'Masks are empowering... They enable you to take risks. They provoke you into working with the reckless logic of a six-year-old or the enigmatic stillness of someone wiser than you'll ever be. But above all, masks let you be you without your habitual limitations.' In Playing the Mask, award-winning theatre-maker and teacher John Wright explores and demystifies mask-work: what masks do, how they do it, and, above all, what they can teach us about acting. This book is a wonderfully accessible introduction to a fresh and innovative acting technique for actors, theatre-makers and teachers to use in training and rehearsal. A mask releases the actor to be playful, and playfulness generates ideas, finds meaning, develops characterisation - and is infinitely more fun than traditional training. Rather than a dry guide to making masked theatre, it is about, for instance, playing Lady Macbeth in Red Nose, or Hamlet in the mask of The Victim, The Ogre or The Fool, or even Romeo and Juliet in grotesque half-masks... All in the name of liberating your creativity and, ultimately, improving your performance. Extensively illustrated with a rich variety of masks, this inventive and pragmatic book is full of invaluable games and exercises drawn from the author's own workshops, his experience as co-founder of both Trestle and Told by an Idiot, and his pioneering mask and clown work in many professional productions. 'Brilliant, entertaining and accessible' Paul Hunter, from his Foreword

THE GOOD AUDITION GUIDES: Helping you select and perform the audition piece that is best suited to your performing skills As an actor at any level - whether you are doing theatre studies at school, taking part in youth theatre, preparing for drama-school showcases, or attending professional acting workshops - you will often be required to prepare a duologue with a fellow performer. Your success is often based on locating and selecting a fresh, dynamic scene suited to your specific performing skills, as well as your interplay as a duo. Which is where this book comes in. This collection features twenty-five fantastic duologues for two women, almost all written since the year 2000 by some of our most exciting dramatic voices, offering a wide variety of character types and styles of writing. Playwrights featured include Alexi Kaye Campbell, Helen Edmundson, Vivienne Franzmann, Sam Holcroft, Anna Jordan, Chloe Moss, Rona Munro, Lynn Nottage, Evan Placey and Jessica Swale, and the plays themselves were premiered at the very best theatres across the UK including the National Theatre, Manchester Royal Exchange, Shakespeare's Globe, and the Almeida, Bush, Soho, Royal Court and Tricycle Theatres. Drawing on her experience as an actor, director and teacher at several leading drama schools, Trilby James equips each duologue with a thorough introduction including the vital information you need to place the piece in context (the who, what, when, where and why) and suggestions about how to perform the scene to its maximum effect (including the characters' objectives). The collection also features an introduction on the whole process of selecting and preparing a duologue, and how to present it to the greatest effect. The result is the most comprehensive and useful contemporary duologue book of its kind now available. 'Sound practical advice... a source of inspiration for teachers and students alike' Teaching Drama Magazine on The Good Audition Guides

Make a career out of your voice? Easy.

Voice acting is like acting, but just using your voice It's a unique career where the actor's voice can be heard worldwide-in commercials, on audiobooks, in animated movies, documentaries, online videos, telephone systems and much, much more. The point is to bring the written word to life with the human voice.

With step-by-step explanations and an abundance of examples, "Voice Acting For Dummies" is the ultimate reference for budding voice actors on auditioning, recording, producing voice-overs, and promoting themselves as a voice actor.Creating a voice acting demoFinding your signature voiceInterpreting scriptsUsing audio editing softwarePromoting your voice acting talents

If you're an aspiring voice actor or an actor or singer considering a career transition, "Voice Acting For Dummies" has everything you need to let your voice talents soar.

This is a survey of the small supporting roles, such as foils, feeds, attendants and messengers, that feature in Shakespeare's plays. Exploring topics such as how bit players should conduct themselves within a scene, and how blank verse or prose may be spoken to bring out the complexities of character definition, the book aims to bring insights to the dynamic of scenic construction in Shakespeare's work.;The author explores the different functions of minimal characters, from clearing the stage to epitomizing the overall effect of the comedy or tragedy, and discusses how they can extend the audience's knowledge of the social world of the play. She goes on to describe the entire corpus of minimal roles in a selection of six plays: "Richard III", "The Tempest", "King Lear", "Antony & Cleopatra", "Measure for Measure" and "Julius Caesar".;This edition has an appendix designed to aid directors in making decisions about the speaking parts of the minimal characters. It also includes an index of characters (including line references), as well as a detailed general index.

Blue Sky Body: Thresholds for Embodied Research is the follow-up to Ben Spatz's 2015 book What a Body Can Do, charting a course through more than twenty years of embodied, artistic, and scholarly research. Emerging from the confluence of theory and practice, this book combines full-length critical essays with a kaleidoscopic selection of fragments from journal entries, performance texts, and other unpublished materials to offer a series of entry points organized by seven keywords: city, song, movement, theater, sex, document, politics. Brimming with thoughtful and sometimes provocative takes on embodiment, technology, decoloniality, the university, and the politics of knowledge, the work shared here models the integration of artistic and embodied research with critical thought, opening new avenues for transformative action and experimentation. Invaluable to scholars and practitioners working through and beyond performance, Blue Sky Body is both an unconventional introduction to embodied research and a methodological intervention at the edges of contemporary theory.

This collection of Applied Improvisation stories and strategies draws back the curtain on an exciting, innovative, growing field of practice and research that is changing the way people lead, create, and collaborate. Applied Improvisation is the umbrella term widely used to denote the application of improvised theatre's theories, tenets, games, techniques, and exercises beyond conventional theatre spaces, to foster the growth and/or development of flexible structures, new mindsets, and a range of inter and intra-personal skills required in today's volatile and uncertain world. This edited collection offers one of the first surveys of the range of practice, featuring 12 in-depth case studies by leading Applied Improvisation practitioners and a foreword by Phelim McDermott and Lee Simpson. The contributors in this anthology are professional Applied Improvisation facilitators working in sectors as diverse as business, social science, theatre, education, law, and government. All have experienced the power of improvisation, have a driving need to share those experiences, and are united in the belief that improvisation can positively transform just about all human activity. Each contributor describes their practice, integrates feedback from clients, and includes a workbook component outlining some of the exercises used in their case study to give facilitators and students a model for their own application. This book will serve as a valuable resource for both experienced and new Applied Improvisation facilitators seeking to develop leaders and to build resilient communities, innovative teams, and vibrant organizations. For theatre practitioners, educators, and students, it opens up a new realm of practice and work.

The Elements of Theatrical Expression puts forward 14 essential elements that make up the basic building blocks of theatre. Is theatre a language? Does it have its own unique grammar? And if so, just what would the elements of such a grammar be? Brian Kulick asks readers to think of these elements as the rungs of a ladder, scaling one after the other to arrive at an aerial view of the theatrical landscape. From such a vantage point, one can begin to discern a line of development from the ancient Greeks, through Shakespeare and Chekhov, to a host of our own contemporary authors. He demonstrates how these elements may be transhistorical but are far from static, marking out a rich and dynamic theatrical language for a new generation of theatre makers to draw upon. Suitable for directors, actors, writers, dramaturges, and all audiences who yearn for a deeper understanding of theatre, The Elements of Theatrical Expression equips its readers with the knowledge that they need to see and hear theatre in new and more daring ways.

Anyone who is really serious about being an actor or teaching true acting techniques needs this book. Leading professionals believe it will be one of the best acting texts ever published. The author has performed on stage, film and TV opposite many of theatre's leading actors and actresses. In a step-by-step process, Carlton Colyer leads the actor in building a technique and then fully explains how to put that technique to work from basic exercises to multidimensional performances. More than fundamentals, this book covers the complete actor-training process from amateur to professional level. Two sections: PART 1: BUILDING A TECHNIQUE--Exercises, Creative Imagination, Personalization, Physicalization, Improvisation, Releasing Emotion and more. PART 2: PUTTING TECHNIQUE TO USE--Scene Classes, Building Roles in Different Dramatic Forms, Styles of Acting, Developing Characters, Getting a Part and much more.

The Michael Chekhov Handbook is a practical guide to Chekhov's supportive techniques for actors, fully updated with new exercises that examine the relationship between the sensations of the physical body and the imagination. Lenard Petit draws on 25 years of teaching experience to unlock and illuminate Michael Chekhov's philosophy, and offers guiding principles and effective tools that actors can apply in rehearsal and performance. The second edition focuses on the building blocks of drama and an exploration of the five senses as an expressive springboard, with a new section on the function of the Archetype in the Chekhov method. Theory and practice are treated here with clarity and simplicity. Dedicated to students and teachers of acting, The Michael Chekhov Handbook provides readers with the essential tools they need to put the rewarding principles of this technique into use.

A handbook for aspiring actors by two of the best-known names in the British theatre and television Written by two of the best-known actors in the country, this short book offers practical advice and do's and don'ts to anyone thinking of taking up acting. Both authors are passionate about actor training, know the profession inside out and, as they say in their intro, have more than a hundred years' experience between them Writing alternate paragraphs throughout the book - and frequently contradicting each other - they cover the whole gamut from * Applying to drama school * Auditioning * Training * Working in unpaid productions * Doing 'bits' on telly etc etc and on up to * Getting an agent and * Enduring a West End run - should you be so lucky. Published in slimline format (cf. NHB's Actions), this handy but pleasantly unstuffy manual is essential reading - or an essential gift -for any aspiring actor.

The Physical Actor is a comprehensive book of exercises for actors. It is carefully designed for the development of a strong and flexible physical body able to move with ease through space and interact instinctively on-stage. Annie Loui draws on her training with Etienne Decroux, Carolyn Carlson, and Jerzy Grotowski to bring Contact Improvisation into the theatrical sphere. She explains how it can be used to develop alert and embodied listening skills in the actor, and how to apply it to working with texts on stage. This book will guide the reader through a full course of movement skills, including: Partnering skills Spatial awareness for groups and individuals Fine motor control through mime Heightened co-ordination and sustained motion New for this edition are additional partnering exercises, in-depth applications of contact improvisation to monologues and scenes, and a chapter on devising physical theatre performances.

(Applause Acting Series). Lawrence Harbison has selected 100 terrific monologues for men-from contemporary plays, all by characters between the ages of 18 and 35 perfect for auditions or class. There are comic monologues (laughs) and dramatic monologues (no laughs). Most have a compelling present-tense action for actors to perform. A few are story monologues and they're great stories. Actors will find pieces by star playwrights such as Don Nigro, Itamar Moses, Stephen Adly Guirgis, and Terence McNally; by exciting up-and-comers such as Nicole Pandolfo, Peter Sinn Nachtrieb, Crystal Skillman, Greg Kalleres, Reina Hardy, and J. Thalia Cunningham; and information on getting the complete text of each play. This is a must-have resource in the arsenal of every aspiring actor hoping to knock 'em dead with his contemporary piece after bowling over teachers and casting directors alike with a classical excerpt.

(Limelight). "Basil Rathbone's book about himself...is better written than most books by or about actors and is more intellectually vigorous...Sherlock Holmes fans will be much interested in his remarks on the character with whom he has been so closely identified." Library Journal "Quite naturally full of memories, full of names, full of glimpses of stars of stage and screen of yesterday and today." New York Times Book Review

Advanced Consciousness Training for Actors: Meditation Techniques for the Performing Artist explores theories and techniques for deepening the individual actor's capacity to concentrate and focus attention. Going well beyond the common exercises found in actor training programs, these practices utilize consciousness expanding "technologies" derived from both Eastern and Western traditions of meditation and mindfulness training as well as more recent discoveries from the fields of psychology and neuroscience. This book reviews the scientific literature of consciousness studies and mindfulness research to discover techniques for focusing attention, expanding self-awareness, and increasing levels of mental concentration; all foundational skills of the performing artist in any medium.

When Harry Carey, Sr., died in 1947, director John Ford cast Carey's twenty-six-year-old son, Harry, Jr., in the role of The Abilene Kid in 3 Godfathers. Ford and the elder Carey had filmed an earlier version of the story, and Ford dedicated the Technicolor remake to his memory. Company of Heroes is the story of the making of that film, as well as the eight subsequent Ford classics. In it, Harry Carey, Jr., casts a remarkably observant eye on the process of filming Westerns by one of the true masters of the form. From She Wore a Yellow Ribbon and Wagonmaster to The Searchers and Cheyenne Autumn, he shows the care, tedium, challenge, and exhilaration of movie-making at its highest level. Carey's portrayal of John Ford at work is the most intimate ever written. He also gives us insightful and original portraits of the men and women who were part of Ford's vision of America: John Wayne, Richard Widmark, Henry Fonda, Maureen O'Hara, Ward Bond, Victor McLaglen, and Ben Johnson. Funny, insightful, and brutally honest, Company of Heroes is a rip-roaring good read that presents the remarkable life story of Harry Carey, Jr., and his many fine performances.

The Routledge Comedy Studies Reader is a selection of the most outstanding critical analysis featured in the journal Comedy Studies in the decade since its inception in 2010. The Reader illustrates the multiple perspectives that are available when analysing comedy. Wilkie's selections present an array of critical approaches from interdisciplinary scholars, all of whom evaluate comedy from different angles and adopt a range of writing styles to explore the phenomenon. Divided into eight unique parts, the Reader offers both breadth and depth with its wide range of interdisciplinary articles and international perspectives. Of interest to students, scholars, and lovers of comedy alike, The Routledge Comedy Studies Reader offers a contemporary sample of general analyses of comedy as a mode, form, and genre.

In (toward) a phenomenology of acting, Phillip Zarrilli considers acting as a 'question' to be explored in the studio and then reflected upon. This book is a vital response to Jerzy Grotowski's essential question: "How does the actor 'touch that which is untouchable?'" Phenomenology invites us to listen to "the things themselves", to be attentive to how we sensorially, kinesthetically, and affectively engage with acting as a phenomenon and process. Using detailed first-person accounts of acting across a variety of dramaturgies and performances from Beckett to newly co-created performances to realism, it provides an account of how we 'do' or practice phenomenology when training, performing, directing, or teaching. Zarrilli brings a wealth of international and intercultural experience as a director, performer, and teacher to this major new contribution both to the practices of acting and to how we can reflect in depth on those practices. An advanced study for actors, directors, and teachers of acting that is ideal for both the training/rehearsal studio and research, (toward) a phenomenology of acting is an exciting move forward in the philosophical understanding of acting as an embodied practice.

A step-by-step introduction to the key features of the Meisner Technique, including a full set of practical exercises. The Meisner Technique is at the forefront of actor training today: with its radical simplicity it has the power to reconnect actors with their bodies and emotions. Developed by the teacher and actor Sanford Meisner, the technique places emphasis on truthful interaction between actors. The aim is for the actor 'to live truthfully under imaginary circumstances' - to remain truly 'in the moment'. In Meisner in Practice, Nick Moseley offers actors a step-by-step introduction to the salient features of the technique, and puts these to the test through a succession of increasingly challenging practical exercises. He also addresses certain pitfalls and problems that he has encountered over many years of teaching Meisner in drama schools. This book will be of immense value to students, teachers and practitioners in exploring a technique that is becoming increasingly recognised as a core element of actor training.

THE GOOD AUDITION GUIDES: Helping you select and perform the audition piece that is best suited to your performing skills Each Good Audition Guide contains a range of fresh monologues, all prefaced with a summary of the vital information you need to place the piece in context and to perform it to maximum effect in your own unique way. Each volume also carries a user-friendly introduction on the whole process of auditioning. Shakespeare Monologues for Young Women contains forty monologues drawn from across the whole of Shakespeare's canon. Each speech comes with a neat summary of the vital information (the who, where and when of the speech), plus descriptions of what is happening, what to think about when preparing it, and a glossary. There is also a user-friendly introduction to selecting your speech, tackling Shakespeare's language and approaching the audition itself. 'Sound practical advice for anyone attending an audition' Teaching Drama Magazine on The Good Audition Guides

Acting for the Camera: Back to One is a "how to" book with practical steps to achieve a professional performance on camera. The book focuses on four distinct areas: how to prepare the character, how to execute the technical responsibilities that will assist the editor in creating the on-camera performance in post-production, tips from industry professionals, and how to create effective self-tape auditions. Part One: The Character's World is packed with tools to analyze the script and fully prepare the character before arriving on set. Part Two: The Actor's World focuses on developing technical acting skills for the camera that assist the pre- and post-production teams to create a dynamic on-screen performance. In Part Three: The Professional World, industry professionals provide tips from inside the film/TV audition room and how to navigate a career in the acting business. The final section, Part Four: Self-Tape Like a Pro, outlines how to build a self-tape studio in the privacy of your own home and submit high-quality self-tape auditions that will help you stand out from the competition. Written for students enrolled in Acting for the Camera courses, Acting for the Camera: Back to One explores techniques that can be practiced and mastered by actors of all levels, from the moment they audition for the part through to when they hear that director call "cut!"

THE GOOD AUDITION GUIDES: Helping you select and perform the audition piece that is best suited to your performing skills Each Good Audition Guide contains a range of fresh monologues, all prefaced with a summary of the vital information you need to place the piece in context and to perform it to maximum effect in your own unique way. Each volume also carries a user-friendly introduction on the whole process of auditioning. Classical Monologues for Men contains 50 monologues drawn from classical plays throughout the ages and ranging across all of Western Theatre: * Classical Greek and Roman * Elizabethan and Jacobean * French and Spanish Golden Age * Restoration and Eighteenth Century * Nineteenth and Early Twentieth Centuries Also available: Classical Monologues for Women

The essential, one-stop handbook for actors, with everything you need to survive and thrive, from the team behind the internationally successful Surviving Actors conventions. Being an actor is a vocation, but it's also a real-life job. Talent, determination and passion are vital, but will only get you so far. In addition to developing the craft of acting, actors have to remember that it is a career, and so the business side needs to be taken just as seriously. This manual covers the day-to-day essentials you need to succeed in the industry, with sections that cover: Establishing your personal brand and business plan Getting great headshots, showreels, voicereels and a website Dealing with agents, casting directors and auditions Developing your networking skills And managing your money Honest, straightforward, but also empowering, it will help you unlock your potential and focus on being the best, most employable - and, hopefully, successful - actor you can be. Compiled by the team at Surviving Actors, and drawing on a wide range of other experienced professionals, the Surviving Actors Manual is designed to help you develop and sustain your career and to create your own new opportunities. Felicity Jackson and Lianne Robertson both trained as actors. Together they run Surviving Actors, founded in 2009 to help and encourage other actors in all areas of their professional lives.

'Robert Cohen's book, Acting Power, follows the tradition of his other book, Acting One, and has been the veritable bible for acting teachers for the last quarter century.' - David Krasner, Emerson College 'This book, above all else, is an attempt to explore the qualities of acting power.... to suggest to you, the actor, an approach toward not merely good acting but powerful acting. Great actors display the power to frighten - and the power to seduce - and can shift between the one and the other like a violinist can her notes.' - From the Preface The first edition of Acting Power was a groundbreaking work of acting theory which applied sociological and psychological principles to actor training. The book went on to influence a generation of theatre and performance studies students and academics, and was translated into five languages. This carefully revised 21st Century Edition (re)considers, in the context of today's field: questions such as 'should actors act from the inside or the outside?' and 'should the actor live the role or present the role?'; contemporary research into communication theory, cybernetics, and cognitive science; brilliantly illuminating and witty exercises for solo study and classroom use, and a through-line of useful references to classic plays; penetrating observations about the actor's art by more than 75 distinguished professional actors and directors. Cohen's elegant and rigorous updates emphasise the continuing relevance of his uniquely integrated and life-affirming approach to this field. The new edition draws on his extraordinarily rich career as teacher, scholar, director, translator and dramaturg. It is a recipe for thrilling theatre in any genre.

Have you ever prepared a speech until you knew it by heart and then found out that, when the moment arrives, the surprise and uniqueness of hic et nunc are inevitable? No matter how much you prepare a text, it will need improvisation to be used on a stage or in the street. But, what is the limit between improvisation and technique, experience and training? Can we scientifically measure the improvisation of a text? This work aims to investigate in which dimension art meets science and how it happens. Artists need to discover new conceptual instruments that contribute to the probing of the laws of matter, social existence, and the human mind. The rigorous and fascinating trip that Anna Grazia Cafaro proposes to capture the sense, function, and nature of the actor's improvisation is a splendid and a unique example of a "new alliance" between art and science, predicted forty years ago by the scientist Ilya Prigogine and the philosopher Isabelle Stengers. Thanks to the application of Chaos Theory to the theatrical processes, attempted here for the first time, the actor and the performance are analyzed as "complex dynamic systems" like a cell, in which, paradoxically, chaos and order coexist and maintain the system in balance; the continuous passages from chaos to order, create the necessary tension and energy that allows the spectator to build his own meaning. Despite the complex theoretical concepts this book is written in an accessible language and includes clear examples that make it comprehensible to a wide audience. It is perfect for students of theater, practitioners, scholars, and anyone who is curious about communicative mechanisms. It can be used in theater, science, comparative literature, and philosophy departments.