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critical essays with a kaleidoscopic selection of fragments from journal entries, performance texts, and other unpublished materials to offer a series of entry points organized by seven keywords: city, song, movement, theater, sex, document, politics.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.

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

A semester-long curriculum guide using improv games to teach basic drama skills. If used with Improv Ideas by the same authors, there are enough games and ideas to provide for more than a year's work. Select from more than 134 games! It's adaptable to all age groups - from beginners to experts. The lessons are structured sequentially with emphasis on group building. It's designed to teach holistically. Students are unaware they are being taught many new skills with every lesson. This curriculum is the culmination of many years of evolution and testing.

The Lee Strasberg Notes reproduces the original teachings of a unique voice in actor training, for the very first time. It is a stunning document in the history and ongoing practice of Strasberg 's Method.

Compiled and edited by Lola Cohen, the book is based on unpublished transcripts of Strasberg 's own classes on acting, directing and Shakespeare. It recreates his theoretical approach, as well as the practical exercises used by his students, and brilliantly conveys his approach and personality.

The book features Strasberg 's teachings on:

Training and exercises

Characters and scenes

Directing and the Method

Shakespeare and Stanislavski

The theater, acting and actors.

Including a Preface by Anna Strasberg and a Foreword by Martin Sheen, this illuminating book brings the reader closer to Strasberg 's own methods than any other, making it a phenomenal resource for students, actors, and directors.

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.

John Astington brings the acting style of the Shakespearean period to life, describing and analysing the art of the player in the English professional theatre between Richard Tarlton and Thomas Betterton. The book pays close attention to the cultural context of stage playing, the critical language used about it, and the kinds of training and professional practice employed in the theatre at various times over the course of roughly one hundred years - 1558-1660. Perfect for courses, this survey takes into account recent discoveries about actors and their social networks, about apprenticeship and company affiliations, and about playing outside the major centre of theatre, London. Astington considers the educational tradition of playing, in schools, universities, legal inns, and choral communities, in comparison to the work of the professional players. A comprehensive biographical dictionary of all major professional players of the Shakespearean period is included as a handy reference guide.

Whether you're applying for drama school, taking an exam, or auditioning for a professional role, it's likely you'll be required to perform one or more monologues, including a piece from a contemporary play. It's vital to come up with something fresh that's suited both to you - in order to allow you to express who you are as a performer - and to the specific purposes of the audition. In this book, you'll find forty fantastic speeches featuring male roles, all written and premiered since the year 2014, by some of today's most exciting dramatic voices from the UK and USA. Playwrights include Annie Baker, Andrew Bovell, Jez Butterworth, Caryl Churchill, Mark Gatiss, Branden Jacobs-Jenkins, Anna Jordan, Arinze Kene, Rona Munro and Evan Placey. The plays featured were premiered at leading venues including the National, the Royal Court, the Bush and Hampstead in London, prestigious theatres in Birmingham, Cardiff, Edinburgh and Manchester, and by renowned companies including Frantic Assembly and Paines Plough. Drawing on her experience as an actor, director and teacher at several leading drama schools, Trilby James introduces each speech with a user-friendly, bullet-point list of essential things you need to know about the character, and then five inspiring ideas to help you perform the monologue. This book also features a step-by-step guide to the process of selecting and preparing your speech, and approaching the audition itself. 'Easy-to-use... The guidance is perhaps the most thorough I have seen in a monologue book' Teaching Drama on Trilby James's first volume of Contemporary Monologues Please note that some of the speeches in this volume contain strong language and themes which some readers may find inappropriate.

Studying the careers of popular actors Amedeo Nazzari and Alberto Sordi, Acting Across Borders explores the question of how Italian cinema from the 1930s to 1980s has considered human mobility. Through close readings of a selection of films, Alberto Zambenedetti examines the concept of italianita (Italian-ness) as manifested in contexts related to migration, diaspora, exile, tourism, travel and their supporting infrastructures. In this wide-ranging study, the methodologies of Film Studies and the Mobilities Framework are combined to illuminate an undertheorised yet vital tradition in the history of the national cinema.

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.

'I wish I had copies like this at Drama School. Essential notes on the language for those who will get up and speak it, not purely for those who will sit and study it. An incredibly useful tool with room on every page to make notes. Next time I'm in rehearsal on a Shakespeare play, I have no doubt that a copy from this series will be in my hand.' ADRIAN LESTER, Actor, Director and Writer Arden Performance Editions are ideal for anyone engaging with a Shakespeare play in performance. With clear facing-page notes giving definitions of words, easily accessible information about key textual variants, lineation, metrical ambiguities and pronunciation, each edition has been developed to open the play's possibilities and meanings to actors and students. Each edition offers: -Facing-page notes -Short, clear definitions of words -Easily accessible information about key textual variants -Notes on pronunciation of difficult names and unfamiliar words -An easy to read layout -Space to write notes -A short introduction to the play

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.

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.

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.

Time and Performer Training addresses the importance and centrality of time and temporality to the practices, processes and conceptual thinking of performer training. Notions of time are embedded in almost every aspect of performer training, and so contributors to this book look at: age/aging and children in the training context how training impacts over a lifetime the duration of training and the impact of training regimes over time concepts of timing and the 'right' time how time is viewed from a range of international training perspectives collectives, ensembles and fashions in training, their decay or endurance. Through focusing on time and the temporal in performer training, this book offers innovative ways of integrating research into studio practices. It also steps out beyond the more traditional places of training to open up time in relation to contested training practices that take place online, in festival spaces and in folk or amateur practices. Ideal for both instructors and students, each section of this well-illustrated book follows a thematic structure and includes full-length chapters alongside shorter provocations. Featuring contributions from an international range of authors who draw on their backgrounds as artists, scholars and teachers, Time and Performer Training is a major step in our understanding of how time affects the preparation for performance.

Building on her fundamental texts The Art of Acting and The Art of Speech, Dawn Langman shows how the great dramas of Western heritage illuminate the evolution of human consciousness - from the past and into the future - thus providing a context in which actors can consciously evolve their art. Having laid her foundation by exploring the Eleusis Mysteries - the seed point of Western drama - she moves to the end of the nineteenth century, when drama and performance practice prepared for its next great evolutionary leap. She explores the connection of this leap to the evolutionary threshold facing human beings at the end of what occult history calls Kali Yuga. Weaving back and forth between future, past and present - guided by the great cyclic themes of human soul and spiritual development - Langman shows how the inspiration of our greatest artists springs from a source of knowing that encompasses the high calling of the human being to mature beyond its biological inheritance, and to become a conscious co-creator with the macrocosmic powers that serve the evolution of the universe. In doing so, she clarifies the specific function drama has in our contemporary development within the spectrum of the arts.

Drawing on his lifetime career in front of the camera (and sometimes behind it), Denis Lawson offers a wonderfully accessible introduction to acting for film and TV. For the young actor hoping to break into the industry - whether in a drama series, soap or sitcom - this book is the ultimate insider's guide. In The Actor and the Camera, Denis Lawson takes us on a guided tour of the film or TV set from day one. We meet the various members of the crew, from the director of photography to the 1st, 2nd and 3rd ADs, and learn what each of them does - and how to get the most from them in your work as an actor. Then comes the actual business of shooting the scenes, beginning with readthroughs and rehearsals (if there are any), on to hitting your mark and getting your eye-line right, finishing with the actor's involvement in post-production. Throughout, Lawson takes the actor's point of view, offering encouragement and enlightenment, as well as being refreshingly candid about some of the more inane procedures. Above all, he offers a magnificent array of tips and inside knowledge for coping with what can be a daunting experience for a hopeful young actor. 'Denis is a great actor and he's always been my inspiration, since I was a child... He's the only person really in the world who I discuss acting with if I feel that I'm stuck. I love watching him still.' Ewan McGregor

Auditioning for Musical Theatre demystifies the process of giving the best possible professional audition for a role in a musical. It is the result of Denny Berry's own experience, sitting "behind the audition desk" for 30 years of professional Broadway auditions, as well as teaching newcomers and coaching established actors. The book coaches performers on how to be their best selves-and avoid the pitfalls of nerves and poor preparation. To do so, it offers: An in-depth, practical approach to a professional audition that gives readers detailed suggestions about how to identify their vocal strengths, choose the material most suited to it, and present the entirety of their "product" with confidence. Rules to guide the actor through the audition process, along with sample homework assignments. A comprehensive list of musical material, genres, and commonly-referred-to categories of songs designed to help auditioners select the right material for any given audition. The book is intended for the talented newcomer as well as the experienced actor who wants to deliver a more effective audition. Ultimately, Auditioning for Musical Theatre takes the reader through the parts of auditioning that they can control, and helps them tailor every situation to show their individual best.

A treasure trove of drama games and exercises, House of Games has proved itself an immensely valuable resource for teachers, theatre directors and drama workshop leaders. Following on from Keith Johnstone's famous Impro and Augusto Boal's Games for Actors and Non-Actors, Chris Johnston's book provides ideas and guidance for drama groups of all kinds.

Why are so many women still not properly listened to? Why do they sometimes feel that they're less interesting than they are? Why do they often rush when they speak? Why do some women feel the pressure to sound like little girls? From one of the world's leading experts on the voice comes this call to arms for women to reclaim their voices. Using elements of experience and practice from her prolific career, Patsy Rodenburg examines these questions, and many more, to decipher what lies at the heart of female empowerment. From the age of four, Rodenburg knew that she found communication difficult. Her struggle with her own voice set her on the journey that led her to discover her vocation. She has spent her life re-finding and re-empowering voices, particularly the lost voices of women. Watching her highly intelligent working-class mother and grandmother ignored and often silenced gave her the insight to investigate why that was and how to help women overcome this centuries-old issue. With warmth and humour, Rodenburg interrogates Shakespeare's texts and his presentation of female characters; develops the notion of rhetoric in relation to the female voice; and applies concepts explored in her previous books, including The Three Circles of Energy. And, perhaps most crucially, through arguing that power and voice are directly linked to breath, Rodenburg makes the case that Western society's oppression of women has diminished their natural ability to breathe. Exploring the female voice through practical exercises and stories from the front line, as well as profoundly personal and formative experiences from her own life, Rodenburg defines the art of accessing the voice within and reclaiming the woman's right to speak.

'Adrian Noble vigorously highlights the extraordinary rhythmic, linguistic patterns Shakespeare gives the speaker. Any actor will find this book invaluable. For any student of Shakespeare it should be essential.' (From the Foreword by Ralph Fiennes)

'How can I bring the text alive, make it vivid, how do I make people hear it for the first time? How can I enter into that world and not feel a stranger. How can I not feel clumsy and inept? ... How can I speak it without sounding artificial or "actory"? In other words, how can I make it real ...?'

Adrian Noble has worked on Shakespeare with everyone from oscar-nominated actors to groups of schoolchildren. Here he draws on several decades of top-level directing experience to shed new light on how to bring some of theatre s seminal texts to life.

He shows you how to approach the perennial issues of performing Shakespeare, including:

• wordplay using colour and playing plain, wit and comedy, making language muscular
• building a character different strategies, using the text, Stanislavski and Shakespeare
• shape and structure headlining a speech, playing soliloquys, determining a speech s purpose and letting the verse empower you
• dialogue building tension, sharing responsibility and passing the ball .

This guided tour of Shakespeare s complex but unfailingly rewarding work stunningly combines instruction and inspiration.

This book contains the proceedings of a symposium that took place in Melbourne in September 2006. Its focus is on theatre at the intersection of culture and politics during and after German reunification and the evolution of the Berlin Republic. The book considers how canonical and new theatrical works, including those performed at the renowned former East German theatres - the Deutsches Theater, the Volksbuhne and the Berliner Ensemble - resonated with reunification. Topics include the dynamics of theatrical performance, the emergent performative identities, the new alliances between theatre and the world, the re-engagement with history and the shifting perspectives of nationalism, transnationalisation and globalisation. These matters acquire renewed focus with the approach of the twentieth anniversary of the fall of the wall in 2009. The book is the first to offer English-speaking readers a collection of essays on the key theatrical productions of this dynamic period of cultural and political change. Underlying the collection is a reaffirmation of the continuing relevance of theatre to events in the public sphere.

A comprehensive guide to winning by enhancing acting skills by Roger Ellis. This text is not a typical shake-and-bake manual of quickie tips on how to do a good audition. No other book puts auditioning in the context of acting training. The nuts and bolts are all here, but this book will do much more. It will develop audition and acting skills in a systematic way over time, throughout the actor's study and career. This book is first and foremost an acting text. It shows auditioning as another kind of acting performance, not a technical exercise or desperate attempt to highlight every skill or talent the actor possesses. It is a step-by-step guide for training young actors to audition well by developing acting skills. Includes more than sixty relevant acting exercises or 'explorations', as well as fourteen sample audition pieces from contemporary playwrights and a wealth of other resource material. An all-encompassing audition text.

Acting & Auditioning for the 21st Century covers acting and auditioning in relation to new media, blue and green screen technology, motion capture, web series, audiobook work, evolving livestreamed web series, and international acting and audio work. Readers are given a methodology for changing artistic technology and the global acting market, with chapters covering auditions of all kinds, contracts, the impact of new technology and issues relating to disabled actors, actors of colour and actors that are part of the LGBTQIA community.