One of the country's top voice-over talents shares his secrets of success in an insider's guide to the industry. Actors, broadcasters, and anyone who has longed to earn a living by speaking into a microphone will cherish this insightful and often hilarious glimpse at the business. Coverage includes: Identifying natural talent Training a voice to make it commercially viable Gaining experience in smaller markets Making a demo CD Auditioning effectively Locating and signing with an agent Joining the appropriate unions Negotiating contracts Self-promoting to maximize exposure Reflecting the quantum change that has occurred in the way voice-overs are recorded and cast in recent years, the updated Second Edition describes the advantages and disadvantages of auditioning and recording from home studios for clients around the world. This indispensable guide also addresses finding work in venues outside film and television, such as games, automated telephone systems, and websites. Aspiring and established voice-over actors will savor the behind-the-scenes details that show what actually happens during a voice-over recording session. Through it all, the author pairs performance tips with an expanded personal account of the crazed clients, practical jokes, and coincidences encountered on the long journey to success. Allworth Press, an imprint of Skyhorse Publishing, publishes a broad range of books on the visual and performing arts, with emphasis on the business of art. Our titles cover subjects such as graphic design, theater, branding, fine art, photography, interior design, writing, acting, film, how to start careers, business and legal forms, business practices, and more. While we don't aspire to publish a New York Times bestseller or a national bestseller, we are deeply committed to quality books that help creative professionals succeed and thrive. We often publish in areas overlooked by other publishers and welcome the author whose expertise can help our audience of readers.

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 Men 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

The core goal of Directing Screen Performances is to teach aspiring directors how to prepare and work with actors. Through a practical exploration of the major approaches to contemporary screen acting, you will learn how to formulate your own effective modes of communication to craft compelling performances. Directing performances for the screen starts well before the actor is cast and finishes well after the last slate is shot. In this book you will learn how to analyze a script, brief the casting director, rehearse the actors, decide on the visual treatment that enriches their performances, direct effectively on set and finesse the character in the edit. The director's process is clearly defined and augmented with illustrations, photographs and graphics, and each chapter concludes with practical exercises to consolidate the new knowledge.

An inspiring and interactive workbook to help you develop skills for longform improvisation, by one of the UK's top improv performers and teachers. Structured as a twelve-week course, this book provides techniques, advice and exercises that can be done on your own or in groups - with activities to complete as you go - for learning faster and becoming (more) amazing at improvisation. It draws on the author's own experience of performing and teaching improv around the world, with added gems of wisdom from key experts. Starting with the basics of improvisation, it moves on to explore areas of the craft such as rehearsals, character, editing, form and style; plus career advice including how to cope with bad gigs, jealousy, fear of missing out and your Inner Critic. The Improviser's Way is ideal for improvisers at any level - from those new to improv entirely, through those familiar with shortform who are looking to extend their reach, to experienced longform performers and teachers looking to refresh their approach and embrace new ideas. It is also invaluable to anyone looking to discover more about this popular, thrillingly creative and empowering form of performance. By the end, you won't just be a better improviser - you'll be a better person!

Konstantin Stanislavsky, the Russian director and actor and co-founder, in 1898, of the Moscow Art Theatre, was the originator of the most influential system of acting in the history of western theatre. Many of Stanislavsky's concepts are widespread in popular thought on acting; this 2008 book offers a evaluation of the basis of his ideas, discussing whether the system has survived because Stanislavsky made discoveries about acting that are and always have been scientifically verifiable, or whether his methods work on a practical basis despite an outdated theory. Drawing on information that has become available in recent years in Russia, the book examines how the development of Stanislavsky's system was influenced by scientific discoveries in his lifetime, and compares Stanislavsky's methods with those of Evgeny Vakhtangov, Michael Chekhov and Vsevolod Meyerhold. A full understanding of these ideas is crucial for anyone interested in acting and actor-training today.

The Actor's Survival Kit is required reading in Canadian theatre schools and is a constant resource for its many readers across the country. This fifth edition gives actors fresh research from today's experience, new lists of Canada-wide contacts, and input from success stories. It speaks to a new generation of artists, giving them an up-to-date guide to the business of acting. The book addresses a range of new issues: performer websites, video self-production, and sending rmand networking on the Internet. It also takes a fresh look at old ones: agents, self-promotion, and work opportunities for women and minorities. The authors learn by constantly talking to emerging artists about the problems they face in the business in Canada. Often those conversations begin with, "You wrote the book!" The authors are still receiving thanks from grateful artists who have been guided by this irreplaceable book over the years.

This 2002 book explores the commedia dell'arte: the Italian professional theatre in Shakespeare's time. The actors of this theatre usually did not perform from scripted drama but improvised their performances from a shared plot and thorough knowledge of individual character roles. Robert Henke closely considers commedia dell'arte texts to demonstrate how the spoken word and written literature were fruitfully combined in performance. Henke examines a number of primary sources including performance accounts, actors' contracts, letters, popular poems, memorials of deceased actors, scenarios, and printed plays, among other documents. Henke analyzes the character system in the commedia dell'arte, individual roles, Venetian buffoni, and provides detailed case studies of early actors and actresses. While previous studies have concentrated on either the oral or the literary aspects of commedia dell'arte, this was the first book to consider how these two elements might have worked together to create this rich and fascinating theatre.

The culmination of an innovative practice research project, Michael Chekhov in the Twenty-First Century: New Pathways draws on historical writings and archival materials to investigate how Chekhov's technique can be used across the disciplines of contemporary performance and applied practice. In contrast to the narrow, actor training-only analysis that dominated 20th-century explorations of the technique, authors Cass Fleming and Tom Cornford, along with contributors Caoimhe McAvinchey, Roanna Mitchell, Daron Oram and Sinead Rushe, focus on devising, directing and collective creation, dramaturgy and collaborative playwriting, scenography, voice, movement and dance, as well as socially engaged and therapeutic practices, all of which are at the forefront of international theatre-making. The book collectively offers a thorough and fascinating investigation into new uses of Michael Chekhov's technique, providing practical strategies and principles alongside theoretical discussion.

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.

The Oxford Companion to Theatre and Performance is based on the celebrated Oxford Encyclopedia of Theatre and Performance, and covers styles and movements, buildings, organizations, regions and traditions; it has a particularly strong focus on biographies of actors, playwrights, directors, and designers. New entries cover the people and companies who have come into prominence since the publication of the Encyclopedia. The Companion includes all the most popular and accessible information from the Encyclopedia, concentrating primarily on the personalities involved in producing threatre, as well as overviews of the genres within which they work. It has 2,400 entries presented in a far more compact and portable format. The timeline of historical and cultural events in the world of theatre and performance has been significantly updated, along with the extensive bibliography, and an appendix of useful weblinks has been added, which is supported and accessible through a companion website. The Companion provides an informative and accessible package aimed at both the theatre-going public as at specialists and professionals in the field.

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.

A practical handbook for those wanting to use drama and theatre to explore personal and social issues in their work with young people, Making a Leap Theatre for Empowerment has developed from ten years of active research in community settings. The authors' holistic approach to theatre-making draws on a range of disciplines, including theatre in education, community theatre, youth work, group work and conflict resolution. Suitable for use by both experienced theatre practitioners and beginners, the book provides a model that is adaptable for work with diverse groups of young people over different timescales a day, a week, or a period of months. Making a Leap Theatre for Empowerment is a flexible resource for all professionals working with drama and young people.

"Generations of actors joining the RSC have benefited from John Barton's teaching" Trevor Nunn "One of the sanest, wisest and most practical volumes I have ever read about Shakespeare" Michael Billington John Barton is Advisory Director at the Royal Shakespeare Company and has directed some of the greatest Shakespeare productions of our time. His book, Playing Shakespeare, is a transcript of his televised workshops with some of our finest Shakespearean actors: Peggy Ashcroft, Judi Dench, Ian McKellen, Ben Kingsley, Patrick Stewart and David Suchet. "What the programmes and published text reveal, is the method and principle approach of acting Shakespeare which has been fundamental to the Royal Shakespeare Company since it was formed" Trevor Nunn. This new edition contains a DVD with 80mins of video featuring John Barton in conversation with Judi Dench, Ian McKellen, Patrick Stewart and Jane Lapotaire discussing changes in approaches to Shakespeare's text since the book first published. This edition also features a foreword by Michael Boyd. A highly readable and non-academic approach to understanding Shakespeare's text - unlocking the hidden stage directions and actors clues that reside in his verse. "When an actor becomes aware of them, s/he will find that Shakespeare himself starts to direct them" John Barton.

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 Women 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 Men

A fascinating investigation into the wellsprings of improvisation in theatre, dance and music, from the author of the influential House of Games. Packed with exercises and practical techniques, The Improvisation Game explores how improvisation can be used both to create performance and as an end in itself. It reveals the techniques, structures and methods used by key practitioners in the field of improvised drama, music and dance - amongst them Keith Johnstone (author of Impro), Max Stafford-Clark (Out of Joint), Phelim McDermott (Improbable Theatre), Tim Etchells (Forced Entertainment), John Wright (Trestle, Told by an Idiot) and Robert Lepage. The book also looks at many famous traditions, events and performances with improvisation at their core, ranging from the Living Theatre to the Scratch Orchestra, from John Cage to Lenny Bruce, and seeks to draw out their significance in the always evolving world of improvisation.

Konstantin Stanislavsky, the Russian director and actor and co-founder, in 1898, of the Moscow Art Theatre, was the originator of the most influential system of acting in the history of western theatre. Many of Stanislavsky's concepts are widespread in popular thought on acting; this book offers a evaluation of the basis of his ideas, discussing whether the system has survived because Stanislavsky made discoveries about acting that are and always have been scientifically verifiable, or whether his methods work on a practical basis despite an outdated theory. Drawing on information that has become available in recent years in Russia, the book examines how the development of Stanislavsky's system was influenced by scientific discoveries in his lifetime, and compares Stanislavsky's methods with those of Evgeny Vakhtangov, Michael Chekhov and Vsevolod Meyerhold. A full understanding of these ideas is crucial for anyone interested in acting and actor-training today.

An inspiring new approach to acting from a respected drama teacher - concise, succinct and full of practical exercises Nick Moseley is fed up with the way acting is taught in this country: 'In a nation which regards itself as the centre of world theatre, it is disappointing how many actors seem unable to do the job.' He blames the teachers and their underlying philosophy, which tells students: 'This is the training and you must fit yourself to it rather than it to you.' As Head of Acting at a major drama school, he has developed a system that is based on the individual's need to find truth in everything they do, to be 'in the moment' and to react instinctively to the other people on stage. In this book, he takes the best of Stanislavski, David Mamet and Sanford Meisner to fuel his own intensely practical approach. Starting with the technique of Transactional Improvisation, he covers such topics as: The World of the Play Inhabiting the Space Learning to Trust Your Body and Approaches to Text.

This sixth volume of essays by members of the Royal Shakespeare Company and the National Theatre is the first to focus on a single group of Shakespeare's plays. To celebrate the arrival of the new millennium the RSC presented productions of all eight of the history plays of the first and second Lancastrian tetralogies. Half of the twelve essays in this volume accordingly come from this important and historic cycle. Of the other six essays, from later productions, three are from the rarely performed King John, one from the even more rarely performed Edward III and the remaining two deal with the best-known title roles among the history plays, in two major recent independent productions of Henry V and Richard III. The contributors are Guy Henry, Kelly Hunter, Jo Stone-Fewings, David Rintoul, Samuel West, David Troughton, Nancy Carroll, Desmond Barrit, Adrian Lester, Fiona Bell, Richard Cordery, and Henry Goodman.

German Expressionist Theatre: The Actor and the Stage considers the powerfully stylized, anti-realistic styles of acting on the German Expressionist stage from 1916 to 1921. It relates this striking departure from the dominant European acting tradition of realism to the specific cultural crises that enveloped the German nation during the course of its involvement in World War I. This book describes three distinct Expressionist acting styles, all of which in their own ways attempted to show how symbolic stage performance could be a powerful rhetorical resource for a culture struggling to come to terms with the crises of historical change. The examination of Expressionist script and actor memoirs allows for an unprecedented focus on description and analysis of acting itself.