Posts filed under 'Acting'
Meisner acting class is back! The class runs every Monday and Wednesday at 18:30 and is open to all who are interested in working on their acting. We had our first class after the summer break last night and it went quite well.
We’re working on monologues this quarter, along with the standard Meisner exercises: What to choose, how to choose it, what to do when you walk into the room, how to rehearse the monologue.
If you’re interested in coming to the class, please call 608 577 012.
August 5th, 2008
Nancy has posted a transcript of a casting symposium she lead in Scotland. A group of international casting directors and agents (Maureen Duff, John Hubbard, Maryam Hunwick, Priscilla John, and Derek Power) took part as the panel. They covered topics such as:
- Why are Scotish actors so good and prominent on the international scene,
- the casting director’s relationship with the actor,
- how actors can be more proactive in getting work and getting noticed by an agent,
- what if you have a UK agent and want to work internationally,
- how to get in to see a casting director,
- getting an O1 visa (for actors looking to work in America),
- what to do about travelling for an audition in a different city
- Plus questions from the audience.
There are photos from the symposium on Nancy’s site.
July 25th, 2008
Agenda Events is proud to present Ellie Cummins and Colin Broderick in a Writing Workshop
Colin Broderick is a writer from County Tyrone, Northern Ireland. He lived in New York for twenty years where he had his first play ‘Father Who, produced in 2003. Broderick has most recently been published in The New York Times. He is here in Prague with his wife Renata and their dog and cat for the past six months finishing his drinking memoir ‘Orangutan’ which will be published in the US, in the spring of 2009 by Three Rivers Press.
Writer Ellie Cummins’s play The Sacred Sow plays The Rubin Theatre Malastranka May 25th to June 1st. The play has attracted Eileen Pollack, stage and screen actress, in the lead. Ellie has a background as long as your arm in the arts, theatre, touring, short films, music and dance, often radical and challenging. Ellie Cummins has studied theatre, dance, and music and has a BA in English.
How do you access that primal beat? How do you write and get a flow? Where does the spark of inspiration come from? There are very practical ways to get your voice heard.
Check out Colin and Ellie’s workshop and get some answers!
Saturday May 17th 10 am – 4 pm @ Shakespeare & Sons, Krymska 12 – Vrsovice
700 Czech Crowns, students and concessions 300 Czech Crowns
May 2nd, 2008
Hey Everyone,
I just wanted to share with all of you the amazing experience that I had working on Kent’s film yesterday. It was my first film ever, and indeed, my first acting experience since beginning Meisner training. As difficult as it has been to get those emotional juices flowing in the context of Meisner exercises in class, I’ll have to say that… in the context of a real story… I was wowed by the power of basic repetition as a way to tap into the subtext of the story that we were working on and to bring up emotions… sometimes in totally unexpected ways… as well as to form a connection with the other characters. Kudos to Kent for finding ways to get us on track and to get us focussed and draw those emotions out. I wish you all could have seen him working with the precocious child actor who “never gets irritated.” It was really precious, and I wish that moment had been caught on film.
But, back to the topic! In the film, my character was dying of leukemia, and I was really able (at least during some of the takes) to feel that I truly was about to check out of this life, and to feel all the fear and sense of helplessness and being lost that accompanied it. That got me to thinking (as most things do), that having acted this part, take after take, and experiencing it with as much reality as I did, it’s almost as if I had really faced death in those moments… and now I feel like I know (to a certain extent) what that’s like. As these thoughts were rolling around in my head, I wondered if, after performing enough scenes of a similar nature, one would be more prepared to face their own death in real life (according to Buddhist philosophy, our most important task in life is to prepare ourselves for our own death).
I know a few of you are interested in philosophy, so I thought I’d share my thought process with you in the wake of this experience and, hopefully, get some feedback from you as to whether you’ve had similar experiences. Of course, this doesn’t just apply to death scenes. It could apply to just about any situation that you might find yourself acting…. dealing with relationship issues, showing compassion, facing an armed robber, raising a child (not that all roles are necessarily good role models for life, but assimilating the human side of these situations into our repertoire of life experience in the relatively safe environment of stage or screen…. does this help us to deal more effectively with real life situations?
I’m interested in hearing your thoughts and opinions on this and in hearing about any experiences that you may have had (and that you’d care to share, of course) where performing a particular role has left you feeling that you were better equipped to deal with real life.
Saluuuuuuuu,
Barbara
April 25th, 2008
THE BEAR EDUCATIONAL THEATRE is looking for actor-teachers to play in professional educational theatre shows now and in the new school year.
The Bear Educational Theatre is a stable full-time professional theatre company that plays shows mostly for school audiences in the Czech Republic, Austria and France. There are one or two Bear Theatre teams playing somewhere on most working days.
Because of illness and visa troubles we are looking for a couple of people who could play something almost immediately. This is also a good chance to test if you are suited to the work before taking a bigger plunge in the new school year.
For more information on the theatre and the shows visit www.bearproject.cz
Then if you are interested in joining the team, travelling, playing and getting paid (average 1200Kc per working day) please contact David Fisher (tel: 777 134272) to learn more.
April 25th, 2008
Nancy Bishop is starting a blog which will be letting people know about casting activities in Europe, as well as her casting activities, courses. Nancy is definitely plugged in at a more international and professional film level and will have very good insights and information about what’s going on in our wider community.
April 10th, 2008
Guy Roberts, who is the force behind Miloco’s Macbeth and the artistic director of Austin Shakespeare Festival is offering a two day Shakespeare workshop March 28th and 29th. He is also offering a one day stage combat workshop on the 29th.
The 2 day workshop (March 28 / 29) 11am - 2pm is 2000 Kc.
The stage combat class is March 29th from 3pm - 6pm costs 1000 Kc.
If you take both workshops then you get them for 2500 Kc.
Space is limited, so please contact guy@guyroberts.com to book your spot. Prague Playhouse Acting students get a 20% discount.
March 20th, 2008
Ben and I had a chat with Tee and John at the Inexplicable Dumb Show last week about the Playhouse, acting in Prague, teaching Meisner in Prague and other stuff. Go and check it out. You should also check out their archives as they have quite a bit of useful and interesting information and interviews on their site.
We had a great time. Thanks, guys!
March 5th, 2008
I thought that this description from our acting student JP on how he approached his first film was really interesting and wanted to share it with the rest of the readers here. If you have thoughts on this or your own approach, be sure to leave a comment!
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Hey, all
Just thought I’d take Ben’s suggestion and send around some of my thoughts and reactions to my film shoot with FAMU. I thought it was a great chance to put to the test everything we’ve been doing and see how it’s helped. It was great to try out, listening to your partner, reacting to their behavior, not knowing what was coming in a scene, delivering a line after learning a script by rote, and getting out of your head and just being real. I can see I still have a way to go, but the class definately has brought me several steps ahead. I felt more confident in front of a camera and in front of other more experienced actors. I felt more assured and had less fear of inferiority after all the work from class.
Of course when the camera starts rolling the fear of looking good, being good, and the temptation to get into your head starts popping up. On day one, when I was in front of the camera for the first time and the director shouted “action” I was nervous as hell. I felt like I was in my head. it was s simple scene, nothing very emotional like we’d been practising, so I went back to day one or two of class- I put my attention on my partner and just started noticing simple behavior in him- “He’s looking at that window. He’s very intent. He looked sideways. He’s starting to stroll.” That helped me forget myself almost like magic. It was great.
I had one angry scene where I was supposed to bawl out two other people. That one really made me nervous. I was worried about over-doing or being “actorish.” Truth be known I still have to see the cut before I can judge it, but I found that forgetting the logical reason why I was shouting and finding an emotional basis for it (my sister is cuddling with a total stranger who is almost 20 years her senior in a very overly-affectionate, almost sexual way) helped me to be more in the reality of it and to feel the anger more.
During some scenes where I wasn’t supposed to be looking at my partners, who are usually my center of focus, I found it helpful just to chill, take a few breaths, and focus on my other senses- the cold air, the birds chirping, the picturesque landscape, the stinking hay in the barn. that helped me forget myself, my pose, my messy hair, the rolling camera and just stay more in the moment.
There’s a lot more I could say, but I think that hits the high points. All in all it was a great experience. If any of you have some more filming thoughts or some tips, please by all means send ‘em around. Thanks Brian for getting me the role, and thanks to both the teachers for getting us this far. Cheers all. See you monday.
J.P.
November 7th, 2007
Ben, that list of activity questions you sent around was a slam! thanks for that. just one I had a question about. one question was “Which one of my senses means the least to me?” Interesting, but I didn’t really understand how it could apply. Maybe you’d like to expound a bit.
JP
Hi JP,
I used that particular question as a way for me to enter into physical impediment work with the Meisner technique. That is, a way to explore changing your physical appearance, retardation, mental disabilities, accents. Anything that you ‘put on’ top of what you mentally and physically you have naturally.
Asking yourself the simple question of: which one on my senses means the least to me was my way into this type of work. Hearing, was the answer for me. I couldn’t bare to be without sight, be stuck in the dark for the rest of my life. Or not to be able to taste food, or smell fresh bread baking, or be touched by another person. So for me, hearing was the one sense that I could live without. By asking myself the question I was able to start thinking about what life would be like without hearing, to be deaf. What would change, what wouldn’t change. And the deeper you go, the more understanding you get. Then I wanted to turn the logical idea of being without hearing into something that I could feel. So I put cotton wool in my ears, then wrapped my head with a heavy bandage, then put ear-muffs on. I sat there for a while. I let the lack of sound seep into me. My hearing was almost gone. I then went out into the real world and walked the streets. The sounds were almost gone. Having a conversation with someone was pretty much impossible. I had to rely on my other senses to help me out. The biggest moment for me was when I took everything off again. The sounds in my real world were so loud! Everything is so noisy! We are so overwhelmed with phones ringing, and sounds of traffic, and people talking, and shit! At that moment I understood. From being almost deaf for an afternoon, I found my way to a place where I could be resloved with my ‘disability’, a place of almost pure bliss, a place on silence that made more sense to me than the real world.
This exercise was certainly a valuable experience. One, it opened up my acting work into a new area of physical and mental impediments, but most importantly I lived in someone else’s shoes and found an emotional and instinctual life there.
Walk a day in someone else’s shoes
Ben
November 6th, 2007
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