"But we don't stare at people in real life when we talk to them." I'll occasionally hear this from a student I am coaching. In the approach that I teach, we conceive of acting as the pursuit of a real need in an imaginary situation. Since in almost every scene, the source of the sought-after gratification of the need is the other person, the scene partner, actors almost always benefit from directing more attention to that person than they already are, attuning themselves to this other pers... Read Full Story
William Haugse is a film editor, director and actor. He has worked with luminaries such as John Cassavetes and Orson Wells, and he was nominated for an Oscar for his work on the documentary Hoop Dreams. He has been coming to my class recently to shoot some footage for a short documentary film on the class, and offered me characterization of what he saw there:Watching Andrew Utter conduct an acting class was a revelation. I was putting together a short film of teaching technique, Andrew was... Read Full Story
1. you like doing scenes from plays that surprise you2. you want a scene partner that shows up every week, ready to work3. you like being surprised by what comes out of you4. you like working on a scene until it's really, really good5. you enjoy daydreaming and wondered how it could help you make a living6. you like some irreverence with your seriousness7. you play to win8. you see props as opportunities to enrich the physical life of the scene, not something to mime and do without9. ... Read Full Story
Superior Donuts is the new play running on Broadway by Tracy Letts, author of August:Osage County. Watch a preview of it here.Mother of Invention Acting School
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Uta Hagen says "The reason for movement is destination". I've never seen a better visualization of this idea than this clip from Donnie Darko. Keep your eyes on the ectoplasm that comes out of Donnie's father, then his sister, then Donnie himself. Take it away, Jake (the first 80 seconds are the relevant portion):The video actually goes a step further than Uta Hagen does, by visually suggesting, with the ectoplasm, a connection between Donnie's core (I would have placed the origin of the s... Read Full Story
Look at this image. Is it a duck or a rabbit? Actually, you can see it as either a duck or a rabbit. Now try to see it as both a duck AND a rabbit at the same time. It's not possible.The way we learn to take in stories as children is as readers or spectators. We watch attentively as the action unfolds, we make predictions about what will happen, and we make judgments about the cleverness, wisdom, and goodness of the characters involved. Our relationship to the work is of one who stands o... Read Full Story
“I’m a written-page guy. The writer gives you everything you need.” William H MacyIf you could make a word cloud of the words that appear most often in acting classes everywhere, "choices" would be the word that probably comes up more often than any other. Believe it or not, I think that that is actually symptomatic of a deep-seated confusion about what acting is and how an actor's connection to a role develops.Earl Gister, who was the Dean of the Acting Program at the Yale School of Drama f... Read Full Story
The critics have not been kind, but the show is selling well. There are enough snippets of Law's performance in here to satisfy me that there's no need to high-tail it to the Big Apple to see this. I do like what he says about the role being "tattooed on his soul."Mother of Invention Acting School
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