Short breaths help you to cry. Tightening the throat helps."

The opening of “Hollywood Elementary,” Adrian Nicole LeBlanc’s 2006 New York Times article about children training for a career in show business:

“Nine-year-old Jaysha Patel doesn’t cry easily, but on a recent morning, she was ready to weep. She took a chair facing her fellow actors in a bland conference room. The mothers, who sat in the back, seemed oblivious: one knitted; another placed stamps on a pile of picture postcards of her son, which would alert casting directors to the air date of his latest show. Meanwhile, Trisha Simmons, the children’s very pretty teacher, offered her aspiring students a couple of tips: ‘Short breaths help you to cry. Tightening the throat helps.’ Simmons looked resplendent in a bright purple hooded jacket and a rhinestone belt, circulating among her charges, some as young as 5. ‘Take your finger out of your nose,’ she chided one, then stopped to squint at a boy. ‘What’s that on your lips?’ she asked.

‘Powdered doughnut,’ he admitted.

The workshop, Crying on Cue, was taking place at the Oakwood Toluca Hills, a vast complex of temporary rental apartments in Los Angeles that caters to families actively pursuing a Hollywood career. In addition to housing, the Oakwood offers the Child Actor Program, which brings industry professionals, like Simmons, onto the premises and has made the Oakwood a much-sought-after residence for aspiring child actors. Simmons and others teach specialized, marketable skills: ‘If you’re a kid, and you can cry, you’re going to have a long road ahead of you — lots of work,’ Simmons says. She’s a working actor whose résumé includes roles in Desperate Housewives and Will and Grace.“