Preparation for Acting

1. Preparation for Acting 8 Key Terms and Steps for Actors

2. Can acting be taught? • What do you think? • With a partner discuss your answer. • Be prepared to share your opinion.

3. State Theatre Standard Students will act by developing, communicating, and sustaining characters in improvisations and in informal or formal productions. Standard 2.0 Character Acting

4. To understand the tools an actor needs before learning the art of acting Objective

5. 1. Relaxation • It is a necessary starting point for acting. • It is physical and mental. • A relaxed actor can do anything, but a tense actor is always constrained. • It cannot be forced. It can only be self induced. • It is a matter of putting your daily life stress away so that you can focus fully on acting. • Examples: rolling the head in circles, stretching, bending forward and backward, and moving fingers

6. Ways to relax • Think of pleasant images • Play soothing music • Observation (Study what you see) It is a starting point NOT an ending point Do not confuse it with “not thinking” Relax with your eyes wide open and your senses fully awake.

7. Observation Exercise Take a minute to observe your surroundings…

8. 2. Trust • Trust is a mutual relationship between you and your fellow actors. • It is a precondition for acting. • Anxiety is inevitable because you do it with and in front of other people. • It cannot be forced. • You must take initiative. • It means that you are comfortable with those around you. It is the feeling that you can make a fool out of yourself without embarrassment.

9. Trust • Acting exposes personal vulnerabilities. • Trust develops out of self-confidence. • Pure socializing has its place among actors. • Rapport among actors, developed through trusting ensemble work, is the context for a fine performance.

10. 3. Exuberance • Acting require a level of performance energy that other activities do not. • It also requires a positive and non-critical attitude so that you can be confident. • Energy and positive attitude=exuberance • Actors must possess a willingness to make a fool of themselves in public if need be. • This does not come easily. • We are socially conditioned to inhibit public displays of exuberance.

11. 4. Discipline • Actors must be disciplined artists. • Without discipline, trust disappears. • You must expend your energies in the pursuit of high standards and artistic effort. • Theatre is not casual. It is intense and organized. • It makes you someone who can be counted on. • Artistic discipline is learned within the acting class.

12. 5. Criticism • Actors must learn to come to grips with criticism. • There is no way around it. • It comes from instructors, peers, audiences, directors, press, etc. • Some is constructive, some is destructive, and some is beside the point. • Criticism hurts because “art comes directly out of the actor” • It is sometimes taken as a personal attack. • Realize that you have much to learn and take it in stride • Use it for your advantage.

13. Assignment: • List a time in your life when you have displayed or had to deal with the following: Trust, Exuberance, Discipline, Criticism, and Relaxation.

14. 6. A Playful Attitude • Acting is serious but never solemn. • While it’s artistic roots lie in ritualistic worship they lie equally in play. • You must balance between discipline and creativity • Acting is work, but it is also play. • If you forget that, then you lose a crucial aspect of this very subtle art. • Theatre is mind filling just like chess or sports. • Acting and sports are similar (leisure and competitive play)

15. 7. Freedom • The actor must learn to be free and learn to enjoy it • Free from physical and psychological inhibition. • The actor’s imagination must be unhindered. • A free actor can imagine anything. • An actor who is afraid to imagine the unimaginable will be emotionally narrow. • You must be free to play with the inner turmoil of your character. • You must be open to lust, terror, joy, and exaltation. • Acting is emotionally risky. • An actor who retreats behind a fixed image of himself is not free to act.

16. 8. Preparation • The study of acting is a prerequisite to other arts such as directing. • It is useful for public speaking, politics, law, etc. • Dance & Athletics are also good • Writing, poetry, singing, and storytelling. • They all require feeling, emotion, movement and getting at the heart of feelings in a constructive way. • Reading helps actors understand the complexity of human life and human experiences. • Theatre going is a prime preparation for acting. It helps you see the potential for performance.