Acting & Actor Training
Acting
Category
Acting is the art of performing in theatre, especially using the actor’s voice and body. It is intentional, social and theatrical, and often aims to be mimetic – to copy a recognisable reality.
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Lisa Mayo of the Kuna and Rappahannock Nations was a founding member of the Native
American women’s feminist theatre group, Spiderwoman Theater. She was a singer,
actor, and playwright who wrote and performed with Spiderwoman Theater for 35
years.
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Peter Hall on Greek theatre and his own mask practice. He discusses his theories of Greek drama, including the use of the Chorus, Phallus, and the nature of tragedy and comedy.
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This film covers basic acrobatics.
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This film covers basic acrobatics using furniture and objects.
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This film covers an interview with Andrei Droznin.
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This film covers locomotion techniques.
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This film covers partner work.
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This film covers preparation and stretches for physical activity.
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A film following the street performance Anabasis in Peru. It was an itinerant performance, based on exploiting the connections between the actors and the spectators who they encounter on their way.
Video
This video is documentation taken from a weekly contact jam session with the
actors in the MFA Actor-Training program at UC Irvine. Contact Improvisation is
a large part of the movement arc in the first year of actor training, and jam
sessions are held weekly, integrating all three years of MFA actors.
Someone happened to video this session, and I give a brief description of
our use of contact as a tool for actor training in the
voice-over.
Video
This video is documentation of an exercise with 3rd year graduate actors at
the UC Irvine Actor-Training program, speaking a monologue while contacting with
a silent partner. At a moment of heightened activity, the silent
partner is removed, and the resulting delivery of the monologue is focused and
intensely communicated.
The athleticism and sensitivity of the contact created a culture of
expressivity. Tenderness as well as rage and challenge emerged in the contact
session and remained present in the solo monologue. So, the complexities of
emotion that were embodied metaphorically and rhythmically in the extreme lifts
and rolls and balances of the partnering could be seen as an emotional
“rehearsal” for the solo performance. But once the partner was removed, the
speaker had to reach out to us, and address each deeply felt idea to the
audience in the room.
No longer in a contact with the literal “other,” we, the audience, now become
the necessary focus.
Video
This video features snapshots from two different directing workshops conducted
in October 2017 with two groups of directing students at RESAD (Real Escuela
Superior de Arte Dramático de Madrid) in Madrid, Spain. The workshops
focused on strategies of recontextualization of classical works and of
determining directorial point-of-view.
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This video workshop, which took place in Athens in July 2017, is the
result of a process of working on possible ideas for set design for Henrik Ibsen’s
The Lady from the Sea. Athena Stourna shares her intuitions in front of
a model she built for the purposes of this book, shedding light on fundamental
questions that permeate the director-scenographer
collaboration.
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This video is from a workshop which brought together performer Miranda
Manasiadis and choreographer Malia Johnston. The workshop took place at Footnote
Dance and Deirdre Tarrant Studios.
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This workshop took place at East Hampton, NY, in October 2016, part of an
attempt to address different ways of looking at the character of Blanche du
Bois.
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Back to Back Theatre creates new forms of contemporary performance imagined
from the minds and experiences of a unique ensemble of actors with disabilities,
giving voice to social and political issues that speak to all people.
Based in the regional centre of Geelong, the company is one of Australia’s
most globally recognised and respected contemporary theatre companies. Seeking
to make a body of work that exists in repertoire across time, the company tours
extensively locally, nationally, and internationally.
Video
Since 1981, I have been conducting research on black women behind the scenes in the
American theatre. As a black female lighting designer, I am aware of our
invisibility within the larger American theatre and have made an effort to expose
these women to a wider audience. I have interviewed numerous black women who have
made significant contributions to the American theatre. These women include
designers, producers, directors, playwrights, artistic directors, and other
individuals working behind the scenes. This is a rare interview I conducted with
Glenda Dickerson (1945-2012) during a rehearsal of her adaptation of The Trojan
Women, performed with an all-black cast during January 1983. This interview
is very dear to me as Dickerson was a mentor. I followed her career with various
interviews, tapings at conferences, and the publication of one of her plays. Glenda
Dickerson was a director, folklorist, actress, adapter/conceiver, and educator. With
a career of nearly 40 years she was known for her unique adaptations of Greek
classics, African American folktales, the feminist theatre approach, and ensemble
work. She was the second black woman to direct on Broadway with the 1980 musical
Reggae. Her work has also been presented nationally and
internationally. In the commercial arena she was constantly presented with racial
and gender challenges. After working in mainstream theatre for many years, Dickerson
chose to focus her talents on educational and community-oriented theatre. She also
began to concentrate on feminist/womanist theatre. She taught at Howard University,
Spelman, Rutgers, and the University of Michigan. Only in recent years is her work
finally gaining recognition, but as with many other black women, Dickerson’s
contributions are largely unknown.
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Zarrilli’s Psychophysical Acting methodology focuses on the relationship between the actor-as-doer and what the actor does. It (re)examines in practice and theory a psychophysical approach to acting.
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A narrow catwalk between two flanks of spectators: ‘Maran Ata! The Lord is coming! A child is born in Bethlehem. He will destroy Jerusalem. Kyrie Eleison. He has not come to bring peace.’
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The third episode of After My Life in Art, originally broadcast by The Culture Channel, Russia
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The fourth episode of After My Life in Art, originally broadcast by The Culture Channel, Russia
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The fifth episode of After My Life in Art, originally broadcast by The Culture Channel, Russia
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Part of an overall documentary series about Russian Theatre in the 1920s, Meyerhold
Theatre and the Russian Avant-garde uses archive material to demonstrate acting
techniques.
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A film about Michael Chekhov. Part one covers his early years, family, upbringing, drama school and the beginning of his acting career at the Moscow Art Theatre.
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Michael Chekhov's final years living, acting, and writing in the United States.
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The First Studio becomes an independent theatre with Michael Chekhov as its artistic director.
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Chekhov in one of signature roles, Muromsky in The Case.
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Michael Chekhov goes to German and meets with Stanislavsky in Berlin and discussion between their different views on acting techniques.
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The pre-war years and Michael Chekhov moves his studio moved to a similar location in the United States.
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This piece, conceived and directed by Seyferth, is based on Gertrude Stein's Tender Buttons: Objects, Food, Rooms.
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A public domain
theatre show,
part voyeuristic meditation, part urban
thriller, it unfolds amidst the high volume
pedestrian traffic of a public
space.
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Soldier, Child, Tortured Man (1989) was Goat Island’s first performance. It considered the physical and mental conditioning that militarises first the individual and then the social structure.
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This film explores the main themes which led to the founding of The Moscow Art
Theatre and the formation of Stanislavsky’s system of acting.
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Sun, Moon and Feather presents a musical comedy-documentary about three Native American sisters growing up Native in an Italian neighbourhood in Brooklyn during the 1930s and 1940s.
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Zarrilli’s Psychophysical Acting methodology focuses on the relationship between the actor-as-doer and what the actor does. It (re)examines in practice and theory a psychophysical approach to acting.
Video
This film documents the work of Iben Nagel Rasmussen (Odin Teatret) with her
international group The Bridge of Winds during a two-week closed work session held
in December 2011.
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The Lastmaker (2007) was Goat Island’s ninth and final performance, composed by the group with ending in mind. The piece took its inspiration from the historical trajectory of the Hagia Sophia.
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Bella Merlin’s practical presentation uses Stanislavsky’s Six Fundamental Questions to contextualise a demonstration of ‘practice as research’ riffing off his work, as well as Maria Knebel’s.
Commentary
by Annie Loui
Contact improvisation is a form of dance improvisation based on energy and weight
exchange, incorporating elements of aikido, jitterbugging, child’s play, and
tumbling
Commentary
by Avra Sidiropoulou
Directions for Directing: Theatre and Method lays out contemporary concepts of directing practice and examines specific techniques of approaching scripts, actors, and the stage. Addressed to both young and experienced directors but also to the broader community of theatre practitioners, scholars, and dedicated theatre goers, the book sheds light on the director’s multiplicity of roles throughout the life of a play — from the moment of its conception to opening night — and explores the director’s processes of inspiration, interpretation, communication, and leadership. From organizing auditions and making casting choices to decoding complex dramaturgical texts and motivating actors, Directions for Directing offers practical advice and features detailed Workbook sections on how to navigate such a fascinating discipline. A companion website explores the work of international practitioners of different backgrounds who operate within various institutions, companies, and budgets, providing readers with a wide range of perspectives and methodologies.
Commentary
by Calvert, Dave
Reflections on Ganesh versus the Third Reich by Dave Calvert discusses the
work created by back to back.
Commentary
by Calvert, Dave
Reflections on small metal objects by back to back.