The Challenges of Acting
Where to begin? Actors are often urged to live and breath as the character; we are encouraged to think their thoughts and allow ourselves to become absorbed into the role.
Alternately, acting has been taught purely with a focus on technique. The famous French actor Denis Diderot taught that emotion had no role in an actor’s process.
So, how do actors train? How do actors create believable characters while overcoming their own emotional, physical, and psychological blocks? What “method” or approach is best?
Actor Training
The truth about actor training is that there is no magic bullet, no foolproof formula, that can be followed mechanically to present a truthful character in performance.
Certainly, there are techniques and tricks of the trade that can be quickly learned. But with regard to an overall approach, whether you follow the teachings of Stanislavski, Strasberg, Adler, Meisner, Spolin, Brecht, Grotowski, or some other teacher, you will have challenges as an actor.
Actor training is generally considered to be necessary—more so these days as the number of people wanting to become professional actors continues to rise. And so, there are generally two areas of focus in actor training:
1. Work on yourself (your “instrument”)
2. Work on your role (your skill at playing a character and interpreting a script)
What comes naturally in life, after all, can result in awkwardness and self consciousness when performing on stage or film. Continual practice and training is ideal.
A Professional Acting Program
A professional acting program will train you in a number of vital areas in the process of working on yourself and your acting skills.
For example, training in a theatre program may include courses in theatre history, technical theatre, script interpretation, directing, character development, voice, movement or dance, relaxation, and musical theatre amongst other courses. However, not everyone can attend a full time theatre program. Many actors simply take classes with an acting coach or a local acting school.
Local Courses: Things to look for…
As mentioned earlier, a good acting class will focus on self awareness (your instrument) and skills/techniques (work on the role).
Actor training is often exhilarating, even liberating, as you are encouraged to break down barriers and overcome limitations that keep you from being “present” and responsive in performance.
Acting Course: Topics to Cover
-An actor’s warm-up
-Relaxation training
-Performance theory
-Improvisation techniques, exercises, and games
-Script analysis (objectives, obstacles, units, beats, super objectives etc)
-Character development
-Ensemble acting
-Voice work
-Memorization techniques
-Staging techniques (blocking, “cheating,” rehearsal process, tips and tricks)
-Monologue work (analysis, staging, feedback)
-Scene work (analysis, staging, feedback)
-Individual and group feedback
The Goal of Training
The above list is not exhaustive. For example, your local class might focus on mask work, stage fighting, or musical theatre. Often though, specific niche topics are offered as workshops. In general, an acting coach will draw on more than one school or approach to acting. For example she may borrow some exercises from Sanford Meisner or Lee Strasberg, and theatre games from Viola Spolin etc.
Which Class is Best?
A teacher’s charisma can go a long way towards making a class enjoyable. More importantly though, the best course is most often the one where the teacher has a clear purpose or reason behind each and every exercise or task that you are asked to do.
If a teacher is leading you through an exercise, game or task, she should be able to articulate why! Many courses use the same or similar exercises…the difference is in the teacher’s ability to explain how you, as an actor, are to benefit.
Look for an instructor who will be able to help you synthesis all of the training into a coherent, effective approach to creating a performance. She should have a grasp of acting theory and clear understanding of how to apply that theory.
After all, the goal is to be able to create even when you are “blocked” or struggling. When imagination and intuition fail, a coherent approach to acting will allow the true value of craft and technique to reveal itself.
David Plouffe 