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Character Status: What It Is, And How It Changes Acting Choices
These days, when we think of the word status, we tend to think in terms of facebook. Then we sheepishly put down our smartphones, remember we are actors, and our minds leap to classical theatre. When...
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Ways to Work on Your Craft Daily: Part II
In Part I of this article, we examined several ways in which actors can work on honing their craft every day: practicing cold reads, learning new dialects, and and studying biographies of actors. This...
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The Little Things (Can Make a Character Great): Specifics and the Directive
EVERYTHING is supported, illuminated and deepened by your “SPECIFICS”–your “SPECIFIC CHOICES” in a scene. What EXACTLY do you fall in love with? Her eyes? The way he walks? His powerful shoulders?...
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How to Trust Your Audience (And Improve Your Acting)
It’s easy for someone to tell an actor “don’t ask for laughs,” but when it comes to practical application, how do we know when we’re “asking for it” and when we are eliciting an organic response? More...
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Improvisation in Plays and Films (for Scripted Characters)
Loose, alive, ready for surprises–that’s how you want to be in a scene. Be prepared, yes. Know what story you want to tell, know what your character wants in the scene. But be available, sensitive...
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Scoring Your Script: An Actor’s Manual
Essentially, scoring a script helps actors to clarify motivations, organize dramatic structure, and get specific with the nuances of the characters and the story. If scene partners score a script...
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Relaxation, Tension, and the Artistic State: Part I
Before performance, I am prepared. Rehearsed. Ready and free to improvise and be available to anything my scene partner might do. I know this character so well, I can react by instinct. Now stop...
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10 Secret Skills Every Actor Should Have
If you spend any time seriously pursuing a career as an actor, there is no shortage of people telling you what you need to learn. Theories of acting, industry standards, and the nuances of technique...
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Relaxation, Tension, and the Artistic State: Part II–The Performance
(For Part I of this series, Click here) Being RELAXED and loose does not mean to be void of emotion, excitement, power, awareness or focus. On the contrary, one needs ALL these things in order to act...
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Impulses: Another Tool for Truthful Acting
When acting, as in life, IMPULSES cross your mind constantly. Things you want to do, to say. Thoughts you either act upon, or do not act upon. When pursuing truth and a “life” on stage, it is...
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Variety and Unpredictability in Performance
Break down the “BEATS” of each scene to understand your smaller varieties of objectives/intentions, which are all attached, like little magnets, to the Primary Intention or “Super Objective”. The...
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10 Tips on “Playing Crazy”
Everyone loves to play a crazy. From Hamlet to Hannibal, Lady Macbeth to Blanche DuBois, some of the meatiest, most iconic roles in theatre and cinematic history have been a few Crayolas shy of a box....
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BREATH: the Antidote for Fear and the Technique for Focus
Whether you are approaching a public speaking engagement, an important athletic moment, or an artistic performance of any kind, your BREATH–the flow of oxygen to your brain and body–will determine your...
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6 Memorization Hacks for the Actor
Perhaps one of the most tedious tasks for actors–universally across the globe, and since the moment when the very first actor endeavored to take a scripted work and translate it into a performance...
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Pre-Beat the System: Craft Your “Moment Before”
In past posts, we’ve touched briefly on the importance of crafting your pre-beat, or “moment before” in an audition or scene. But what exactly does that entail? A pre-beat refers to what happens to...
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Auditioning–Artistic Advice
BE PREPARED. When you have booked a role, you have time to prepare fully–not only learning your lines and breaking down the audition scene(s), but researching all issues that relate to building a...
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The Art of Good Listening (And Why It Gets You Hired)
There is a reason we call them “scene partners.” Every scene is (or should be) a fully functioning partnership. It all boils down to one thing: listening. Good listening will make a scene worth...
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Discovery: An Acting Fundamental
Perhaps the most important concept for anyone to understand about acting in a deeply felt, enlightening, truthful, and artful manner is DISCOVERY. Both in an instinctive, “impulse-oriented” way, and...
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10-Point Audition Prep: Part II
This post is the Part 2 continuation of the previous article “10-Point Audition Prep: Part I“. I recently saw a great actor speak about the “gift of transparency”. Essentially, he spoke of a talent...
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Honesty in Performance
Honesty is a hot topic in the acting world. Actors, directors, and critics alike love to talk about it: how to attain it, whether it existed in various performances (and in what measure), and whether...
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