Acting (Re)Considered is an exceptionally wide-ranging collection of theories on acting, ideas about body and training, and statements about the actor in performance. This second edition includes five new essays and has been fully revised and updated, with discussions by or about major figures who have shaped theories and practices of acting and performance from the late nineteenth century to the present.
The essays - by directors, historians, actor trainers and actors - bridge the gap between theories and practices of acting, and between East and West. No other book provides such a wealth of primary and secondary sources, bibliographic material, and diversity of approaches. It includes discussions of such key topics as:
* how we think and talk about acting
* acting and emotion
* the actor's psychophysical process
* the body and training
* the actor in performance
* non-Western and cross-cultural paradigms of the body, training and acting.
Acting (Re)Considered is vital reading for all those interested in performance.

The Actor Training Reader is an invaluable resource for students and teachers of acting, offering access to a wide range of key texts that identify, explore, illuminate and interrogate the challenges, practices and processes involved in training the modern actor. A companion volume to the highly-acclaimed Actor Training (Hodge 2010), this book collects key writings by influential actor training practitioners of the twentieth century, introduced with essays from leading academics in the field of actor training. Key practitioners included are: Eugenio Barba; Anne Bogart; Bertolt Brecht; Peter Brook; Michael Chekhov; and Konstantin Stanislavsky. The book sets established, widely used texts alongside less well-known ones in order to trace the development of actor training from the pioneering advances of Eastern Europe to the acting games of Augusto Boal. The texts are grouped into thematic sections rather than chronologically in order to encourage a comparison of different approaches to similar aspects of the craft. Each section will have a specially commissioned introductory essay by an expert in that area of actor training, which will bring context, critical engagement and contemporary relevance to the extracts and offer provocations for further discussion.

Contemporary actor training in the US and UK has become increasingly multicultural and multilinguistic. Border-crossing, cross-cultural exchange in contemporary theatre practices, and the rise of the intercultural actor has meant that actor training today has been shaped by multiple modes of training and differing worldviews. How might mainstream Anglo-American voice training for actors address the needs of students who bring multiple worldviews into the training studio? When several vocal training traditions are learned simultaneously, how does this shift the way actors think, talk, and perform? How does this change the way actors understand what a voice is? What it can/should do? How it can/should do it? Using adaptations of a traditional Korean vocal art, p'ansori, with adaptations of the "natural" or "free" voice approach, Tara McAllister-Viel offers an alternative approach to training actors' voices by (re)considering the materials of training: breath, sound, "presence," and text. This work contributes to ongoing discussions about the future of voice pedagogy in theatre, for those practitioners and scholars interested in performance studies, ethnomusicology, voice studies, and intercultural theories and practices.

Expressionism and Its Deformation in Contemporary Chinese Theatre provides both rigorous readings of dramatic works as well as a historical overview of Chinese theatre from the 1980s to the present. Expressionism becomes a discursive locus to be incorporated and even transformed during a critical phase in the modernization of Chinese drama during the post-Maoist era. Six leading Chinese dramatists (Gao Xingjian, Lin Zhaohua, Huang Zuolin, Xu Xiaozhong, Meng Jinghui, and Stan Lai) are clear representatives of opening up a new world of modern Chinese drama. They embody each of the major phases of the adoption, deformation, and multicultural infusion of Expressionism in the development of Chinese dramatic modernization. Approaching their dramatic works from multiple perspectives, including expressionist vision and techniques, comparative aesthetics, Bakhtinian chronotope and heteroglossia, semiotics, "psychic interiority", and concluding with Lu Xun's definition of Expressionism as "to write a good deal about yourself", Chinese dramatists' enthusiasm for Expressionism is not just an artistic rejoinder to the spiritual aspirations of life in a time of rapid industrialization and modernization but also a coming-to-terms with the ideological and aesthetic conflicts between different dramatic traditions. Expressionism and Its Deformation in Contemporary Chinese Theatre is the first scholarly book to explore the deep and intricate relationship between Expressionism and contemporary Chinese drama, attempting to assume the critical task of challenging these dramatists while delineating the contours of the most recent trends of Chinese theatre. This book could situate itself within the Chinese scholarly and theatrical contexts for English readers as it is an accessible text for both undergraduate students and graduates and scholars.

Konstantin Stanislavsky transformed theatre in the West and was indisputably one of the twentieth century's greatest innovators. His life and work mark some of the most significant artistic and political milestones of that tumultuous century, from the emancipation of the serfs to the Russian Revolution. Little wonder, then, that his correspondence contains gripping exchanges with the famous and infamous of his day: men such as Tolstoy, Chekhov, Trotsky and Stalin, among others. Laurence Senelick, one of the world's foremost scholars of Russian literature, mines the Moscow archives and the definitive Russian edition of Stanislavsky's letters, to produce the fullest collection of the letters in any language other than Russian. He sheds new light on this fascinating field. Senelick takes us from the earliest extant letter of an eleven-year-old Konstantin in 1874, through his work as actor, director and actor trainer with the Moscow Art Theatre, to messages written just before his death in 1938 at the age of seventy-five. We discover Stanislavsky as son, brother and father, as lover and husband, as businessman and "internal emigre." He is seen as a wealthy tourist and an impoverished touring actor, a privileged subject of the Tsar and a harried victim of the Bolsheviks. Senelick shares key insights into Stanislavsky's work on such important productions as The Seagull, The Cherry Orchard, Hamlet, Othello, and The Marriage of Figaro. The letters also reveal the steps that led up to the publication of his writings My Life in Art and An Actor's Work on Himself. This handsome edition is also comprehensively annotated and fully illustrated.

A 'how to' book for actors who want to develop a 'can do' attitude to their profession in the face of rejection and intense competition. Feeling despondent about the acting profession? Been out of work for longer than you care to remember? Starting to resent the injustices of the job and the success of other actors? If so, An Attitude for Acting will inspire you to break out of the cycle of despondency and start to view yourself as a creative and autonomous individual who is valuable and employable. The book focuses on: * Maintaining a healthy attitude * Dealing with negative emotions * Keeping productive and motivated * Developing self-belief and getting the support you need * Turning discouragement into activity and opportunity * Coping with nerves * Preparing for auditions * Being included and not feeling left out * Building a value system that includes trust, responsibility, flexibility, creativity, adaptability and courage The book, by theatre director/teacher Andrew Tidmarsh and executive coach/neuroscientist Dr Tara Swart, contains a series of intensely 'hands-on' exercises - some for practising alone, others for doing with friends or colleagues. These techniques will enable you to free yourself from potential states of inertia and hopelessness, and prevent any feelings of worthlessness becoming a self-fulfilling prophecy. Instead, you will develop a self-confident, 'can-do' mentality that will help you shape the career you want. Whether you've just completed your training and want to start your career with confidence or you've been acting a while and are having difficulty planning the next stage, this book will help you on your path to surviving - and thriving - as an actor.

This book is a complete improv curriculum program divided into twenty class-length workshops. Each workshop contains carefully selected exercises designed to help students focus on one aspect of a character's personality. Students learn how to create characters from their own imaginations through the use of solo and ensemble pantomime, physicalization, vocal techniques, props and more. Gestures, facial expressions, voice and body language are studied in isolation. Many ensemble sketches are included, along with a final improv sketch with enough "roles" for all members of a large class. Also includes class syllabus and guidelines, character outline sheet to duplicate, character examples, and a recommended reading list. Sample workshops include: Improvisation, Character Development, Physicalization, Vocal Techniques, Pantomime, Entrances and Exits, Gibberish, Animals, Fantasy, Conflict, Commedia dell'Arte. Final: Wedding Improv.

Actioning - and How to Do It is the indispensable companion to a vital component in every actor's toolkit. Actioning is one of the most widely used rehearsal techniques for actors. It helps bring clarity to every moment or thought in the text, energising rehearsals and bringing performances to life. Actioning will enable you to discover and unlock newfound energy, range, variety and clarity of body and voice, by: Interrogating the text and making initial action verb choices Playing your chosen actions, both verbally and physically Maintaining an imaginative and emotional connection with each moment Signposting each thought to your scene partner From the publishers of the internationally successful Actions: The Actors' Thesaurus, this is the first in-depth exploration of Actioning for student actors, those who train them, and professionals working in the industry, whether they're brand new to the technique or have been practising it for years. This step-by-step guide draws on concepts from Stanislavsky, using sample scenes from classic plays such as The Seagull and The Importance of Being Earnest, as well as contemporary pieces, and is filled with exercises to demonstrate the technique at work.

"The Art of Clowning" is the first book on clowning technique and offers a step-by-step process for actors and other theatrical enthusiasts to discover their "inner clown." This fun and accessible guide expands on theories and exercises to help students and beginners develop solo and group performances. Using twenty years of teaching experience, Simon reveals a complete system of clowning that is a must-have for amateurs and experts alike. Now with even MORE ways to find your inner clown!

"Acting is a reflex, a mechanism for development and survival. . . . It isn't 'second nature, ' it is 'first nature.'"--Declan Donnellan
This immensely popular and ever-practical book on acting takes a scalpel to the heart of actors' persistent fears, helping them to release their talent on stage. It is straightforward and unpretentious, with a spirit of artistic and personal freedom.

This comprehensive collection provides theoretical accounts of the grounds and phenomenon of film acting. The volume features entries by some of the most prominent scholars on film acting who collectively represent the various theoretical traditions that constitute the discipline of film studies. Each section proposes novel ways of considering the recurring motifs in academic enquiries into film acting, including: (1) the mutually contingent problematic of description and interpretation, (2) the intricacies of bodily dynamics and their reception by audiences, (3) the significance of star performance, and (4) the impact of evolving technologies and film styles on acting traditions.

Russian theater director Vsevolod Meyerhold designed Biomechanics--a system of actor training--shortly after the Russian Revolution. Although not always understood, it received wide attention during the twenties and thirties as a result of Meyerhold's unique position as the foremost Soviet avant-garde director. Meyerhold had students that both perfected and challenged his theories and regime in actor training--one was the great Russian film director Sergei Eisenstein. Gathered from private Moscow archives, this is the first book-length study of Meyerhold's stylized training method in practical detail, as well as Eisenstein's theoretical analysis of Biomechanics. The book is divided into four parts. Part I traces the history of Biomechanics in relation to Meyerhold's and Eisenstein's aesthetic development. Part II is made up of documentary materials: the theoretical foundations of Biomechanics and Expressive Movement, with descriptions of the basic biomechanical exercises and etudes. Part III consists of descriptive accounts and interviews by British and American journalists and theatre practitioners. In Part IV are a glossary of biomechanical terminology, notes, bibliographical information, and the index.

'Every day, thousands of women enter acting classes where most of them will receive some variation on the Stanislavsky-based training that has now been taught in the U.S. for nearly ninety years. Yet relatively little feminist consideration has been given to the experience of the student actress: What happens to women in Method actor training?'

An Actress Prepares is the first book to interrogate Method acting from a specifically feminist perspective. Rose Malague addresses "the Method" not only with much-needed critical distance, but also the crucial insider's view of a trained actor. Case studies examine the preeminent American teachers who popularized and transformed elements of Stanislavsky s System within the U.S. Strasberg, Adler, Meisner, and Hagen by analyzing and comparing their related but distinctly different approaches.

This book confronts the sexism that still exists in actor training and exposes the gender biases embedded within the Method itself. Its in-depth examination of these Stanislavskian techniques seeks to reclaim Method acting from its patriarchal practices and to empower women who act.

'I've been waiting for someone to write this book for years: a thorough-going analysis and reconsideration of American approaches to Stanislavsky from a feminist perspective ... lively, intelligent, and engaging.' Phillip Zarrilli, University of Exeter

'Theatre people of any gender will be transformed by Rose Malague s eye-opening study An Actress Prepares... This book will be useful to all scholars and practitioners determined to make gender equity central to how they hone their craft and their thinking.' Jill Dolan, Princeton University

Drawing from early modern plays and treatises on the precepts and practices of the acting process, this study shows how the early modern Spanish actress subscribed to various somatic practices in an effort to prepare for a role. It provides today's reader not only another perspective to the performance aspect of early modern plays, but also a better understanding of how the woman of the theater succeeded in a highly scrutinized profession. Elizabeth Marie Cruz Petersen examines examples of comedias from playwrights such as Lope de Vega, Luis Velez de Guevara, Tirso de Molina, and Ana Caro, historical documents, and treatises to demonstrate that the women of the stage transformed their bodies and their social and cultural environment in order to succeed in early modern Spanish theater. Women's Somatic Training in Early Modern Spanish Theater is the first full-length, in-depth study of women actors in seventeenth-century Spain. Unique in the field of comedia studies, it approaches the topic from a performance perspective, using somaesthetics as a tool to explain how an artist's lived experiences and emotions unite in the interpretation of art, reconfiguring her "self" via the transformation of habit.

From Komisarjevsky in the 1920s, to Cheek by Jowl 's Russian sister company almost a century later, Russian actor training has had a unique influence on modern British theatre. Russians in Britain, edited by Jonathan Pitches, is the first work of its type to identify a relationship between both countries theatrical traditions as continuous as it is complex.

Unravelling new strands of transmission and translation linking the great Russian migr practitioners to the second and third generation artists who responded to their ideas, Russians in Britain takes in:

• Komisarjevsky and the British theatre establishment.
• Stanislavsky in the British conservatoire.
• Meyerhold in the academy.
• Michael Chekhov in the private studio.
• Littlewood 's Theatre Workshop and the Northern Stage Ensemble.
• Katie Mitchell, Declan Donnellan and Michael Boyd.

Charting a hitherto untold story with historical and contemporary implications, these nine essays present a compelling alternative history of theatrical practice in the UK.

This book addresses the historical, social, colonial, and administrative contexts that determine today's U.S. actor training, as well as matters of identity politics, access, and marginalization as they emerge in classrooms and rehearsal halls. It considers persistent, questioning voices about our nationa (TM)s acting training as it stands, thereby contributing to the national dialogue the diverse perspectives and proposals needed to keep American actor training dynamic and germane, both within the U.S. and abroad. Prominent academics and artists view actor training through a political, cultural or ethical lens, tackling fraught topics about power as it plays out in acting curricula and classrooms. The essays in this volume offer a survey of trends in thinking on actor training and investigate the way American theatre expresses our national identity through the globalization of arts education policy and in the politics of our curriculum decisions.

Exercises for Embodied Actors: Tools for Physical Actioning builds on the vocabulary of simple action verbs to generate an entire set of practical tools from first read to performance that harnesses modern knowledge about the integration of the mind and the rest of the body. Including over 50 innovative exercises, the book leads actors through a rigorous examination of their own habits, links those discoveries to creating characters, and offers dozens of exercises to explore in classrooms and with ensembles. The result is a modern toolkit that empowers actors to start from their own unique selves and delivers specific techniques to apply on stage and in front of the camera. This step-by-step guide can be used by actors working individually or by teachers crafting the arc of a course, ensuring that students explore in physically engaged and dynamic ways at every step of their process.

What do Halle Berry, Jamie Kennedy, Keanu Reeves, Sean Penn, Dustin Hoffman and Robert DeNiro have in common? They were all coached by or participated in seminars with D. W. Brown master acting teacher. The definitive nature of this book and its extensive compendium of reference information make it an invaluable manual every actor should keep close at hand.

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 book presents truthful human behaviour on stage and screen. It is definitely not a 'how-to' book! This book articulates the intangible - how to capture lightning in a jar. It works to develop awareness in order to help the aspiring actor evolve, grow and mature as a performer. Acting is an art that comes from oneself - no tricks, no special techniques. Every great artist begins as a craftsman then develops into an artist. Each of the 100 plain-speaking lessons in this book is brief and deals with an essential truth. The book is divided into 5 sections: Approach, Fundamentals, Classes and Rehearsals, Performance, and Final Lessons. This is a supplemental work for students and professionals.

From its original publication, thousands of actors have used this classic text to develop and refine their voice and speech. Evangeline Machlin includes warm-up routines for the voice but initially focuses on the importance of listening. She also discusses such important elements as relaxation, phonetics, articulation, resonance, pitch, rate of speech and stress. In addition, there are chapters on dialects, on reading aloud, sight reading, auditioning and performance.

The study of theatre is of great value to psychologists because it is a vital part of life. This thoroughly revised and updated second edition provides a unique and up--to--date analysis of what psychology has to offer for actors, musicians, singers and dancers. It makes suggestions about how the particular stresses that performers are under can be managed. Newly provided examples, or Spotlights, give focused explanations of interesting topics that are self--contained within the text. Drawing on numerous practical examples from the arts as well as scientific and clinical research, this book has proven to be an invaluable resource for student, professional and amateur alike. Modern psychology has much to offer performing artists in terms of understanding themselves and optimizing their art: it examines the unique two--way relationship between audience and performer, describes the way in which emotions are communicated to an audience by non--verbal processes such as posture and facial expression, and explains the instinctual origins of the impulse to perform. Dr Glenn Wilson PhD, FBPS, CPsychol is Senior Lecturer in Psychology at the Institute of Psychiatry, University of London, and has previously held visiting professorships at Stanford University, San Francisco State and the University of Nevada, Reno. He trained as a baritone at the Guildhall School of Music, and now is an established stage director and opera singer who makes frequent appearances on British TV. He has published several papers on psychology as applied to the performing arts, and in London in 1990 and 1993 organized the first and second international conferences on Psychology and the Performing Arts.

Harriet Walter's wonderfully practical - and personal - introduction to acting. 'Acting is what I do with who I am', writes Harriet Walter. And in this book she takes us step by step through the processes involved in performance. Each step of the way is illuminated with brilliantly precise examples from her own career. So we are introduced to the Workshop, the Rehearsal, and the Roots and Pathways into a role. Then follows the main meat of the book: six Keys to the Development and Exploration of character. The closing section deals with Performance on stage and screen. Every insight, every suggestion is firmly rooted in the author's own experience. Harriet Walter's book is full of unparalleled insights into the everyday working life of an actor, and into quite how much hard work is needed before they can convincingly put themselves in other people's shoes. 'My advice to a young actor: read this book' Richard Eyre

Andy Nyman's first book, The Golden Rules of Acting, has become a bestseller in the acting world. Now he returns to bring you more priceless nuggets gleaned from more than thirty years in the acting business. This book will help you to... Learn to love auditions and self-tapes (yes, really!) Look after your mental health Deal with success and failure Burst a few bubbles that need bursting Written with the same candid wit as his first book, this is every actor's new best friend - in handy paperback form. 'With great humour, wisdom and panache, Andy Nyman presents tasty advice for any actor. He knows that the more rules and craft under your belt, the more daring and original you will be as an artist' Glenn Close 'As with the first volume, this book gets to the heart of what being a working actor is about. No faff, no mystery, just practicalities that are always worth being reminded of' Martin Freeman 'One man shouldn't be so wise and entertaining, but Andy Nyman somehow is. His latest Golden Rules are exactly that - and wild fun, to boot. I recommend this book not just to actors, but to anyone who has ever seen an actor act. Nyman's insights apply to us all' J.J. Abrams

Intercultural Acting and Performer Training is the first collection of essays from a diverse, international group of authors and practitioners focusing on intercultural acting and voice practices worldwide. This unique book invites performers and teachers of acting and performance to explore, describe, and interrogate the complexities of intercultural acting and actor/performer training taking place in our twenty-first century, globalized world. As global contexts become multi-, inter- and intra-cultural, assumptions about what acting "is" and what actor/performer training should be continue to be shaped by conventional modes, models, techniques and structures. This book examines how our understanding of interculturalism changes when we shift our focus from the obvious and highly visible aspects of production to the micro-level of training grounds, studios, and rehearsal rooms, where new forms of hybrid performance are emerging. Ideal for students, scholars and practitioners, Intercultural Acting and Performer Training offers a series of accessible and highly readable essays which reflect on acting and training processes through the lens offered by "new" forms of intercultural thought and practice.