Our first subject of study, Stella Adler, was one of the students of Stanislavskiz and was the only American actress to study under him. Although, I didn’t identify with all of Stella Adler’s technique’s as a whole as it doesn’t seem to take as in depth of an approach as some of the other acting methods, some of her techniques such as “acting is doing” I found very helpful. When Adler says acting is doing she is referring to how every actor must have a purpose for an action. I found this to be important for me to remember as often I found myself in my scenes doing way more than I needed to. I always had to remind myself of what Meisner said, “less is more!” Also, Stella Adler’s approach to training the imagination so that you saw in full, the imaginary scene that surrounds you on stage was important in doing scene work. Often in the past when acting it was easy as I would be surrounded by a set that was well crafted and realistic, however when acting in a black box theater, or for our case essentially a gym, it is necessary to train your mind to put yourself in a exact moment and place in time even if the audience can’t see it.
Studying Sanford Meisner was great for me because it had been a long time since I had done many of his acting drills. When getting into a scene with an acting partner, nothing is better for me than to use repetition. Repetition not only was great for breaking the ice between acting partner but also was great when attempting to discover truth in words between for yourself and your rehearsal partner. Often during the class I found myself frustrated in that my acting partner wouldn’t push me as far as I would push them. Although it is important to be respectful while acting I believe that in order ...
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...laying a homeless man it would not be bad practice to go out in the streets dressed as a homeless man prior to the shoot in order to get “in character”. During my rehearsals this year, the repetition Meisner teaches helped me find honesty within the lines. Repetition also helped me try and get honesty from my partners. Getting all the actors on the same page was tough this semester in that the energy and the overall purpose of the scenes we did had to be the same for all actors for the scene to make sense. Taking a scene out of context is tough, and it is important to realize how less powerful scenes become when they are no longer connected with the rest of the play and it is the actors responsibility to provide to the audience tangible explanations for what happened. I believe it is the actors task to portray truth even though they themselves are a lie.
In this area of theatre i have learned more about brainstorming, character position, the effectiveness of music, the effectiveness of light and at what darkness and more about character goals and character formation both physical and vocal.
out, it all works as a piece. And you feel that these actors are in this situation and the audience is not
...Acting teacher, Sandy Meisner, described a technique of living truthfully under imaginary circumstances. To do so is to apply Burke’s pentad to an aesthetic performance completely.
Li’s passion for ballet shows on and off stage through his arabesques, flexibility, fouettés, grande jeté and pirouettes that were nothing less than perfection. I understood that becoming a dancer requires commitment, passion and having a great memory as there’s many moves, routines and ballet terms that you need to learn. When I was performing on stage, I felt free and that I could own the stage as it felt like it was my second home. I also felt complete within myself just as Li felt. To perform on stage, you need to be light and graceful along with connecting to the music using precise steps, poses and formal gestures. The film used dance, music, scenery, and costumes to portray a story characterised by Li’s dance. Classical ballet dancers require the utmost grace and I’ve found that you also need a tremendous level of concentration and memory. This portrays when his choreographer Ben Stevenson asked Li Cunxin to replace the main male role due to an injury on the day of the performance to memorise new dances and perform them in front of an enormous crowd. Many of my performances have been in a group where we all need to be in sync and work together. This film highlighted that in order to become a professional ballet dancer, you have to prepare to work extremely hard no matter how gruelling the schedule is in order to
This play shows that lying is wrong and will get you nowhere. At the end, lying will come back and haunt you. Also, lying will get you known as a liar. A liar who no one will believe at the end of the day. A liar that will be hard to be trusted by others. All of this is something that you want to avoid. Never lie and always tell the truth and you will end up feeling better about yourself. That is what I ended up getting from this ten minute play. Never lie because all those lies will be stored somewhere, maybe not recorded on tape like they were for the Person but stored somewhere like ones conscious. Lies will come back soon or later to come and bite you when you least expect it.
Being committed to something comes from an effort within. Being obligated is a sense of duty. Sometimes they may seem alike. In Ernest J. Gaines’s novel A Lesson Before Dying, we are introduced to a young man named Jefferson who is being put to death and a teacher named Grant Wilson. Their paths will intertwine when Grant is asked by Jefferson’s godmother to teach him to be a man. What starts off as an obligation becomes a commitment to teaching and learning what it means to be a man, a human being. With the help of strong women and a diligent reverend, a lesson truly taught. In this novel, Gaines wants the reader to understand that obligation and commitment is sometimes very difficult to define.
The first question is why use "commedia dell' arte" as a training tool for modern actors at all, since drama and the business of acting has hopefully moved on since the Italian Comedians finally left Paris. The fact remains, however, that the dominant form of acting today that both exists as the aspiring young actor's performance role model and as a category of performance in itself is T.V. naturalism. We are lucky in that something both inspirational and technical has survived from those heady times. When contemporary acting technique does not provide all the answers that actors may be looking for, it is not surprising that they look towards the past for inspiration. It is in this grey area between researching historical certainties and reconstructing guessed at acting technique that we must look. These Martinellis and Andreinis were the superstars of their day and the question that most often gets asked is "how did they do it?"(Oliver Crick).
The greatest thing about the theater is that actors are given more freedom to exaggerate and be flamboyant—it is not something that actors can often do on TV, to the exception of SNL. Walker has this theatrical rule in his mind and it favors him because in the end it undoubtedly makes him a scene stealer.
Good acting relies on a kinesthetic, an intrapersonal, and an interpersonal intelligence, all of which work together to form a creative expression. There exist limitless styles of acting; there is always something to learn.
results such as tension and hysteria. Also, he came to an understanding that unconscious feelings needed to be coaxed rather than forced out of the actor. In order to achieve this method, Stanislavski would find an “instrument” that would respond to the actor’s wishes without the ‘fickleness of emotions’ or the ‘inhibitions of
Stanislavski believed in ensemble acting and wanted to take theatre away from the idea of having a star, to create as near to naturalism as possible. (1)
After I began to learn to dance ballet, I found out that these elegant movements actually require a lot of strength, flexibility of the bodies and brain’s participation to make it looked elegant. The dancers’ movements in the performance were so fluent and elegant and it is not hard to imagine how hard they had practiced, stretched and use the strengths to do all the ballet poses with their bodies look longer and longer. Their expressions also impressed me a lot. By looking at their expressions, the audience can easily understand the scenes and blend into the story. The performers actually not only are required to have good dancing skills but also are required to have some talents to be actors. Moreover, they also have to be good at expressing their feelings on the
Many actors have studied Stanislavsky innovative technique for actors, emphasizing emotional truth and inner motivation and known today as the Stanislavsky Method, revolutionized modern acting. This method has taught actors several techniques that have improved their style. Actor, Al Pacino is one of the greatest actors of all time. He studied at The Actors Studio, in New York and it has been the main source and inspiration for a naturalistic acting technique known in America as "the Method." Under its artistic director, Lee Strasberg, the Studio adapted many of the techniques developed by Russian director Konstantin Stanisalvsky for training actors to feel and realistically portray the emotions of their characters. The intense emotional realism achieved by workshop students—who have included Marlon Brando, James Dean, Geraldine Page, Rod Steiger, Robert De Niro, and Jane Fonda—has influenced actors worldwide. (Actors Studio," Microsoft® Encarta® Encyclopedia 2000)
When it comes to rehearsals, no one has a bigger commitment than stage actors. For stage actors, rehearsals can last for several months to a year, in extreme cases. This gives an actor more time to develop his character, study his or her lines, and build great chemistry with their cast. As an actor, I realize the importance of building chemistry with your fellow actors within the production because once it’s time to perform; the audience can see the genuineness and the
In real life it is hard answer who are you, because our identities are too complex. There are many factors to consider when we talk about who we are. When you put in a variable like a virtual medium the answers to these questions are blurred. There are almost no limits to who or what you can be. Words and pictures are all that are available to describe the created identity. There are many decisions that are made when creating an identity in a virtual reality. Creating my character, Lynn, was no exception. I chose to portray my character as close as possible to who I am in real life. This task is harder than it sounds.