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| ORGANIC SCRIPT ANALYSIS |
Life is spontaneous, a living, moving reality. A play is alive. Each one of us will analyze the play differently, depending on our life experience, knowledge of life, and ability to perceive a play. While everyone must see what the playwright has written, how they interpret the events, and how they break down the structure of the play may differ. Some interpretations are better than others. Some people analyze the structure with more clarity and perception. This is based on knowledge, experience, talent, and ability to clearly think about what you read, and express what you perceive in a
coherent form. There are no absolute, linear realities that everyone must accept as the right way to analyze. This doesn’t mean that anything goes, only that there is not some mechanical idea of perfection. Plays to be read will be assigned upon registration. |
| PREPARATION: GETTING INVOLVED |
| How do you become involved in a personal way and use the work and world of the playwright to shine your personal truth? This class is designed to provide the actor with a basic set of tools that will prepare him/her to deal with these important questions. Basic warm-ups, interpersonal and intrapersonal exercises, will assist you to create the personal world of your character. You will gain a greater understanding of your personal work process and be able to apply and articulate elements of their personal preparation to the creation of an assigned theatrical role. |
| TECHNIQUE AND SENSE MEMORY |
| There is no need to do affective memory exercises, reliving traumatic experiences to produce emotions. People have more emotion than they know how to use. As you get to know yourself and become involved in a character’s life, the emotion happens by itself, and with pleasure. The best quality of the Organic Creative Process is that when you know how to use it, work is satisfying and without manipulation. The first sense memory exercise for this class is what you drink for breakfast. It's not a scene about waking up, nor a mime. It's an exercise to train yourself to be able to create reality using imagination. The initial training uses personal experience so you can explore life specifically, and observe reality closely. Eventually when you master the technique, you can use your capacity to observe reality and your imagination to create realities you haven't experienced, like illnesses, dying, being drugged, etc. |
| DANCE/MOVEMENT FOR ACTORS |
| This course teaches actors basic dance steps and vocabulary in a supportive, non-threatening environment so they have the confidence to audition for parts requiring an actor who moves well. Classes consist of warm-up, flexibility and isolation exercises and basic musical comedy, jazz, ballet and tap steps and simple combinations. Actors will also explore how physical characteristics, i.e. stance, carriage, distortion, etc., affect the actor/character and audience. |
| SINGING FOR ACTORS |
| Good singing is technically the same whether it is classical, Broadway, pop, rock or any other musical noise one chooses to make. But no one wants to “watch’ singing technique take the actor out of the scene. An actor may give a strong performance of a song, but when performed in the context of the scene, singing can be a different technical experience. Class work will incorporate not just songs, but some of the scenes preceding and following the musical number. By exploring words, phrasing, vowels and consonants that inhabit the musical passage, this class will help the actor learn to be an actor who sings. As needed, classes will focus on specific vocal technical issues. |
| AUDITION TECHNIQUE |
| In this class, actors will learn the difference between auditioning for film, television and theater as well as find out who does the casting and how you can be best prepared to audition. Learn how to prepare, succeed and follow up for your auditions. Improve confidence and from the time you enter the room until you exit. Make your nervous energy work for you, while staying truthful to your organic process. Actors will practice with monologues, cold copy and prepared scenes. Class will discuss essentials of working in the business; including agents, casting directors, unions, pictures and resumes, where to look for work and how to target the market. |
| BRECHT TECHNIQUE |
| Best known as a playwright, Bertolt Brecht was also a poet, theoretician, and perhaps most importantly, a practitioner of the art of theater. In his work with actors Brecht drew on and transformed the work of Stanislavski. Using Brecht's essay "What among other things can be learned from Stanislavski" as a starting point, we will examine:functions of poetic language in creating a character, social acting vs. stage "acting," style vs. realism, the interrelationship of detail and large-scale structure, the importance of contradictions, playing as an ensemble, sociological dimensions of character, and the social function of the actor. We will explore the process whereby an actor creates reality. |
| ORGANIC SCENE STUDY |
| In this class you will learn to commit yourself to discovering and using your own, personal creative process. Discovering, examining, dreaming, creating, and living in an imaginary world is the work of the actor. Playwrights write about extraordinary life events and characters are human beings experiencing these events. Creating characters on a deeply personal level rather than an intellectual idea of a scene or acting like actors in a play, is the goal. The primary task in this class is to use your imagination and talent to create what only you are capable of creating. |
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