In response to some recent enquiries into the overview of the Actors Studio, we are happy to offer a deeper insight to the themes under which the studio techniques are taught:
1. MILD TO EXTREME EMOTION EXPLORATION
Many actors, beginners or advanced, are believable when portraying mild emotional reactions. That is to say they are comfortable feeling a little angry, a little afraid, a little joyful, etc. However, when confronted with scenes/characters that demand stronger emotional responses they are limited in their ability to produce truthful reactions, and therefore, end up trying to ‘fake it’. In the actors studio we explore these types of emotional limitations, and work towards producing greater emotional responses in scenes that demand it.
2. LOVE, PASSION & INTIMACY
This may seem surprising, but a lot of actors are very uncomfortable with basic scenes involving love, and in particular, expressing it physically within their work. It seems a lot of schools shy away from scripts involving a kiss, holding hands, or even discussing how we handle sex scenes on film and stage. As love and passion are prevalent in almost every script an actor will encounter, the Actors Studio dedicates part of the course to tackling the obstacles that arise from themes of love, passion & intimacy, thus helping the actor to get over his/her self-consciousness when handling scenes of this nature in their work. We also discuss the instances where these themes are exploited unnecessarily, for non-artistic reasons, to empower the actor to learn when to say no.
3. ADVANCED CHARACTER DEVELOPMENT (PLAYING BEYOND OURSELVES)
“The actor cannot afford to look only to his own life for all his material nor pull strictly from his own experience to find his acting choices and feelings.” (Stella Adler)….and yet they do. Over and over again. Most actors want to bring the part down to their level of world knowledge. You can’t play Hamlet based on your own life experiences, unless of course you were once the Prince of Denmark, whose uncle murdered your father, and subsequently married your mother (alas, so far We’ve never had a student who was even just the Prince of Denmark!). The actor must learn to play roles ‘beyond themselves’, and the studio lends a large portion of it’s training on creating, and embodying characters that are bigger than ourselves.
4. PROFESSIONALISM AS A CONSTANT THREAD
During the recent visit by former Hollywood casting director and agent, Clair Sinnett, she made it very clear that an actor, in order to be successful, must learn the business side of the art of acting. To excel in any business the trainee must understand, and live by the code under which his/her industry operates. As we know, professionalism in acting is paramount. It’s no good being a great talent if you don’t know how to behave in your interactions at all stages, and levels throughout your career. Again, the Actors Studio is proud to apportion part of our training towards preparing our actors to be professional in all their actions (on set/stage and off) once they finish training (of course no actor ever finishes training, but you know what I mean).
The current course is full, however, applications for the next Actors Studio, starting in October, will open in March 2015
