The Actor's Instrument and Craft [The Actor's Work On Himself]
A limited workshop – usually 6-8 weeks – for beginning- and growth-focused actors.
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.
Actors at all levels of experience are welcome.
Advanced Acting/Scene Study [The Actor's Work On The Role]
A weekly workshop for experienced actors. Our aim is the actor's mastery of craft as the basis for creative inspiration.
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 8-week sessions throughout our regular training season during the fall, winter and spring quarters.
Actor's Forum
The Forum is a masterclass/meeting point for free artistic exchange with journeyman-level actors. By and for Boston (and local/visiting) pros, the Forum is an open, safe and creative space for experienced working actors and theatre and film professionals to share their 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.) By invitation only.
"The actors are come hither, my lord. Buzz, buzz..."