A unique survey of the twentieth century's most influential acting methods, offering invaluable practical insights for actors and drama teachers. Each of the ten famous techniques included in this handbook is described in detail by one of today's foremost practitioners. Each chapter outlines the development of the respective technique and offers practical guidance for actors wishing to explore it for themselves. * Lee Strasberg Technique by Anna Strasberg * Stella Adler Technique by Tom Oppenheim * Sanford Meisner Technique by Victoria Hart * Michael Chekhov Technique and The Mask by Per Brahe * Uta Hagen's Technique by Carol Rosenfeld * Physical Acting Inspired by Grotowski by Stephen Wangh * The Viewpoints by Mary Overlie * Practical Aesthetics by Robert Bella * Interdisciplinary Training by Fritz Ertl * Neo-classical Training by Louis Scheeder

Contents:
List of illustrations Contributors Preface Acknowledgements 1. General Introduction: Between theory and practice Phillip B. Zarrilli Part I Theories and Meditations on Acting 2. Introduction Phillip B. Zarrilli 3. The Actor's Presence: Three phenomenal modes Bert O. States 4. On Acting and Not-Acting Michael Kirby 5. "Just Be Your Self": Logocentrism and difference in performance theory Philip Auslander 6. The Actor's Emotions Reconsidered: A psychological task-based perspective Elly Konijn Part II (Re)Considering the Body and Training 7. Introduction Phillip B. Zarrilli 8. An Amulet Made of Memory: The significance of exercises in the actor's dramaturgy Eugenio Barba 9. Meyerhold's Biomechanics Mel Gordon 10. Etienne Decroux's Promethean Mime Deidre Sklar 11. Actor Training in the Neutral Mask Sears A. Eldredge and Hollis W. Huston 12. Bali and Grotowski: Some parallels in the training process I. Wayan Lendra 13. Culture is the Body Tadashi Suzuki 14. My Bodies: The performer in West Java Kathy Foley 15. "On the edge of a breath, looking": Cultivating the actor's bodymind through Asian martial/meditation arts Phillip B. Zarrilli 16. The Gardzenice Theatre Association of Poland Paul Allain 17. Effector Patterns of Basic Emotions: A psychophysiological method for training actors Susana Bloch, Pedro Orthous and Guy Santibañez-H Part III (Re)Considering the Actor in Performance 18. Introduction Phillip B. Zarrilli 19. Brecht and the Contradictory Actor John Rouse 20. Dario Fo: The roar of the clown Ron Jenkins 21. Forum Theatre Augusto Boal 22. Resisting the "Organic": A feminist actor's approach Lauren Love 23. Rachel Rosenthal Creating Her Selves Eelka Lampe 24. Task and Vision: Willem Dafoe in LSD Philip Auslander 25. David Warrilow: Creating symbol and cipher Laurie Lassiter 26. Robert Wilson and the Actor: Performing in Danton's Death Ellen Halperin-Royer 27. Anna Deavere Smith: Part I: the World Becomes You: and interview with Carol Martin; Part II: Acting as Incorporation . Richard Schechner Notes Bibliography and References Cited Bibliographical Note: Actors speaking on acting Index

This compendium opens the stagedoor for those with little or no practical experience in acting. For actors and other theatre specialists grappling with the challenges posed by performing or staging the works of the great Bard, here is useful instruction eloquently expressed that will enrich future interpretation and performance. On Playing Shakespeare takes advantage of the long tradition of Shakespearean acting by offering a rich treasury of writings by noted actors who have essayed Shakespearean roles in the past. The perspectives of these thespians offer comprehensive exposure to the challenges of acting in Shakespeare's plays and are emblematic of theatre repertories and popular tastes from the mid-eighteenth century to World War I. Here is Ellen Terry writing on her role as Mamellius in an 1856 production of The Winter's Tale, Edwin Booth on Iago, Fanny Kemble on Lady Macbeth, and dozens of other actors who made lasting theatrical contributions with their interpretations of Shakespeare. These commentaries also bear witness to the actor's eternal struggle to get on the stage, stay on the stage, and perform Shakespearean roles to varied audiences in sometimes less-than-ideal conditions. The heart of the book, and its climax, deals with matters of interpretation, with actors' differing reactions to the same role placed side-by-side for purposes of clear contrast. The work includes photographs of John Barrymore, Sarah Bernhardt, Edwin Booth, and others in roles they discuss in the book. The volume proceeds in sequence from the sort of background and training necessary to approach Shakespeare with assurance through the performance itself and its aftermath. The first section of adviceand commentary deals with "Preliminaries," such as training, body and movement, voice and diction, ease and concentration, and more. This chapter includes four actors on "Beginning in Shakespeare." In "Getting the Part," which includes casting, Clara Morris writes on a young actress as Juliet. Writings on reading the play, memorizing, observation, research, and gesture are included in the section on "Working the Part." Interpreting, rehearsing, and performing the part each receive separate sections. In "Clusters of Commentary," the book's longest section, various actors comment on performing specific roles, such as eight actors on Hamlet, three actresses on Portia, and more. On Playing Shakespeare speaks to actors and directors who face the contemporary challenges of playing Shakespeare and to Shakespeareans and scholars with more general interests in the history, technique, and tradition of Shakespearean acting. A must for graduate and undergraduate courses in acting Shakespeare; courses in the history of acting; and graduate courses in nineteenth-century British and American theatre history.

In the third volume of his "Mask: A Release of Acting Resources" David Griffiths concentrates his attention on Commedia dell'arte. Acknowledging the amount of information already available in this area, the author provides a brief but extremely lively historical/critical commentary. Despite existing on what seem to be "diametrically opposite sides of the theatrical spectrum," Griffiths points to the fascinating common factors between the genres of the Japanese Noh theatre and Commedia dell'arte. He proposes six similarities: characters familiar to their audience who appear masked, minimal properties and scenery with the focus on the actor; the "families" of performers, a sharp mind as well as an agile body, a professional living on his skills and patronage; and a knowledgeable audience. "Please Be Gentle," the witty and rumbustious play that completes this book, explores the various tricks and devices of Commedia dell'arte acting within a form and a fram

A classic bestseller by one of the most important theatre practitioners of the 20th and early 21st centuries. This handbook has sold over 90,000 copies to students, teachers and theatre makers, giving them a broad range of theatre exercises to use in classrooms, rehearsals and community projects. Makes social and community theatre fun, engaging and easily accessible for a broad audience. No other book sets out all of Boal's methods in one place, not least in such a clear, practical manner.

Art Into Theatre investigates the processes of hybrid forms of performance developed between 1952 and 1994 through a series of interviews with key practitioners and over 80 pieces of documentation, many previously unpublished, of the works under discussion.
Ranging from the austerity of Cage's 4'33" through the inter-species communication of Schneeman's Cat Scanand the experimental theatre work of Schechner, Foreman, and Kirby, to the recent performances of Abramovic, Forced Entertainment and the Wooster Group, Art Into Theatre offers a fascinating collection of perspectives on the destabilizing of conventional ideas of the art "object" and the theatrical "text."
Nick Kaye's introductory essay to the volume offers a useful context for the reader and each interview is preceded by an informative biographical sketch.

Embodied Playwriting: Improv and Acting Exercises for Writing and Devising is the first book to compile new and adapted exercises for teaching playwriting in the classroom, workshop, or studio through the lens of acting and improvisation. The book provides access to the innovative practices developed by seasoned playwriting teachers from around the world who are also actors, improv performers, and theatre directors. Borrowing from the embodied art of acting and the inventive practice of improvisation, the exercises in this book will engage readers in performance-based methods that lead to the creation of fully imagined characters, dynamic relationships, and vivid drama. Step-by-step guidelines for exercises, as well as application and coaching advice, will support successful lesson planning and classroom implementation for playwriting students at all levels, as well as individual study. Readers will also benefit from curation by editors who have experience with high-impact educational practices and are advocates for the use of varied teaching strategies to increase accessibility, inclusion, skill-building, and student success. Embodied Playwriting offers a wealth of material for teachers and students of playwriting courses, as well as playwrights who look forward to experimenting with dynamic, embodied writing practices.

Creating Improvised Theatre: Tools, Techniques, and Theories for Short Form and Narrative Improvisation is a complete guide to improvised theatre for performers and instructors. This book provides a modern view of improvised theatre based on the rapid evolution of this art form, shedding new light on classic theories as well as developing lesser known and emerging techniques, such as the Trance Mask. Instead of simply referencing classic theories, the book revisits them and places them in the context of contemporary improvisation techniques. Designed as a practical support, this guide contains over 130 exercises that allow its theories to come alive in workshops, rehearsals, and performance. The book is divided into four sections: Nuts and bolts: The fundamental tools of improvisation to explore how to be spontaneously creative, build with your partner, and learn from masks to discover your scene instant by instant. Short form: Techniques for scene work and short form performance, including how to get the most out of a scene, remain connected to the relational stakes, provoke change (physical, status, and emotional), and maintain a playful attitude. Narrative improvisation: Theories to help navigate long form narrative-based shows with "narrative waypoints," generate variety, develop protagonists, work on genres, and manipulate creative transitions. The bits box: Advice for warming-up before a rehearsal or a show with a collection of useful games. Written to inspire creativity and provide the tools to develop innovative improvised shows and experiences, Creating Improvised Theatre is an invaluable source book for anyone interested in the art of improvised theatre, whether a beginning student or experienced performer.

Kristin Linklater is one of the most internationally recognised names in the field of voice training, and this volume explores her work and life whilst also putting her work into practice. Charting the development of Linklater's process, including her work at LAMDA, the Lincoln Centre, NYU, Columbia, and the KLVC on Orkney, the book provides a comprehensive overview of one of the world's leading voice coaches. This book contains: A detailed biography of Linklater's life, including her work with Iris Warren at LAMDA, as well as the founding of her own companies and the KLVC on Orkney Detailed analysis of her key text, Freeing the Natural Voice and her work with Carol Gilligan on The Company of Women, an all-female Shakespeare company they co-conceived A comprehensive set of exercises - several of these previously unpublished This book offers essential reading and an invaluable practice handbook to the contemporary performer, voice teacher and actor trainer. As a first step towards critical understanding, and as an initial exploration before going on to further, primary research, Routledge Performance Practitioners offer unbeatable value for today's student.

Experiencing Speech: A Skills-Based, Panlingual Approach to Actor Training is a beginner's guide to Knight-Thompson Speechwork (R), a method that focuses on universal and inclusive speech training for actors from all language, racial, cultural, and gender backgrounds and identities. This book provides a progression of playful, practical exercises designed to build a truly universal set of speech skills that any actor can use, such as the ability to identify, discern, and execute every sound found in every language on the planet. By observing different types of flow through the vocal tract, vocal tract anatomy, articulator actions, and how these components can be combined, readers will understand and recreate the process by which language is learned. They will then be introduced to the International Phonetic Alphabet (IPA) and will practice using the IPA for narrow transcription of speech sounds. The book also offers both an intellectual and physical understanding of oral posture and how it contributes to vocal characterization and accent work. This approach to speech training is descriptive, giving students a wide and diverse set of speech sounds and skills to utilize for any character in any project, and it establishes a foundation for future accent study and acquisition. Experiencing Speech: A Skills-Based, Panlingual Approach to Actor Training is an excellent resource for teachers and students of speech and actor training, as well as aspiring actors looking to diversify their speech skills.

This fascinating text offers the first in-depth exploration of acting processes in British television. Focused around 16 new interviews with celebrated British actors, including Rebecca Front, Julie Hesmondhalgh, Ken Stott, Penelope Wilton and John Hannah, this rich resource delves behind the scenes of a range of British television programmes in order to find out how actors build their characters for television, how they work on set and location, and how they create their critically acclaimed portrayals. The book looks at actors' work across four diverse but popular genres: soap opera; police and medical drama; comedy; and period drama. Its insightful discussion of hit programmes and its critical and contextual post-interview analysis, makes the text an essential read for students across television and film studies, theatre, performance and acting, and cultural and media studies, as well as academics and anyone interested in acting and British television.

At the time of his death, Stanislavsky considered Nikolai Demidov to be 'his only student, who understands the System'. Demidov's incredibly forward-thinking processes not only continued his teacher's pioneering work, but also solved the problems of an actor's creativity that Stanislavsky never conquered. Despite being one of the original teachers of the Stanislavski system, Demidov's name was little known either in his native Russia or the wider world until the turn of the 21st Century. Since then, his extensive works have been published in Russian but are yet to find their way to the English-speaking world. His sophisticated psychological techniques, stimulation of creativity, and methods of developing the actors themselves are now gaining increasing recognition.This book brings together Demidov's five volumes on actor training. Supplementary materials, including transcriptions of Demidov's classes, and notes and correspondence from the author make this the definitive collection on one of Russian theatre's most important figures.

Practical, positive and uplifting, the advice in this book is designed to lead to the best outcomes possible for you, the actor, making the transition from craft to career. The reader is given insight into the various types of casting directors across the industry and how that practical knowledge can benefit you and increase your chance of success. While providing an in-depth insight into the role of the casting director, this book explains the jobs of all the other people involved in the casting process - including producers, network executives, writers - and how they influence casting decisions. As the collected wisdom Merri Sugarman's 20+ years of experience in different aspects of professional casting within television, film and theater, this book is a treasure trove of advice to help the actors and those who support them in their career goals, learn what it takes to be a pro. For those who choose to make their craft a career, it's an invaluable resource.

Through a series of reflections from internationally renowned performance-makers and contextualising essays from leading theatre and performance scholars, this is the first book to map the influence of Roland Barthes on performance. The contributions are framed through Barthes's notion of 'neutral dramaturgies' - a welcome antidote to the political deadlock of our present moment - and cover the breadth of Barthes's work from his essay 'The Death of the Author' (1967) to Mythologies (1972), Camera Lucida (1981), A Lover's Discourse (1990) to the more recently available lecture courses at the College de France. Together, they capture a range of Barthes's preoccupations, from his early writing on myths and meaning to personal reflections on love, loss and desire, and interrogate the intersections between Barthes's work and contemporary theatre and performance. Having read this book, readers can approach Barthes's writing from a breadth of creative perspectives, be more aware of the importance of his late thought for thinking through a range of dramaturgical forms, and become more familiar with the work of internationally significant performance practitioners and the possible critical perspectives to analyse his work.

This volume explores the relationship between the emphasis on performance in Elizabethan humanist education and the flourishing of literary brilliance around the turn of the sixteenth century. This study asks us what lessons we can learn today from Shakespeare's Latin grammar school. What were the cognitive benefits of an education so deeply rooted in what Demosthenes and Quintilian called "actio"-acting? Because of the vast difference between educational practice then and now, we have not often followed one essential thread: the focus on performance. This study examines the connections relevant to the education offered in schools today. This book will be of great interest to teachers, scholars, and administrators in performing arts and education.

An impassioned and invaluable guide for actors and students of musical theatre. In Acting Through Song, Paul Harvard takes the techniques of modern actor training - including the theories of Stanislavsky, Brecht, Meisner and Laban, amongst others - and applies them to the fundamental component of musical theatre: singing. With dozens of exercises to put these theories into practice, and numerous examples from a broad range of musicals, the result is a comprehensive and rigorous acting course for those training in musical theatre or already performing, whether amateur or professional, to realise their potential - and act better. 'The most methodical, thorough and practical book on the subject that I've ever read.' Daniel Evans, from his Foreword 'If you want to maximise your potential in this tough profession, this is not just a must-read - it's your bible.' Stuart Barr

This book is designed for all members of stage crew who are responsible for maintaining a respectful, inclusive work and artistic environment, and documenting administrative and artistic matters throughout the entire production process. The professional theatre industry desires to understand the process involved in utilizing Intimacy Directors or consultants: industry professionals want to know when Intimacy Directors or intimate staging are required and how to build a more supportive and consensual working environment in these scenarios. Empowers theatre artists with tools and techniques to assist in the creation of a supportive and consensual working environment, and recommended practices and protocols for maintaining intimate staging during the run of a production.

So you wanna be in Pictures? Where to begin?! Hollywood is a complicated maze of people, politics, ambition and desire. How do you navigate it without succumbing to the dark side?

"Going Hollywood" is a guide to building a career, and a life, in Hollywood. The book details the process of getting an entertainment career started, from making the decision to move to Hollywood, landing the first job, through the various stages of successes and setbacks in pursuit of an ultimately successful career.

You'll find in-depth, detailed, "insiders-only" listings of job sources, temporary employment options, apartment-finder services, and rules of work conduct specific to the industry. The book also features maps, helpful websites, local move-in resources, and recreational opportunities.

How do you survive the tough times? Get first-hand advice from some of Hollywood's most successful young talent. Take a look, and enjoy your journey..."Going Hollywood."

The Routledge Companion to Performance Practitioners collects the outstanding biographical and production overviews of key theatre practitioners first featured in the popular Routledge Performance Practitioners series of guidebooks. Each of the chapters is written by an expert on a particular figure, from Stanislavsky and Brecht to Laban and Decroux, and places their work in its social and historical context. Summaries and analyses of their key productions indicate how each practitioner's theoretical approaches to performance and the performer were manifested in practice. All 22 practitioners from the original series are represented, with this volume covering those born after 1915. This is the definitive first step for students, scholars and practitioners hoping to acquaint themselves with the leading names in performance, or deepen their knowledge of these seminal figures.