The Actor's Instrument and Craft [The Actor's Work On Himself]

A workshop for both experienced actors as well as less-experienced but professionally-minded, growth-focused individuals.

 

The workshop is about (1) the actor’s work to cultivate him- or herself as an instrument for acting, and (2) the general technique or craft of acting based on the ideal of behaving truthfully in imaginary circumstances.

 

Instrumental work means freeing impediments to impulsive/responsive physical and emotional expressivity. It means developing the whole creative-expressive instrument: body and voice, attention, imagination, emotional vulnerability and range, the sense of truth. 

 

Learning and mastering the actor's craft means acquiring a practical and applicable professional grammar and, foremost, developing the instinct for real doing.

 

The workshop typically meets in 6- or 8-week sessions throughout our regular training season during the fall, winter and/or spring quarters.

 

 

The Actor's Scene Study [The Actor's Work On The Role]

A weekly workshop to develop the actor's mastery of craft in the frame of scene work.

 

We practice a systematic rehearsal approach for bringing imaginary circumstances and dramatic text to truthful scenic life. In that context, we focus on the discovery and creative fulfillment of scenic obligations.

 

We return, when indicated, to creative exercises suited to the individual actor’s needs, previous training and experience. 

 

Our teaching stresses the actor's grasp of creative grounds, points and principles: obligations vs. choices; the exploration of place; event and prior event; creating the acting relationship; psychology and characterization; units and objectives; playing action; inner and outer objects; obstacles; blocking; composition. 

 

We work with a wide range of scenic and dramatic materials – from stage plays, film, television, and elsewhere; with genres and styles from naturalism to farce; with contemporary writers, as well as Shakespeare, Chekhov, Moliere, and Sophocles, for example – suited to the actor’s interests and needs.

 

The workshop typically meets in 6- or 8-week sessions throughout our regular training season during the fall, winter and/or spring quarters. 

 

 

The Actor's Forum

The Forum is intended as an open meeting point for free artistic exchange and community. Strictly for working actors, the Forum offers a safe and creative space to share artistic questions, concerns and conundrums. Work or watch; discuss, dispute, defend. Come-when-you-can, bring-what-you-want (a monologue, scene, audition piece or simply an idea, thought, or problem.) Invitation to join by request.

 

"The actors are come hither, my lord. Buzz, buzz..."

 

 

A Path to Inspired Acting (Psycho-O-Fun)

A monthly workshop series to introduce and practice Chekhov's FUNdamental techniques (e.g., centers, qualities of movment, the four brothers), the PSYCHological gesture and Objectives. 

The Chekhov Intensives

In-depth training narrowly focused on one major principle or ground of Chekhov method. Intensives meets twice weekly for 4 weeks. 

Chekhov Fun(damentals)

A weekly class introducing fundamental (and sometimes advanced) techniques. Because Chekhov fundamentals are acting fundamentals. “First master the fundamentals.” - Larry Bird, Boston Celtics, The greatest basketball player of all time. 

Chekhov Workout

Eat your spinach. Do your pushups. And practice your Chekhov. – Exercise your inner muscles. Get Chekhov strong. 

Chekhov Barre

A student-led space to practice in a supportive, ensemble environment. 

Chekhov Foundation Weekend

A weekend workshop introducing basic Chekhov principles and techniques. 

Chekhov Weekends

Weekend workshops to introduce or deepen primary Chekhov themes and special topics. 

Chekhov Master Class

Investigate Chekhovian solutions to simple or challenging dramatic and scenic problems. Consider how objective creative principles inform the actor’s, director’s, and writer’s perspectives. Develop original work.

What’s So Special About Chekhov?

Find out at this introductory seminar. 

 

The Structure Of Action: Practical Script Analysis

The ability to properly read and penetrate a script - the mastery of dramatic analysis - is an essential arrow in the actor’s quiver. Like other aspects of the actor’s craft, reading a play or screenplay requires practical technique. The professional actor knows to be grounded in a correct reading (analysis) of the text and, at the same time, excited by the products of his or her own creative imagination. This workshop is about learning to read, imagine and interpret dramatic literature from the point of view of the actor. The subjects of our studies include seminal works by modern and contemporary American playwrights, as well as classics from the world canon from Sophocles to Shakespeare.

The "Perfect" Monologue 

Working actors are actors who audition well. And auditioning means monologues. Auditioning successfully for theatre or film means knowing how to give a winning performance of a monologue. The perfect monologue? No such thing. Just better (and worse) monologues, and knowing how to develop and perform them. It’s a master skill set. And what this workshop is all about.

The On-Camera Audition  [Book the Job]

Learn to cold read, break down the script and analyze quickly and efficiently, commit to objects, objectives and play action, incorporate simple techniques for characterization. In short: book the job. Contemporary scenes and monologues from television and film.

Acting On Camera

An actor needs practical mastery of a simple and dependable craft. Acting, after all, is acting – whatever the medium. Nonetheless, film acting has a unique set of challenges distinct from those of acting on stage. This workshop is about learning and mastering a straightforward approach to acting on camera. We work with short scenes and sides from film and television scripts for principled and guided on-camera technique and practice. 

Getting To Work

A combined series of four-workshops all about preparing the audition, booking work, and working on-camera. 

Workshop I: The Structure of Action [Practical Script Analysis for Actors]

Workshop II: The Perfect Monologue [Monologues/Stage Source Auditions Prep] 

Workshop III: Book the Job [The On-Camera Audition]

Workshop IV: Film Acting

Act Like Bruce Lee

“There are no limits. There are only plateaus, and you must not stay there, you must go beyond them.... Obey the principles without being bound by them.... Adapt what is useful, reject what is useless, and add what is specifically your own.... Man, the living creature, the creating individual, is always more important than any established style or system.”

– Bruce Lee, martial artist and actor 

Explore perspectives of Stanislavsky, Meisner, Hagen, Strasberg, Michael Chekhov, and other master acting teachers. Also, traditional and neuroscientific approaches to performance excellence and creativity from mindfulness practices to sports psychology and... Bruce Lee.

The Other Chekhov

The plays and stories of Anton Chekhov.

Plays And Playwrights

Acting with style. Antique (Greek), Moliere, Shakespeare, Brecht, Beckett, Ionesco, Williams, Shepard, Mamet and other early, modern and contemporary voices from the western dramatic canon.

Related Workshops

Voice and speech, movement, clowning, and other related disciplines. 

Meisner. Meisner. Okay, Meisner!

Despite what you’ve heard, Meisner means much more than repetition. This occasional seminar is an introduction to the technique that’s about more than you’ve heard.

 

 

Private coaching or audition preparation with Scott Fielding or other studio faculty.

 

MCASB welcomes family, friends and invited guests to celebrate the recent creative work of some of our actors.

 

The program will showcase actors' work in a variety of short plays - comedic, tragic, dramatic and romantic -, scenes, monologues and/or exercises. (Advisory: Some of the works may contain language and/or representations of violence not suitable for children and sensitive others.)

 

Showcase actors are graduates of our Meisner Foundation Training, Advanced Training, and/or Chekhov Training Programs.

 

Guest list admission by invitation only.