Posts filed under 'Workshops'
Hi everyone!
I’m Boris Wilke and member of the Prague Playhouse Meisner acting group. I blog about our class activities.
In this entry I will shut up for once and let Marc Wakeling speak. His workshop (November 28 and 29, 2009) in the attic of the Prague Film School was a life changing experience. After that “Meisner earthquake” the lame exercises we’ve been doing lately in and out of class just don’t cut it any more!
Click on the “CLASSES” button above and then choose “ACTING FOR PROFESSIONALS” to read more about the class itself and where we meet!
This is some of Marc’s wisdom:
To act means to do.
Apart form violence there are no rules.
The intellectual mind switches on when preparing for the acting. The emotional mind switches on when acting.
We’re animals in our impulsive state. And acting means being in our impulsive state.
The only two pure feelings are joy and grief.
More Marc Wakeling quotes:
The seed of the craft of acting is the reality of doing.
We tend to think that the aim of the repetition exercise is “getting it right”. That is irrelevant, though.
What we need to do is to put all our attention on our partner and off ourselves.
The faith to put all your attention on your partner is something that takes about 20 years to build.
Ultimately there is no Meisner technique apart from putting all of your attention on your partner and accepting them the way they are.
Love is acceptance. Thus acting is the most loving experience.
The only thing that exists is the doing it.
Be in the moment! Use all your senses!
Holding hands is a valid form of connection.
Be in the exercise from the very moment it starts. No preparing for it!
Acting is the most perfect way of really living your life. Look at it as a way of being yourself!
The most loving thing is to be brutally honest with your partner. The most terrible thing is to be polite to them.
Be prepared to go in the exercise with everything you got – with the risk of falling flat on your face.
Get into the exercise with a warrior spirit, like being in a battle for life and death.
All the problems you have, are imaginary. Everything that’s holding you back is not real!
Be yourself! The moment you hold back, you’re denying your partner an experience. You can be 100% you! That is welcomed, even embraced!
Notice how your partner is instead of protecting them from it!
Go all the way! Don’t be the dumbed-down polite little version of yourself that you were deformed into by society! This is all or nothing!
Have an experience other than you’re used to!
You can’t get “good” at the repetition exercise: You can only get honest. It’s as simple as that. Then it’s unique every moment – a deeply profound experience.
You either commit to it 100% or you better not bother doing it at all!
What is real, is what’s happening right now. Everything else is not real.
We spend most of our lives, living in an unreal state. We worry about stuff that’s over or yet to come.
The personas we have developed to protect ourselves are not real.
The genius of the repetition exercise is that it makes you real.
Nobody cares! No offense meant! So you can let it all out in order to unlock yourself. If you “clear the decks” then you have this wonderful range.
Getting connected is effortless. You just have to use your senses.
You actually help your partner by being ruthlessly honest. There is nothing you can’t say. An actor has to muster the courage to face up with what is really happening.
Every time you say something is another moment. Go further with it. Pursue the moment! Go after your call until you get something!
Fighting one another might be interesting to watch. But it is not real. Anger is an unnecessary state. It’s just avoiding to acknowledge the sadness one really feels deep down.
Being yourself is about being yourself completely.
Avoid falling into an “emotional trap”! When you start to have a strong feeling, don’t retreat into yourself! Keep on placing all of your attention on your partner! Acting is not about getting emotional.
Nothing needs to happen. Just connect with your partner!
Who are we? It’s what we are feeling right now.
Trying to control your feelings is a problem.
Be pathetic and weak! Yeah! That takes real courage!
Hypersensitivity is a good thing. Doing this work properly will make you notice a pin dropping. And it should!
Putting all your attention on your partner means becoming unselfconscious.
In acting positive thinking is limiting. You need to be ready for bad things as well. Be truthful! You might be ugly. You might be terrible. But that’s great! Where else can you let everything out?
Be normal with each other! Just name it as it is! But be there for one another! Being in the moment is absolutely fine. It’s perfect!
There is no “I don’t know”!
We are only confused about things we don’t want to admit.
All that matters is your opinion, right now!
To pretend to be someone else to other people than you are, is really horrible! It’s insane to deny yourself!
Meisner work is not therapy. You only do it because you want to be an actor. This is not a game.
Showing that we’re all the same underneath is the actor’s job.
***
Marc came all the way from London to teach us because he truly believes that the way acting is generally perceived must change. He’s doing everything to make this change happen. And so should we!
Let me finish by a thing Brian said: “There is so much work ahead of us!”
Oh yes, it is! And that’s great!
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General stuff:
Our acting class consists of some fifteen new and not so new active members, who meet every Monday and Wednesday from 6.30 pm to about 8.30. We do Meisner. And the Meisner-technique really rocks!
If you want to connect with your inmost feelings, expressing them freely in an acting environment and thus getting to know yourself better and better, feel free to join us! If you do, be prepared for some serious thrills!
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About the author:
I am Boris Wilke, a German expat in Prague.
I am a writer at large and have been studying Meisner since January 2008. If any of you know of any kind of acting work that befits a laddish, tall 40-year-old, please leave a note!
November 29th, 2009
On Saturday 10th October there will be a workshop (adults only) from 10.30 to 4.30 called “Singing for the Truly Terrified” which is mainly intended for those who feel they would like some extra help when singing, and for those who truly believe they cannot sing. But it is also suitable for anyone who would like to come along and sing (including those who came to it last year) – we will just be taking it a little more slowly than on Sunday.
Continue Reading September 4th, 2009
Hi everyone!
I’m Boris Wilke and member of the Prague Playhouse Meisner acting group. I blog about our class activities.
The weekend before last (i.e. June 26 through 28), we traveled to Germany’s capital Berlin to have a two-day acting seminar with Brian Caspe’s former teacher Andrea Helene. It was exhilarating to do “the work” with someone even more experienced than our teacher.
Click on the “CLASSES/COACHING” button above and then choose “MEISNER ACTING CLASS” to read more about the class itself and where we meet!
Click the “(more…)”-button below to read about the acting seminar with Andrea Helene!
When we went to Berlin, we met Brian’s teacher Andrea, who’s a lively, wiry, tall redhead with a German mother. I related very well and easily to her. I could speak German with her after all!
While Brian stepped down from his teacher’s pedestal to become one of us lowly students, we could see the same passion for the technique burning in Andrea, who visibly enjoyed working with us. She used very similar ways to get Meisner across to us, too. But a two-day intensive workshop is more demanding and at the same time more rewarding than the usual fix of four hours a week, that we have to make do with in Prague.
We did scene work. And everybody seemed to enjoy it greatly except for me: I hated it, as usual. I loath it, when words get in my way and put me in my head. Andrea tried to help me wriggle out of it by giving me funny things to do – such as: be a latin lover or a boss doing a job interview. But to me those directions felt like extra Meisner balls, that I was supposed to juggle. So I fumbled and felt miserable, again.
Besides, the script hit home psychologically. I felt very embarrassed by it. I’m sure, if I worked through the fear and self-hatred, that the script generated in me, I’d get much more out of it, than just mastering the scene.
It’s good that our host Mike Bernardin, who’s running the Meisner school in Berlin and who let us use his rooms, showed up at a certain point and couldn’t keep himself from saying something very meaningful.
Mike said, that “the technique” is to us actors, what sit-ups and other strengthening exercises are to a tennis player. He won’t do them during a tournament. But he has to do a lot of them before stepping onto the court and facing the game.
Thus doing “Meisner”, will get your “acting muscle” strong, as Andrea and Brian called it. But it is just one element in a whole array of elements, that one needs to deal with, in order to become a successful actor. And that alone can feel like a heavy load.
“If you think, that you’ve got the hang of it, you are definitely doing something wrong“, is a thought, that came to my mind and out of my mouth today, facing a fellow member from class after an especially dull and dead-feeling round of rehearsal.
That relieved both of us somewhat.
For the Meisner technique is a twenty-year-project, thus supposed to keep you busy for that amount of time. If you think, you know, what it’s about after a fraction of those two decades, you fail to acknowledge the complexity of the process.
In our last class at the end of the spring quarter last Monday, Brian told me to “be stupid”. It’s a funny concept to just let go of trying to make sense of it all by grasping it intellectually. To forego the arrogance of believing, one knows it all, is very hard to do for an “intello” as the French call my cerebral breed. To me my brain is a means of self-protection. I trust my brain. To let go of that means to learn to trust one’s emotions, to let your gut dictate your actions, to become helplessly entangled in it – like a baby: Just taking it as if it were all new and reacting to it moment to moment.
Oh, how I wish, it were as easy as it sounds!
Then again, there is this saying, which I read in Barbara Cameron’s “The Artist’s Way”. I’ll paraphrase like this: Dear universal energy, that makes us all hobble through life, one way or the other! Please take care of the quality of what I am doing, while I provide for the quantity!
I use these high-flying words, while Andrea – and Brian just left me with this: Take the next step!
That’s the quantity of one. And one step at a time is enough. Let’s see, what quality this step-taking eventually entails.
And yes, it is up to other forces than little me to determine that. One thing less to worry about! Yippee!
Have a great summer! May you be truthful and in the moment, always!
**********************
General stuff:
Our acting class consists of some ten active members, who meet every Monday and Wednesday from 6.30 pm to about 8.30. We do Meisner. And the Meisner-technique really rocks!
If you want to connect with your inmost feelings, expressing them freely in an acting environment and thus getting to know yourself better and better, feel free to join us! But beware! This quarter is over! We’ll resume in a slightly new format and in new and fancy rooms on September 14th, 2009. Brian will let you know about all these exciting changes in due time on this site.
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About the author:
I am Boris Wilke, a German expat in Prague. I am a writer at large and have been studying Meisner since January 2008. If any of you know of any kind of acting work, that befits a laddish, tall 40-year-old, please leave a note!
July 8th, 2009
New Master Class: Screen Acting Technique
Casting Director, Nancy Bishop, C.S.A. offers a new on-camera master class taught in English for actors. New and returning students alike are welcome to attend this two day intensive course. Unlike previous workshops, this class will focus on screen acting techniques, rather than casting technique.
Day 1. Screen Acting Technique: Actors participate in a series of practical exercises that develop effective methods for screen acting. Material covered will include learning how to calibrate a performance for close-up vs. wide shot, playing an inner monologue, playing reaction shots and playing in the eyes.
Day 2. Strategies for Screen Casting. Actors will apply the techniques they learned on Day One to perform scenes from a variety of genres. The scenes, chosen from actual film scripts, will include a variety of genres ranging from historical drama, to action/thriller to sci-fi. Each participant will get one-on-one coaching in front of the camera with Nancy.
Emmy-award nominated, American Casting Director, Nancy Bishop, has cast over fifty American and British films, from her base in Prague. She is a member of The Casting Society of America, and the International Network of Casting Directors. She has cast for major feature films including Roman Polanski’s Oliver Twist, Hellboy, Bourne Identity, and the recently released Wanted and Prince Caspian. In addition to being a casting director, Nancy is committed to actor training and has developed a proven method for casting technique. She has been teaching casting workshops throughout Europe, the UK, and the US, and she is starting an Acting for Film Department at the Prague Film School that begins Sept, 09. Her book, Secrets from the Casting Couch, will be published by Methuen drama in August, 09.
Time: 11:00AM – 5:30PM
Date: Thurs-Friday, 30-31 July, 2009
Place: Studio Storm, Biskupsky Dvur 4, Prague 1
Cost: 4,000Kc for two days, or 160 EUR
How to register: The class is limited to 14 participants so please register soon.
Please send photo and CV to: workshops@nancybishopcasting.com
See: www.nancybishopcasting.com for more information
July 6th, 2009
Jim from acting class forwarded me this announcement, which I am glad to pass on:
*****
Hello Everyone,
It is my pleasure to once again inform you about Andrea Small’s next
visit to the Czech Republic.
She will lead a workshop under the title “Singing for Joy” on Sunday
17th May in Ceske Budejovice. As usual it will be held at the Materske
Centrum Maj and will run from 10.30-4.30. The workshop is open to all adults and
teenagers, even if they believe they cannot sing. The cost is on a sliding scale from 375kč – 700kč
We are planning a shared lunch so please bring something – not too
much – to put on the table for us all to enjoy. Tea, coffee, water and
biscuits will be provided throughout the day.
I would be grateful if you could distribute the information about the
workshop as far and wide as possible. Word of mouth is still the best
recommendation. Flyers are attached but if you need printed ones please
let me know. You can have the flyers either in Czech or English.
You will also be able to find full information on www.expats.cz on the events
calendar.
Booking in advance is necessary so please contact me either on
gilbomber@cbox.cz or send a text to 608233310.
I look forward to hearing from you very soon and perhaps singing with
you in May
With best wishes
Gil
May 6th, 2009
The Prague Shakespeare Festival is offering a unique Master Class featuring Andrew Wade, one of the world’s foremost experts on Shakespearean Verse, May 23-24, 2009 in Prague, Czech Republic. Space for this exclusive Master Class will be limited to 20 participants and a select number of observers. This is a wonderful opportunity to learn from one of the most respected Shakespearean Theatre experts in the world.
http://www.pragueshakespeare.org/newsPage2.php?id=News
Shakespeare Master Class with Andrew Wade
May 23-24, 2009
Prague, Czech Republic
Saturday May 23, 2009 – 10:00-17:00
Sunday May 24, 2009 – 10:00-17:00
Cost:
Particpant (limit of 20 total) – 4,000 czk
Observer (limited seating) – 2 hours per day – 10:00-12:00 Sat & 14:00-16:00 Sun
1,000 kcz – both days
600 kcz – one day
To apply for the Andrew Wade Master Class, all applicants must submit via email a complete registration form, a headshot or photo, resume and personal statement (if also applying for a partial scholarship).
May 5th, 2009
Divadlo Miloco will be holding a series of workshops focused on devising original performance material in rehearsal. Highlighting movement, improvisation, clown, rhythm and song, these workshops are designed both to develop individual actors’ skills and explore the creative potential of an ensemble.
Of primary importance will be the creation of a space where the group of performers work as one, yet allow for and strengthen each other’s individuality.
The workshops will combine intense physical work with ensemble movement excersises, designed to break down barriers that inhibit open creativity and expression. In tandem with movement and ensemble work, we will also explore improvisation and clowning techniques as ways to create performance material.
As the workshops progress, we will spend more and more time on storytelling, incorporating the physical and improvisation work into a context where an actual performance material can be created.
These workshops are desinged for both experienced, professional actors as well as students. The workshops will be conducted in English and Czech. While the course is free, we will ask all participants to contribute 50kc/session in order to cover costs of heating, electricity, etc.
The workshops will begin on Thursday the 4th of December at 19:00 and will take place every Thursday until the end of January (there will be a Christmas break)
The workshops will be lead by Daniel Brown and Andrea Miltnerova.
Miloco is currently looking to expand its performance ensemble for productions in 2009.
If you are interested in participating, please call Daniel Brown on +420 773660065 or email: info@miloco.cz
For more information visit www.miloco.cz
December 2nd, 2008
Shakespeare’s Sword
Rapier & Broadsword Stage Combat Workshop
Nov 18 & 20, 2008 – 7pm-10pm
Led by accomplished fight director Guy Roberts (member of the Society of American Fight Directors), this class will teach safe and disciplined basic rapier and broadsword stage fighting techniques. The workshop will culminate with a student performance of stage combat choreography directed by Roberts. Participants should bring a pair of light gloves (leather or batting gloves preferred), must wear comfortable clothing and be ready to break a sweat. Students may bring their own rapier and/or broadsword provided the weapon is combat-worthy. The instructor will make final determination regarding the weapon(s) and no weapon(s) not approved by the instructor will be allowed in the workshop. Practice swords provided by instructor.
Space is limited so make reservations early.
Workshop Dates & Locations:
Prague: November 18 & 20, 2008 – 7pm-10pm The English International School Brunelova 960/12
142 00 Prague 4
Directions to EISP:
To reach the school by public transport from the centre, take the red line (C) to Kačerov followed by bus number 117 or 215 to bus-stop Sidliště Libuš. The journey takes approximately 30 minutes and the campus is located directly opposite the bus stop.
Cost – Prague:
1700kc Standard Workshop Fee
1350kc Students & Theatre Artists Workshop Fee (no other discounts apply)
To apply applicants must submit via email a complete registration form (download below).
All balances must be paid prior to the first day of the workshop.
For more info and to register for Shakespeare’s Sword email:guy@guyroberts.com
November 10th, 2008
Intensive Acting Shakespeare Workshop
Led by Guy Roberts, this is the perfect introduction to acting Shakespeare’s texts for the beginner and the perfect exploration and tune-up for the advanced actor. Shakespeare’s characters express themselves by thought, choosing language moment to moment. This intensive workshop explores the link between the structure of the language and the thought the structure expresses. Once the actor fully understands and commands the tools of Shakespeare’s language the possibilities are limitless. The aim is to empower actors to make Shakespeare’s language roll “trippingly” from their tongues. Participants will workshop a selected Shakespeare speech or scene and the weekend concludes with a Mock Audition experience and individualized instructor feedback on the “audition”.
Details and a daily breakdown below:
L’Espace Electrique
Milady Horakove 39, Praha 7
www.unlockingshakespeare.com
Space is limited so make reservations early.
For more info and to register for Unlocking Shakespeare email: guy@guyroberts.com
1700czk Standard Workshop Fee
1350czk Students & Theatre Artists Workshop Fee (no other discounts apply)
**Payment plans accepted on individual basis upon consultation & approval of instructor
**Note: European Workshops conducted entirely in English
Saturday, Oct 25 10am – 5pm
Introduction to Hearing Shakespeare vs. Seeing Shakespeare, Shakespearean theatrical and stage traditions to the present time. Examination of Shakespearean verse structure, how the structure of the verse frees the actor providing dynamic and exciting playing options, Why Language is Character, Shakespearean Rhetoric and the Art of Persuasion, Speech/Thought Structure, and the value of consulting Folio texts. Introduction to effective vocal, physical & textual preparation and rehearsal techniques that the actor can apply to any production or rehearsal session. Monologues and/or scene work is selected for ongoing work.
Sunday, Oct. 26 12pm – 5pm
Ongoing, hands-on work on: Sound and Meaning in Shakespeare, Vowels and Consonants in Shakespeare, Imagery and Antithesis, Order in the Elizabethan World and Prose in Shakespeare. Individual coaching of selected monologues and scenes. One hour private rehearsal/lunch break (participant must provide own meal) at 1:30pm.
Tuesday, Oct 28 7pm – 10pm
Ongoing, hands-on work on: Speaking with Power and Truth and Connecting the Breath to the Voice and the Voice to the Thought. Continued individual coaching of selected monologues and scenes. Workshop ends with Mock Audition followed by individual feedback and coaching.
October 17th, 2008
Nancy is launching several types of new workshops to expand her “brand” if we can call it that. Marketing for Actors will cover how actors can get themselves out there in the world (through new media: youtube, facebook, search engines, blogging; as well as old: resume and showreel critique). There will be a special focus on “self casting” using the new website for actors to send their castings directly to producers. Presumably the workshop will also cover how casting directors view and use this marketing. Right now it looks like she’s only scheduled classes in the UK. Maybe we can persuede her to bring her class back home!
October 2nd, 2008
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