PROOF

CONTENTS

Acknowledgments vii

Introduction: What Is Acting? 1

PART I: PREPARING MIND AND BODY

1 Preparation: Breathing, Relaxation and Concentration 21
Exercise 1: Breathing Awareness 25
Exercise 2: Relaxation Awareness 27
Exercise 3: See-saw Breathing 30
Exercise 4: Concentration and Personalization 31
Exercise 5: Mirror Exercise 32
Exercise 6: Observation and Imagination 33
Exercise 7: Concentration in Motion 34
2 Vocal and Physical Dynamics 36
Exercise 8: Vocal Range and Flexibility 37
Exercise 9: Chekhov’s Movements (Plus) 40
Exercise 10: Creating Images 42
Exercise 11: Swinging Side-to-Side 46
Exercise 12: Animal Imagery 50
3 Personalizing: Sense and Emotion Memory 53
Exercise 13: Sense Memory 54
Exercise 14: Eating Soup 55

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vi Contents

Exercise 15: Packing 59

Exercise 16: Emotion Memory 1 60
Exercise 17: Emotion Memory 2 (Breathing) 62
Exercise 18: Waiting 63

PART II: PASSION AND INSPIRATION

4 Secrets and Sources 77
Exercise 19: Photographs 89
Exercise 20: Repetition 95
5 Physicalization and Analysis Through Action 103
Exercise 21: One Action/One Objective 1 107
Exercise 22: One Action/One Objective 2 116
6 Actions and Six Basic Actions 119
Exercise 23: Six Basic Actions 125
Exercise 24: Mirror/Action Exercise 128
7 Improvisation and Jazz Acting 132
Exercise 25: Nursery Rhyme Exercise 145
Exercise 26: Come to Me 147

PART III: PERFORMING THE ROLE

8 Living Through and Interstitial Scenes 151
Exercise 27: Interstitial Scene 166
9 Lying and Denial 167
Exercise 28: Entrance with a Lie 177
10 The Role: Psychological Gesture, Homework and
Rehearsal 179
Exercise 29: Stepping into Character 185
Exercise 30: Psychological Gesture 1 186
Exercise 31: Psychological Gesture 2 187
Conclusion 193

Brief Biographies of Key Acting Teachers 197

Bibliography 203
Index 211
 PROOF

INTRODUCTION

W H AT I S AC T I N G ?

The aim of this book is twofold: to provide exercises for the

advanced actor, and to illuminate the origination of various tech-
niques related to actor training. The book combines theory and
practice, offering a descriptive account of acting technique and a
prescriptive way of achieving artistry in acting. I draw on examples
from personal experiences as an actor, director and teacher, creating
a book intended for advanced students and veteran actors seeking to
improve, as well as instructors who will, I hope, find it useful when
defining their goals. This is not a basic primer textbook; there are
many practical acting workbooks for beginners. Readers will find a
recommended list of introductory acting textbooks in the bibliogra-
phy. The book is for instructors and students who have a fundamental
background understanding and wish to advance their training and
knowledge further. It is meant to clarify exercises, define similarities
and differences in acting theories, and bring together the multiple
ways of creating excellence in performance. Past and current acting
teachers will be referenced throughout. The section Brief Biographies
of Key Acting Teachers at the end of the book lists the instructors and
their methods.
The chapters are arranged sequentially to provide a stair-step
approach to the development of an actor. While the chapters can be
read individually, the sequence allows readers to progress through a
series of ideas and exercises. The arrangement of chapters is divided
into three parts: the first concerns the development of mind, body,
voice and sensory and emotional availability; these are the building

1
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2 An Actor’s Craf t

blocks of acting. The second part examines emotional triggers –

ways of stimulating the actor’s imagination and passion, as well as
the importance of improvisation in training; these exercises pre-
pare actors for work on a role. The third part concerns playing roles
and how to approach a part. Each chapter contains accompanying
exercises so that the actor can begin practicing. The exercises can be
done alone or in class, but are to be practiced daily and executed like
scales in the same way that musicians, singers and dancers practice.
It takes multiple skills to become a good actor. Acting, according to
acting teacher Robert Benedetti, “is not one skill but a constellation
of skills” and training actors “is complicated by the fact that each of
these skills involves a different mode of thought and activity” (Zen
in the Art of Actor Training, p. 88). As the title suggests, An Actor’s
Craft is not all-encompassing – hence the indefinite article “a” not
“the.” Acting is a subjective art with multiple ways to execute it pro-
ficiently, teach it successfully, and define it aesthetically. Being a
good actor requires skill, craft, experience, passion, vision, sensi-
tivity, vitality, spontaneity and a host of other attributes that are both
exhilarating and highly demanding. The ways of achieving them
will be examined here by offering a comprehensive approach that
empowers performers to become creative artists capable of making
significant contributions to the art of acting.
I believe acting can be taught. Not necessarily from a book, of
course, but much can be gained from a book. Acting is an art, and actors
are creative artists. Acting is a profession like any other, requiring dis-
cipline, a work ethic and professionalism. Actors are artists because
they invent something out of imagination and inspiration. Like other
artists who interpret, make choices and engage in creative acts – in the
actor’s case, the creation of a human being – actors invent characters
that did not exist before they embodied them. Likewise a painter who
creates on a canvas, or a musician who creates on an instrument, actors
create from themselves. Their instrument is their body and mind; their
blueprint is their life; and their creative activity emerges from their
ideas and passions manifested in gesture, voice, actions and behavior.
There is no formula for quality acting; creativity is not mass-produced
but rather actors discover it, refine and reinvent it. Technique – the way
of working – is a means to several possible paths of creativity and not
a recipe for success. There is a lucrative “industry” of actor training,
particularly in the United States, that requires “certification” to teach
 PROOF
Introduction: What Is Acting? 3

a prescribed technique – as if learning to be an actor is a timeless art

form fixed at a particular juncture of history, successful only if one
pursues a paint-by-numbers approach and validated solely by desig-
nated gurus. The implementation of such guru-ism – the worship of
teachers as deities – has done significant damage to the credibility of
actor training. Ideas and techniques involving the instruction of any
art form evolve over time; every teacher modifies his/her descrip-
tions and methods; and no single way of doing art creates certainty
of excellence. To think so, and to suggest so, implies that actor train-
ing is a one-size-fits-all method suitable to all simultaneously. But
acting, like all the arts, is not a medical prescription (“take two of
these pills tonight and you’ll be talented in the morning”). Actor
training is based on ways of working, not the way of working. As indi-
viduals vary, so methods of improving vary.
“Technique” (and there are many techniques that will be exam-
ined in this book) means the process through which the actor
marshals all the elements of her toolkit – imagination, relaxation, con-
centration, emotion, vitality, interpretation and so on, and presents
them through gesture, voice, image, subtext, mind, action and specific
relationships to the other actors onstage. Art, playwright and director
David Mamet says, “is about the spontaneous connection of the art-
ist to his own unconscious – about insight beyond reason,” and the
“only purpose of technique is to allow the artist to bypass the con-
scious mind” (p. 91). Technique is a way to free the artist, not shackle
her with rules and regulations; it must inspire actions and behaviors
that emerge from interesting choices; it must liberate, not restrict;
and it should encourage creativity, not inhibit it. Anything passing
for “technique” that fails to inspire the actor “to act” is untrustwor-
thy and should be discarded immediately. Technique enables the
actor to enlarge and expand her creative, imaginative and physical
embodiment of the role. It must be organic; it is always a process and
not a result; and it is neither a label nor a fetish (“I study this and that
technique, therefore I’m an actor”), nor something an actor does to
“show off.” Instead, it is a functional process – a tool – for improve-
ment and clarity. Technique is a part of the organic process: You are
your technique because your technique is absorbed into who you are.
As with an athlete, an observer knows the player’s skills were derived
by technique, but when it comes to the time to hit the ball or make
the shot the technique is absorbed into the player and only the activity
 PROOF
4 An Actor’s Craf t

in the moment matters. A tennis player might need to improve her

backhand technique; she practices a technique that succeeds in
improving her skills. It is the same with acting: if the actor is not
emotionally connected to herself or to a role, if she is not sufficiently
listening and observing her fellow actors, if she is not pursuing
actions and objectives and so on, the actor employs techniques to
improve these shortcomings.
The study of acting, as the founder of modern acting training,
Konstantin Stanislavsky reminds us, is a living organism. It trans-
forms in different situations, adapts to changing circumstances, and
must therefore be modified to address individual needs, strengths
and weaknesses. When discussing his system of training, Stanislavsky
said emphatically that it is “not a cookery book. When you prepare a
particular dish, you merely look in the contents, look up the appro-
priate page and that is that. The ‘system’ is not an all-purpose refer-
ence book but a whole culture which must be cultivated and nurtured
over many long years. An actor cannot learn it parrot-fashion,” but
rather must “make it part of his own flesh and blood, make it sec-
ond nature, become one with it forever so it transforms him for the
stage” (Actor’s Work, p. 612). What works for one actor may not neces-
sarily work for another; and what works at one point for an actor may
no longer apply as that actor takes on a new role, evolves as an art-
ist, or grows as a human being. The director Peter Brook reminds us
that “talent is not static, it ebbs and flows according to many circum-
stances” (Empty Space, p. 104). Roles, performances and ensembles
change, demanding that we create and recreate ourselves. American
acting teacher Lee Strasberg, following Stanislavsky’s observation,
put it best when he said that the actor works in “two spheres – the
actor’s work on himself and the actor’s work on the role.” During the
course of training, “one aspect of the actor’s art may be emphasized
temporarily at the expense of the other, but before a complete and
convincing image can be created on the stage both must be mastered”
(Introduction, Diderot’s Paradox, p. xiii). The work on the self and the
work on the role are equally demanding, requiring time, energy, focus
and attention.
A fully trained actor should have at her disposal multiple tools,
and as each challenge arises, new tools apply. This book empha-
sizes tools aimed at improving concentration, sensitivity, variety of
actions, emotional availability, responsiveness to other actors and so
on – concerning self-development and creative growth. I shall analyze
 PROOF
Introduction: What Is Acting? 5

several roles in this book, and each role requires different things
from different actors. To cover every role in the history of theater
(plus television, movies and the internet) is impossible. Furthermore,
to suggest that there is only one way of performing a role implies that
actors are merely spokes on a wheel – any actor can play the role as
long as she applies the “rule” or technique so that the wheel spins.
Conventional wisdom, for example, suggests that Stanislavsky’s tech-
nique works only for realism, the Polish director Jerzy Grotowski’s
technique works only for the avant-garde, elocutionary techniques
work only for Shakespeare and so on, as if acting is an assembly line
(“All aboard the Stanislavsky assembly line when you do Chekhov
and be sure to get off when you do Shakespearean verse”). There is
no “one way” to perform Chekhov, Shakespeare, Ionesco, Tennessee
Williams or any playwright: different theaters, directors, ensembles
and condition of the actor at any given moment influence the per-
former, creating differing situations and alternating demands. To
maintain that an acting “technique” or a training method is applica-
ble only to certain roles, genres or playwrights and not others is anti-
thetical to the actor as a creative and empowering artist. Stanislavsky
is very clear on this point, saying “my method gives no recipes for
becoming a great actor or for playing a part. My method is the way to
the actor’s correct state of being on the stage. The correct state is the
normal state of a human being in life” (quoted in Gorchakov, p. 119).
Embodying a role with interest, passion and dynamism is our aim;
I acknowledge the absolute importance of analyzing a role. However,
I leave the work on a role to the individual actor as they grapple with
each play and apply different interpretations as they arise. What I
offer are multiple means of artistic development and I encourage
each actor to use what is appropriate for each situation – as each role
is attempted, new concerns and ideas emerge.
The aim of acting is the enlargement of human understanding. We
engage, in a public forum, the consequences, actions, emotions and
relationships occurring among humans. Our objective is commu-
nicating ideas about the human condition, to educate an audience
about human relations, and to provide insights into human beings.
When I observe good acting, I am compelled by the actor’s behavior,
I am moved by her passion, and I am galvanized by her attention to
detail, her relationship to the other actors and objects onstage, and
her ability to surprise me. Like great painting or music, I want to see
and hear the actor with all my attention because the actor enables me
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6 An Actor’s Craf t

to understand more of what it means to be a human being. I am led

by the actor’s desires and feelings for the role and the interesting,
unique and wholly unpredictable performance. The actor is not seek-
ing my approval or trying to “sell” the notion of a good performance to
me; rather, she is leading me toward her ideas about the role, which in
turn leads me to greater understanding of humanity. The actor is an
artist who brings something special to the stage or screen – a vision,
emotion, concept and energy that is unequivocally engrossing.
Stanislavsky asserts that actors “have the opportunity, through
the ideas that you dramatize on the stage and through your charac-
terization, to educate your audience and to make them better, finer,
wiser, and more useful members of society” (quoted in Gorchakov,
pp. 40–1). I am therefore interested in a certain type of acting: three-
dimensional, emotional, physical, intelligent and socially aware. The
actor should be believable, subtle, exciting, vulnerable, surprising, taste-
ful, empathetic, compelling, ensemble oriented and willing to show
all sides of her personality. The actor conveys depth and restraint,
artistry and ideas, and a willingness to reveal a human being in all
her complexity. Actors must be psychologically astute, emotionally
courageous and brutally honest in their self-examination. And that
is not all: an actor should have a resonating voice, physical dexter-
ity and a flexible body capable of assuming many shapes and forms.
I want to watch an actor who is colorful, exhibiting a wide range of
feelings and actions; it is not enough to be truthful or to be able to
say four lines of verse on one breath; the actor must have a broad
imagination and a range of actions and emotions that sustain my
interest over a two to three hour period. The actor must have a rul-
ing idea about the performance; more importantly, in executing the
ruling idea, Stanislavsky insists that “You must do everything in your
power to make the idea exciting, colorful, strong, and important to
the audience” (quoted in Gorchakov, p. 42). During the time an actor
is on stage or screen she must discover her life through the course of
the story; the audience travels with the actor through the narrative,
watching the actor experience, grow, learn, rise, fall and emerge at the
end changed by the journey’s events. This is what is meant by “living
through” the role: the actor has lived through and experienced some-
thing spontaneously, influenced by the story and deeply affected by
the unfolding events.
I want to be surprised when I watch an actor, because the actor
understands irony, combines humor and pathos, rage and compassion,
 PROOF
Introduction: What Is Acting? 7

grasps the contradictions and absurdity of the human condition,

and adds a creative spin to each role. Actors must develop a keen
sense of imagination and fantasy; simultaneously, they must be
present in the moment, relaxed and accessible to immediate and
multiple reactions, and exhibit depth and intensity of emotion.
Actors must have at their immediate disposal a highly active and
evolved sensory apparatus; they must be, in other words, responsive
to their individual taste, tactile, olfactory, visual, and aural experi-
ences. Actors discover in their performance: by discover I mean an
actor allows the events to unfold in real time as she experiences
them, using improvisatory skills to become surprised by what she
sees and hears. Stanislavsky’s pupil Michael Chekhov observed that
“To create, in the real sense, means to discover and show new things”
(To the Actor 28) and his other pupil Evgenii Vakhtangov said that an
actor must “agitate from the essence,” by which he means that an actor
must be inspired (agitated) to perform not for accolades or the desire
to impress the spectators, but rather moved to present the human
condition completely, organically, and with the full understanding
of themselves, the play, and the role. “The conditions of the life of
a character,” Vakhtangov maintains, “must be known as well as you
know your own mother” (in Cole, p. 145), and this knowledge allows
us to see and hear a fully-formed human being. I want a performance
to endure in the mind and imagination of the audience, to change
the spectator in some significant way. Likewise music or painting,
I want an actor’s performance to resonate deeply in the spectator.
An actor is an artist and should therefore work accordingly: attentive
to details, focus on specific choices and actions, cultivate powers of
observations, be a student of the human condition, and make deci-
sions about what to enact based on study, passion, inventiveness and
willingness to share her own life experiences.
This is a book about acting for every medium. I believe acting for the
stage and acting for the camera are not as radically different as many
suppose. “Acting is acting, whether in film, theater, or television,”
writes the acting teacher Harold Guskin. No matter the venue, he says,
an actor should discover “the way to free himself from Acting, playing
it moment by moment, letting his instinct and his emotions take him
wherever they go, trusting the script to sculpt the character” (p. 137).
I prefer acting for the stage largely because there are no barriers
between the actor and the audience; the raw emotions and physical
presence of the actor are a powerful and immediate synergy that
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8 An Actor’s Craf t

cannot be replicated in film or television. The stage also demands a

living recreation at every performance and this recreation exercises
craft, stretches creativity and improves acting skills. Strasberg has
often been accused of teaching acting primarily for film, yet in this
observation he strikes the right note for stage acting: “the real prob-
lem for the actor,” he says, “is how to create in each performance
the same believable experiences and behavior, and yet include what
Stanislavsky called ‘the illusion of the first time’ ” (Dream of Passion,
p. 35). Choices that work for a large Broadway theater may not work as
well for the screen; an open-air theater and an intimate space place
different demands on the actor; yet, as acting teacher Milton Katselas
contends, “that doesn’t mean the acting is fundamentally different.
The work is the same, the degree of emotion is the same. The story
is the same” (p. 147). Furthermore, there are wonderful film and tel-
evision scripts that challenge the actor. The acting teacher Lawrence
Parke says, and I agree, it ultimately boils down to this: “Good acting
is good acting, whether in theatre or before the cameras of motion pic-
tures” (p. 274).
There are, of course, differences; namely the camera’s ability for
close-ups as opposed to the need for projection in the theater; the
need to express the work physically and viscerally in the theater as
opposed to the dictates of subtle facial expression on film; and the
continuity of the stage as opposed to the potential discontinuity in
the shooting sequence of film or television. But these are techni-
cal adjustments for the actor, and too many non-actors make more
of these differences than reality dictates. Critic Robert Brustein, for
example, remarks that Marlon Brando’s “brooding intimacy was,
from the very beginning, perfect for movie roles” (p. 90). On the con-
trary: from the beginning, Brando’s theatrical training and muscu-
lar physicality worked splendidly not only onstage but also in films
such as A Streetcar Named Desire and On the Waterfront. One could
argue that he was too physical for film; his animated body language
projected perhaps more than the camera required. But there is little
doubt that his acting was theatrical and visceral. He mumbled occa-
sionally, but that behavior (really just a bad habit) has been exagger-
ated by his detractors. His brooding also increased as he disengaged
from stage acting entirely. Still, his theater training surfaces remark-
ably well in his films and his work is a paradigm of terrific acting –
indeed a model that is still worth emulating. A more significant and
perceptive remark about Brando, and acting in general, comes from
the actor William Redfield, who compares Brando to Laurence Olivier
 PROOF
Introduction: What Is Acting? 9

(they were often compared from the 1950s through the 1970s, con-
sidered representatives of the best in American and British styles,
respectively), noting that during the mid-twentieth century, when
the American Method was asserting its presence, what American
actors “wanted all along was Olivier’s training, will power, and
intellectual application grafted onto Brando’s muscles, sensibility,
and passion. For passion, in Brando’s dish-shattering hands, was a
thrilling sight indeed” (p. 10). This description defines excellence in
acting: training, analysis and will power combined with raw emo-
tion, risky choices, spontaneity, imagination, action and passion.

What is “Good Acting?”

The American acting teacher Sanford Meisner wrote that “Good

acting is humanly alive and theatrically vivid” (Theatre Arts on
Acting, p. 45). This is a good starting point for a definition of “quality
acting.” Still, everyone will have their own view; this is why we are
engaged in a subjective art. I acknowledge quality acting when it
compels me to watch and listen; and I acknowledge inferior acting
when it leaves me bored and uninspired. Bad acting works on the
surface; it is predictable, obvious, shallow and seeks audience acco-
lades. Good acting achieves multiple levels and various nuances; it
surprises, revealing varying facets about the human condition – in
other words, passion, detail and depth. Bad acting is general and
one-dimensional; good acting is specific and three-dimensional. It
comes from a deeply personal place in the actor, is well-thought-out,
consists of actions, expressed eloquently, tastefully, simply and artis-
tically through the actor’s voice and movement, and conveys feeling,
humor and pathos. A good actor connects to other actors onstage,
giving generously to them in the spirit of care, devotion and concen-
tration. A bad actor is physically tense, forcing arbitrary emotions or
actions, and largely ignores other actors; a good actor is relaxed, con-
centrating and breathing fully, and living through each moment spe-
cifically as if it is the first breath of her life. Good acting never tries to
force itself upon us, but rather offers a way of perceiving the human
condition with thought, wit, ease and ideas. Good actors willingly
risk being disliked, repellent, even scorned; as the playwright and
director Bertolt Brecht suggested, it is not always necessary to seek
empathy and love in a performance as it is to obtain understand-
ing. Good acting can derive only from hard work, discipline and long
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10 An Actor’s Craf t

hours of rehearsal. It demands rigorous attention to the detail of one-

self and the role. In good acting, the actor can be silent or read from
a phone book; either way, the activity is so engaging that her mere
presence in performance is mesmerizing and the result of watching
is transformative.
Three qualifying points need to be stressed. First, the script has
nothing to do with a good performance. Acting does not depend on
what the vehicle is but rather on how it is being executed. Good or
mediocre scripts should be judged on their own merits. Many sub-par
scripts seem excellent when first presented by good actors, only to be
recognized for their inadequacies when performed again by others;
and many fine scripts are relegated to the garbage bin because they
were first exposed to the public by under-par performers. Acting is
creating a three-dimensional and truthful depiction of a human being,
not the creation of literature: “What the author has given you in the
form of a written play is his creation, not yours,” Michael Chekhov
writes, “he has applied his talent. But what is your contribution to the
writer’s work?” (To the Actor, p. 27). Certainly, a superior script – with
vivid dialogue, intriguing story and imaginative relationships – is
desirable and should inspire actors. But literature has its own stand-
ards, and acting has others, and it is a mistake to confuse the two
(though many do). Frequently, an actor can indeed learn a great deal
by working with an inferior script. Good scripts can sometimes make
the acting easier by providing all the requisite details; the actor sim-
ply follows the script’s narrative or characterization and provides suf-
ficient energy and enthusiasm to support it. Bad scripts make us work
harder – and in turn we often learn more – because we are obligted to
fill in details the author has left blank. Because of the actor’s work –
regardless of the text – I leave the theater or film fundamentally
changed by the depth, variety and dynamics of the performance.
Second, shock value has nothing to do with good acting. We are
often compelled to rubberneck when we see an accident, drawn to
the disaster by curiosity (the German word is Schadenfreude, the guilty
pleasure of watching others suffer). Undoubtedly, train wrecks attract
attention; this is, however, not art but happenstance. Someone’s bad
luck, like nudity, can be magnetic, but it has nothing to do with an
actor’s artistic choices. Our attention to shock and nudity is fleet-
ing, banal, motivated by petty inquiry (like watching a movie star’s
meltdown), and caused by easy arousal rather than inspiring art-
istry. Finally, what passes for good looks is superficial, irrelevant and
 PROOF
Introduction: What Is Acting? 11

based on artificial standards of fashionable attractiveness. Acting is

not a beauty pageant; it has no connection with the surface glitter of
what society deems to be sexy. Such value judgments teeter on por-
nography, are manufactured by industries to sell products, and have
nothing whatever to do with quality acting. Good acting should be
sexy, but this is only one of several components that make up its
sum total. Galvanizing my attention has little to do with stardom:
there are actors who seek attention merely for the sake of it; their act-
ing is an exercise in pronouncing how wonderful or cute they are in
order to obtain praise. We all desire praise, but this goal alone pro-
duces old tricks, reduces artistic choices and eviscerates the perform-
ance’s humanity, leaving nothing but superficiality. Stanislavsky’s
student, Richard Boleslavsky refers to this as “mechanical perform-
ances” that “instead of being based on new, specifically discovered
[ideas] for that particular play” and evoking new “creative principles,”
are “produced according to an old commonplace routine. The only
standard rule in such kind of a theatre is the motto: ‘the public likes
it!’ (“Creative Theatre,” p. 99). Vakhtangov called this kind of actor a
“journeyman” one who “grasps with bare hands at feelings and tries
to give a definitive form to their expression” (in Cole, p. 144). These
actors quickly cry or laugh, as if a show of emotion, cleverness, being
“cool,” or flaunting sexuality demonstrates the human condition. The
opposite is the case: an actor must touch the core of emotions with
humility; must be responsible for depth without self-aggrandizement;
and must create conviction borne from human relationships and
comprehension of the human condition. Only then can an actor reach
beneath the surface. The American acting teacher, Stella Adler, put
it best when she said that the actor “is expected to create magic. He
has to create a character that engages the audience night after night,”
because audiences come to the theater “for one reason only: to enjoy
and fathom the human condition – to be jolted, to have an artistic
experience” (Technique, p. 7). This engagement must not only occur
instantly – the moment the actor enters the stage or appears on the
screen – it must also be sustained throughout the performance.
The fundamental tool for every actor is passion: you must desire to
act for the love of it. Stanislavsky said that the “genuine actor is set
on fire by what is happening around him, he is carried away by life,
which then becomes the object of his study and his passion” (An Actor’s
Work, p. 115). Along similar lines, the acting teacher Milton Katselas
adds that “you have to have the passion within that propels you to
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12 An Actor’s Craf t

burn, to have to be on fire. And politeness is not the answer. And

likeability is not the answer” (p. 23), because, as the acting teacher
Larry Moss puts it: “You have to find something in every script that
ignites your own passion. Don’t ever play a part without some per-
sonal investment” (p. 102). You must learn to respect the work as an
art expressing the human condition. Yet the love of acting must not
become narcissistic. Stanislavsky felt that actors can too easily be
distracted and seduced by the self-aggrandizing promotion required
to succeed in the acting profession. He fought passionately against
the influences of “success, applause, vanity, conceit, bohemianism,
hamming, self-importance, bragging, gossip, scandal-mongering” and
other backstage traps that hinder the art of acting. For Stanislavsky,
“Creative, artistic principles, a true love of the art in yourself not
yourself in the art, personal awareness, strong beliefs, good habits,
and understanding what teamwork implies, a sense of loyalty, these
are all powerful antidotes” to the infectious habits plaguing actors
(Actor’s Work, p. 608).
Actors illuminate extraordinary insight into human desires and
possibilities, giving the audience a glimpse of who they are and what
they might become. Stanislavsky insists that

The more an actor has seen, observed and understood, the greater
his life-experience, his live impressions and memories, the more he
feels and thinks, the broader, more varied, and richer his imagination
will be, the fuller, the deeper his appreciation of the facts, the more
strongly the external and internal life of the role and the play will be
created. (Actor’s Work on a Role, p. 131)

Actors bear a great responsibility because they are proxy for peo-
ple’s hopes and desires, voicing the kinds of thoughts that flicker
through an audience that is often unable or unwilling to visit places
in their hearts. They might wish they could, but they are perhaps too
inhibited or afraid to make the leap. Actors do it for them: immersing
people in the actors’ imaginative world because they have something
to say or to share that illuminates the human condition. Actors must
therefore take their art seriously (even when they are being funny;
perhaps never more so when they are being funny) because they hold
a mirror up to nature and can bend that mirror in ways they choose.
Stanislavsky maintains that the actor “is the force that reflects all
the mysteries of nature, revealing them to the men who are not
 PROOF
Introduction: What Is Acting? 13

endowed with the gift of seeing all those spiritual treasures them-
selves” (On the Art of the Stage, p. 110). Actors should live their lives fully,
opening their hearts and minds to others because they never know
whom they might have to portray. The actor-director Joseph Chaikin
remarks that “An actor should visit and inspect patients in hospitals,
and he should go to night courts, Buddhist services, A. A. meetings,
draft boards, ghettos, Bowery flophouses, and public bars of different
kinds; otherwise he has only a partial understanding of the dimension
of his study” (p. 58). I want to see actors knowledgeable about the world,
educated about cultures, broadminded and curious about humanity,
and informed about current events. They should have opinions but
never close their minds and hearts to anyone or anything; avail them-
selves of all kinds of music and art, attend concerts and museums
regularly; read newspapers or online news daily in order to be aware
of the world around them; read novels, poetry and plays (every play!)
voraciously; attend the theater regularly; believe passionately about a
cause but never fail to understand the opposing side; believe in justice
and fair play; and open themselves to all aspects of humanity.

Acting Training for the Twenty-First Century

Throughout my training and work as a director, actor and acting

teacher I have witnessed contretemps between acting methods. These
battles, which dominated acting training in the second half of the
twentieth century, have lost their relevance. The quality and success
of students taught by Lee Strasberg and Stella Adler (among others)
trivializes their differences. The stellar track record of actors emerg-
ing from the Lee Strasberg Institute, Actors Studio, Stella Adler
Conservatory, Neighborhood Playhouse (where Sanford Meisner
taught), HB Studio (where Uta Hagen taught), or many other signa-
tory acting schools, renders disagreements insignificant. Instead, we
should acknowledge the great schools and teachers as providing exhil-
arating foundations for actor training and recognize that their tech-
niques and approaches are not antithetical. It is no longer feasible
or tenable to have an either/or proposition. Actors can, for example,
work on Strasberg’s affective memory and Adler’s physical action
simultaneously; we can find an objective and work on our voice for the
role at the same time; and we can embody movements from theories
such as Viewpoints while still identifying emotionally with a role
 PROOF
14 An Actor’s Craf t

(all these terms and exercises will be examined thoroughly in this

book). I propose that we need no longer subscribe to the internecine
arguments between Method (internal based) and non-Method
(external based) approaches to acting; working from within by
making the roles personally connected to us and working from out-
side on our voice and movement in each role are not mutually exclu-
sive ideas. The contributions of the great teachers of acting in the
twentieth and twenty-first centuries (Method or otherwise) can be
absorbed into the actors’ bodies and minds, incorporating a variety
of techniques. Put simply, we can work with several methods at once.
Throughout this book I will reference many methods, but will avoid
the squabbles that have plagued acting training for decades. Instead,
I will suggest combinations, focusing on multiple ways of presenting
the best possible performance. Despite the insistence of many that
certain techniques are diametrically opposed to others, the ideas and
exercises described in this book can, I hope, offer students an alter-
native for the twenty-first century. My background has helped me to
conceive of this goal because of the multiple training methods I have
been exposed to – and I have never found them to be antithetical.
As a teenager I studied acting at the American Academy of Dramatic
Arts during weekends and summers. I attended Carnegie Mellon
University studying acting, voice, speech, movement, mime, acro-
batics, fencing, commedia, stage combat and dance. I performed
in plays ranging from contemporary realism to Shakespeare, from
experimental theater to Greek tragedy. I trained with Edith Skinner,
who taught me every day for four years and miraculously removed
my Brooklyn accent. Bob Parks taught voice, fleshing out my reso-
nance and vocal range. Jewel Walker, student of Étienne Decroux,
instructed mime. B. H. Barry taught stage combat, Fran Bennett
offered dance-movement workshops, Arnie Zazlov taught commedia
dell’ arte style, and the nonparallel tap dancer Paul Draper helped
me to overcome my clumsiness to become a respectable, if hardly
great, dancer. Directors Larry Carra, Israel Hicks and John Pasquin,
among others, staged plays and coached me on specific roles. During
the summer of my sophomore-junior year I studied film with the
great cinematographer Haig Manoogian at New York University.
I profited greatly from the expertise of all of them.
Yet I graduated from college feeling an emptiness. It seemed odd,
because I had much for which to be thankful. Though hardly a pro-
fessional dancer, I had learned to move well. I was proficient in
 PROOF
Introduction: What Is Acting? 15

speech and could produce accents of all sorts. My once-throaty voice

had developed richness of tone; I increased my vocal range and sharp-
ened my articulation. Thanks to Skinner and Parks (and to Skinner’s
assistant, Tim Monich, who coached me privately), my speaking
voice pronounced Shakespeare’s texts eloquently; I can dissect iam-
bic pentameter and find the emphasis and stress; and while I do not
consider myself a singer, I can carry a tune. I studied the Meisner
Technique with Morty Lawner and Earle Gister. During my jun-
ior year I was taught by Franz Marjenin, Jerzy Grotowski’s disciple
and the author of a chapter in Grotowski’s Towards a Poor Theatre
(pp. 175–204); I was immersed in Grotowski’s physical training for
five days a week. I was also trained by the movement teacher, Moshe
Feldenkrais, during my senior year, and his month-long workshop
had a profound effect on my life. I studied the Alexander Technique,
first at The American Center for the Alexander Technique and then
privately (with Pamela Anderson) and Feldenkrais’ work privately
for several years after graduation. Nevertheless, I believed that all
these skills could not help me to access my inner life. I felt that while
I had learned the skills of movement and voice, flexibility and physi-
cality, I had yet to discover my passion.
I began searching New York for an acting teacher. At the time,
I was inspired by the acting I saw on the New York stage, specifi-
cally John Cazale and Al Pacino in Heathcote Williams’ The Local
Stigmatic, and John Kani and Winston Ntshona in Athol Fugard’s
Sizwe Banzi is Dead. John Cazale in particular was, in my view,
greatly under-appreciated. He created some films of most haunting
and profound characters, and was perhaps the greatest actor of my
generation, and every student actor and acting teacher should see
the documentary I Knew It Was You: Rediscovering John Cazale (it is
required viewing in my acting classes). Observing Kani and Ntshona
taught me the power of acting that can affect social change. I ulti-
mately gained my greatest learning experiences from three people
who taught me the foundational exercises that will be described
throughout this book: Paul Mann, who taught me the “one action/
one objective” exercise; Kim Stanley, who taught me “affective
memory”; and Barbara Loden, who presented the ideas of “interstitial
scenes.” Each was uncompromising and relentless in their demands
for excellence, and sometimes brutally honest with me; and while
it was occasionally painful to hear them critique my work, I am so
much the better (and grateful) for it.
 PROOF
16 An Actor’s Craf t

The ideas and exercises offered in this book have evolved into my
practice in the acting class. However, I make no claim of inventing
the wheel; the work presented here has been expressed and prac-
ticed before in various ways. I acknowledge my enormous debt to
teachers who have influenced me and demonstrated ways of work-
ing; rather than originality, this book is an extension of their ideas,
modified and combined to create the most productive results. The
technique described here adds variations to tested procedures and
exercises. In modifying and combining many well-known exercises
from superb instructors, I recognize their spirit ingrained in my
work, their brilliance is unassailable, and my gratitude is boundless.
Furthermore, from the early twentieth century until this moment
all acting training extends from Stanislavsky. Let there be no doubt or
misunderstanding about this: Grotowski and Strasberg ferociously
disagreed on many subjects but they unequivocally concur on this
point: Grotowski says that Stanislavsky, “was the first great creator of
a method of acting in the theatre, and all those of us who are involved
with theatre problems can do no more than give personal answers
to the questions he raised” (p. 117); and Strasberg says that the work
of Stanislavsky, “is the single most important influence in the mod-
ern theatre” (Stanislavsky: Man and Actor, p. 212). I have read many
books on acting (as the bibliography to this book will attest) and have
observed dozens of acting classes in my experience as both an actor
and an acting teacher. Without exception, the books and lessons,
in one way or another, build on Stanislavsky’s principles. They may
describe exercises or procedures with different shadings but all are
founded on Stanislavsky.
Stanislavsky’s contributions were the result of several factors. He
was born into a affluent family of textile manufacturers, giving him
the opportunity to enjoy a life devoted to the theater without daily
financial stress (something few actors experience). He worked in the
theater for over 40 years and, most importantly, devoted the time
to the study of acting. No one in the history of theater, and specifi-
cally in actor training, has given as much time and effort to this one
subject, and because of financial security basked in the freedom to
concentrate on the subject. Because of Stanislavsky’s full-time devo-
tion to the study of acting, and because of his motivation and curi-
osity, his system covers virtually every aspect of performing: from
emotional connection to yoga breathing; from physical actions to
psychological motivation; from movement and voice to inner truth
 PROOF
Introduction: What Is Acting? 17

and conviction; from sense memory to acrobatics; from affective

memory to fencing; and from Western notions of a character’s goals
(objectives) to the Eastern notions of a character’s prana (energy, or
rays). He ultimately came to the conclusion that only through disci-
plined devotion to the multiple facets of this art can emerge a truly
well-rounded actor. Only when the mind and body work together can
an actor achieve quality work; and only when the actor understands
and commits to working on herself and the roles she plays can art-
istry derive and thrive. While Stanislavsky always insisted on actor
training that incorporated sonorous vocal development, excellent
diction and eloquent movement, through the study of acrobatics,
fencing, ballet, gymnastics, stage combat and mime, he maintained
his faith in what he called the “experience of emotional identifica-
tion” with the role. Without this, he said, “there is no life of the spirit
and nothing to embody; without emotional involvement, scenic
movement loses its purpose of beautiful embodying the life of the
spirit; it begins to exist for its own sake and serves not feeling, but
only words” (Selected Works, p. 141).
Stanislavsky also had the confidence to gather together outstand-
ing pupils and learn from them. His great students – Vakhtangov,
Boleslavsky, Chekhov, Meyerhold, Maria Knebel, Leopold Sulerzhitsky,
Maria Ouspenskaya and Vera Soloviova – assisted him in developing
acting that has dominated training throughout the twentieth and
into the twenty-first centuries (see the section Brief Biographies of
Key Acting Teachers at the end of the book). It also helps that Russian
theater has a long and venerable history, and that being an actor
in Russia is viewed, both then and now, as an honorable and noble
profession – something that unfortunately does not follow in the
United States. Stanislavsky and his pupils established the view that
an actor’s goal is to create a lived experience through action, emotion,
truthful and spontaneous behavior, and the heightening of the senses.
The students of Stanislavsky, as well as his disciples in the United
States and Europe, advanced his ideas and embellished actor train-
ing, creating a vast network of processes and means of rehearsing.
Stanislavsky raised the key questions that all actors, if they are seri-
ous about their work, must address: How do we make the most of our
art form? How can we nurture the creative state of mind and body
that engages an audience? And how do we define quality acting? He
came to the conclusion that acting conveys the human spirit. The
goal of actors is to bring humanity into focus by watching an actor
 PROOF
18 An Actor’s Craf t

live and experience rather than represent the human condition; by

experience I mean allowing the events to happen spontaneously
rather than presenting pre-packaged results. Acting teachers often
refer to this as working moment-to-moment – anticipating nothing
and alive to all the possibilities around us. Despite the fact that the
actor knows the play’s conclusion and memorizes the author’s dia-
logue, she is spontaneous, surprised and speaks as if the words had
just been discovered. How do actors, then, bring themselves to such
a state of creativity that can be conveyed physically to an audience
so that their humanity surfaces in all its dimensions? How can actors
bring to the stage or movie the soul of a human being, making their
performance compelling, artistic and creative? Throughout his long
career as a student and teacher of acting, Stanislavsky came to the
conclusion that a total commitment of mind and body, a willingness
to bring one’s personal life to the role, combined with the height-
ening of the five senses, a willingness to work as an ensemble, and
the application of imagination, will, feeling, intelligence, wit, crea-
tivity, action and memory was the path to good acting. The study of
modern acting technique begins with Stanislavsky, but it does not
end with him. It is hoped that future teachers will modify the exer-
cises and ideas presented here, taking the craft to the next level of
achievement.
 PROOF

INDEX

acting 1–9 American Laboratory Theatre 198

‘good acting’ 9–13 analysis through action 103–4, 199
training of actors 2–3, 13–18 Anderson, Pamela 15
see also individual topics animals
action 119–27 acting with 144–5
analysis through action 103–4, 199 animal imagery 48–50
finding beats 130–1 exercise 50–1
learning new actions through new Appel, Alfred 139
instinct 128 Archer, William 170
mirror/action exercise 128–9 art
six basic actions exercise 125–6 acting as 2, 70
see also physical dynamics; painting by numbers 89–90
physicalization attention-seeking 11
Actors Studio 13, 133, 199 attitude 64
Adler, Stella 11, 13, 73, 79, 92, auditions 43–4, 116, 126
121, 133, 157, 164, 166, 179, waiting for 63
182, 200
affective (emotion) memory 60–72, Baraka, Amiri 138
87, 104, 194, 199 Barry, B. H. 14
emotion memory exercises 60–1, 62 Barthes, Roland 87, 88
jack-in-the-box experience and Batson, Susan 136
79–84 beats 130–1
waiting exercise 63 Beiderbecke, Bix 136
aims of acting 5 Belgrad, Daniel 135
Alberts, David 83 believability 152, 154
Alexander Technique 15, 28–9 Benedetti, Jean 36, 134, 154, 177
Alice, Mary 77 Benedetti, Robert 2, 57–8
American Academy of Dramatic Bennett, Fran 14
Arts 14 blackface 137
American Center for Stanislavsky Bogart, Anne 69, 70, 202
Theatre Art 201 Boleslavsky, Richard 11, 17, 153, 198

2 11
 PROOF
212 Index

Bradley, Margaret 62 concentration 30–5, 194

Brando, Marlon 8–9, 42, 133, 136, 137, concentration and personalization
139, 140, 145, 153 exercise 31
breathing 21–4, 179, 194 concentration in motion
breathing awareness exercise 25–7 exercise 34–5
see-saw breathing exercise 30 mirror exercise 32–3
sense and emotion memory and 62, observation and imagination
63–4 exercise 33–4
Brecht, Bertolt 9, 78 Courtney, C. C. 96
Baal 85–7 creativity 2–5, 8, 17, 18, 79, 179, 194
Brook, Peter 4, 32, 48–9, 68 actions and 127
Bruehl, Bill 103, 106 affective memory and 66, 68, 69, 89
Brustein, Robert 8 concentration and 30, 35
creative circle 64
Caldarone, Marina 122 creative initiative 44–5
Campbell, Don 22, 98 good habits and 51
Carnegie Mellon University 14 imagination and 153
Carnicke, Sharon 151 improvisation and 136, 137, 144
Carnovsky, Morris 49 justification and 86, 157
Carra, Larry 14 living through and 155–6
Cazale, John 15 mantras and 147–8
Chaikin, Joseph 13, 56 psychological gesture and 183, 185,
Chamberlain, Franc 179–80, 185, 186
186 relaxation and 24, 27–8, 35
character 121 ruling ideas and 153
culture and 181–2 trigger mechanism 100–1
motivation 107, 188, 198 Crouch, Stanley 138
objectives 105, 107, 180–1, 188 culture 181–2
psychological gesture and
characterization 185–6, 199 Dartington Hall 199
exercises 186–8 Davis, Miles 136
stepping into character Davis, Viola 159
exercise 185–6 Day-Lewis, Daniel 153
Cheek by Jowl Theatre Company 201 De Niro, Robert 134, 175–6
Chekhov, Anton 5, 69, 70 Dean, James 133, 136, 139–40
The Cherry Orchard 70–1 deception see lying
The Three Sisters 57 denial 169
Uncle Vanya 163–6 desires 181
Chekhov, Michael 7, 10, 17, 40–4, 50, diaphragm 24
69, 92, 184–5, 186–7, 191, 199 Diderot, Denis 167, 170
chemistry 100–1 Diehl, Nancy 22
children, acting with 144–5 disability 140–1
Churchill, Caryl, Top Girls 160–3 discipline 193–4
Cieslak, Ryszard 56 Donnellan, Declan 43, 92, 100, 101,
Clausewitz, Claus von 120 124, 201–2
clichés 29–30 Draper, Paul 14
Clift, Montgomery 136 Dunbar, Paul Laurence 170
clowns 69
Clurman, Harold 65 eating soup exercise 55–6
Cohen, Robert 24 Edwards, Christine 185
Coltrane, John 135, 136 Einhorn, Susan 93
combining techniques 72–3 Ellermann, Robert 50, 65
come to me exercise 147–8 embodying 153
commedia dell’arte 172 emotions 94, 195
communion 98 breathing and 22–4
 PROOF
Index 213

emotion (affective) memory 60–72, flashbulb memory 62

87, 104, 194, 199 Foster, Gloria 56
emotion memory exercises 60–1, Franzen, Jonathan 195
62 Freud, Sigmund 66
jack-in-the-box experience Fugard, Athol: Sizwe Banzi is
and 79–84 Dead 15
waiting exercise 63
tone of voice and 99–100 Gabler, Milt 139
entrances with a lie 176–8 generality 44
exercise 177 gesture, psychological 185–6, 199
Esper, William 96 exercises 186–8
exercises Giddens, Gary 143
animal imagery exercise 50–1 Gillett, John 154
breathing awareness exercise 25–7 Gillette, William 132, 133
Chekov’s movement exercises 40–1 Ginsberg, Allen 136
come to me exercise 147–8 Gister, Earle 15, 72
concentration and personalization ‘good acting’ 9–13
exercise 31 Gordon, Mel 154
concentration in motion Gosling, Ryan 159
exercise 34–5 Gottschild, Brenda Dixon 134
creating images exercise 42–3 Graczyk, Ed: Come Back to the Five
eating soup exercise 55–6 and Dime, Jimmy Dean, Jimmy
emotion memory exercises 60–1, 62 Dean 31
entrances with a lie exercise 177 Grotowski, Jerzy 5, 15, 16, 29, 50, 141,
interstitial scenes 166 201
mirror exercise 32–3 Group Theatre 199, 200
mirror/action exercise 128–9 Guskin, Harold 7, 21, 144
nursery rhyme exercise 145–6
observation and imagination habits 29–30, 156–7
exercise 33–4 creating good habits 51–2
one action/one objective Hagen, Uta 13, 99, 119, 176, 201
exercises 107–10, 116–18, 194 HB Studio 13, 201
packing exercise 59 Healy, Patrick 159
photographs exercise 89 Hicks, Israel 14
psychological gesture Hoffman, Dustin 90–1, 134
exercises 186–8 Holliday, Billie 132, 134, 136, 139, 140,
relaxation awareness exercise 27 141–5
repetition exercise 95–9, 101 homework 188–90
sense memory exercise 54–5 hooks 179, 181
six basic actions exercise 125–6 Hopkins, Anthony 155–6
stepping into character Hornby, Richard 173
exercise 185–6 hustling 171–2
swinging side-to-side exercise 45–8
vocal range and flexibility imagination 35, 45, 78–9, 194
exercise 37–8 creating images exercise 42–3
waiting exercise 63 observation and imagination
experience 78 exercise 33–4
jack-in-the-box 79–84 photographs and 85–92
exercise 89
fear, breathing and 22–3 imitation of animals 48–50
Feldenkrais, Moshe 15, 21, 25, 26–7, exercise 50–1
30, 35, 67, 128 improvisation 110, 132–4, 194
Feldenkrais Technique 28, 29 basics of jazz acting 137–41
film acting 8 Billie Holliday as jazz actor 141–5
Fitzgerald, Ella 141, 142 jazz acting in ‘time’ 134–7
 PROOF
214 Index

improvisation – continued Leon, Kenny 159

mantras 146–7 Levy, John 142–3
come to me exercise 147–8 Lewis, Robert 84, 201
nursery rhyme exercise 145–6 likeability 195
initiative 45 living through 151–7, 190
inner monologue (mantras) 146–7 interstitial scenes 157–9
come to me exercise 147–8 ‘Death of a Salesman’ 166
instincts 29–30, 96, 156–7 ‘down by the river’ 160–3
learning new actions through new exercise 166
instinct 128 ‘Vanya’s dream’ 163–5
interstitial scenes 197 Loden, Barbara 15, 31
living through 157–9 lying 167–77
‘Death of a Salesman’ 166 entrances with a lie 176–8
‘down by the river’ 160–3 exercise 177
exercise 166
‘Vanya’s dream’ 163–5 Mailer, Norman 136
Ionesco, Eugène 5 Mamet, David 3, 48, 109, 118
Manderino, Ned 50
jack-in-the-box, experience and Mann, Paul 15, 43–4, 72, 73, 107, 159,
79–84 200–1
jazz 132 Manoogian, Haig 14
jazz acting 134–7 mantras 146–7
basics 137–41 come to me exercise 147–8
Billie Holliday as jazz actor 141–5 Marjenin, Franz 15
Johnstone, Keith 89, 133, 144 Marowitz, Charles 181
Josephson, Barney 143 masks 169–70, 172–3
journeymen actors 11 Massey, Raymond 140
Justice, Milton 166 McGarry, Jackson 44
justification 86, 198 McRae, Carman 139
living through interstitial Meisner, Sanford 9, 13, 78, 91, 95, 96,
scenes 157–9 99, 133, 200
‘Death of a Salesman’ 166 Meisner Technique 15
‘down by the river’ 160–3 Merlin, Bella 155, 181
exercise 166 Method approaches to acting 9, 14,
‘Vanya’s dream’ 163–5 109, 133, 173, 198, 199
Meyerhold, Vsevolod 17, 198
Kani, John 15 Mikhail Chekhov Association
Katselas, Milton 8, 11–12, 43, 45, 84 (MICHA) 199
Kazan, Elia 133, 140 Miller, Arthur: Death of a
Kerouac, Jack 133, 136 Salesman 166
Klein, Franz 136 minstrelsy 137
Knebel, Maria 17, 65, 68, 102, 104, 120, mirror exercise 32–3
148, 153, 157, 199 mirror/action exercise 128–9
Kogan, Sam 141 Monich, Tim 15
Kooning, Willem de 136 Monson, Ingrid 143
Kovens, Ed 60 Moore, Sonia 146–7, 201
Krampner, Jon 124 Moscow Art Theatre 197, 198
Krupa, Gene 137 Moss, Larry 12, 56, 155–6, 180
Moston, Doug 60, 121
laughter 104 motivation 107, 188, 198
Lawner, Morty 15 Murray, Albert 138
Lecoq, Jacques 39, 172
Lee, Al 22, 98 narcissism 12, 156
Lee Strasberg Institute 13 Negro Ensemble Company 200
Leo, Melissa 71–2 Neighborhood Playhouse 13, 200
 PROOF
Index 215

Nelis, Tom 69, 70 Chekov’s movements exercise 40–1

Nemirovich-Danchenko, Vladimir 197 swinging side-to-side exercise 45–8
Newman, Paul 171–2 physicalization 103–7, 109–16
Nicola, James 105 one action/one objective
Ntshona, Winston 15 exercises 107–10, 116–18, 194
nursery rhyme exercise 145–6 plasticity 39
Plato 167–8, 169, 176
objectives Poitier, Sidney 72–3
characters 105, 107, 180–1, 188 poker face 173
one action/one objective Pollock, Jackson 136
exercises 107–10, 116–18, 194 “poor theatre” 201
observation 78, 92–102 Powers, Mala 187
observation and imagination prana 17, 35, 98
exercise 33–4 predictability 184
repetition exercise 95–9, 101 presence 56–7
Oida, Yoshi 24, 25, 32, 121 psychological gesture and
Olivier, Laurence 8–9, 90–1 characterization 185–6, 199
O’Meally, Robert 139, 143 exercises 186–8
one action/one objective
exercises 107–10, 116–18, quality acting 9–13
194 Quinto, Zachary 151
Ouspenskaya, Maria 17, 77, 160, 195,
198 rationalization 115
Overlie, Mary 69 Redfield, William 8
Redgrave, Michael 25, 133
Pacino, Al 15, 134, 173 Redgrave, Vanessa 99
packing exercise 59 rehearsal 154–5, 156, 190–2
pain 195 relaxation 24–5, 27–30, 35, 194
painting by numbers 89–90 relaxation awareness exercise 27
Papp, Joseph 69 repetition exercise 95–9, 101
Parke, Lawrence 8, 83 rhythm 138
Parker, Charlie 137 Ribot, Théodule 60
Parks, Bob 14, 15 Richards, Lloyd 72, 73, 77
Pasquin, John 14 Richards, Thomas 59
passion 11–12, 105, 194, 195–6 Rilke, Rainer Maria 195–6
Penn, Sean 134 risk avoidance 195
personalization 31–2, 53, 57–8, 156 Rogoff, Gordon 173
concentration and personalization Rotté, Joanna 92
exercise 31 Ruffini, Franco 151, 152
emotion (affective) memory 60–72, ruling ideas 179–80, 181
87, 104, 194, 199 rushing 194
emotion memory exercises 60–1, Russia, acting in 17
62
jack-in-the-box experience Sacks, Oliver: The Man Who Mistook
and 79–84 His Wife for a Hat 32
waiting exercise 63 Saint, Eva Marie 140
sense memory 53–60, 194 Saint-Denis, Michael 189
packing exercise 59 Saratoga International Theatre Institute
Pesci, Joe 175–6 (SITI) 202
Petit, Lenard 41 scenic faith 198
photographs, imagination and 85–92 Schadenfreude 10
exercise 89 Schall, Ekkehard 56
physical dynamics 39–45 Scott, George C. 50
animal imagery 48–50 scripts 10, 182, 188, 194
exercise 50–1 secrets 77, 87
 PROOF
216 Index

see-saw breathing exercise 30 Suzuki method 70

sense memory 53–60, 194 swinging side-to-side exercise 45–8
eating soup exercise 55–6 Swinton, Tilda 127
packing exercise 59
sense memory exercise 54–5 techniques of acting 3–4
waiting exercise 63 combining techniques 72–3
sexuality 11 television acting 8
Shakespeare, William 5, 15, 36, 69, 190 tone of voice 99–100
As You Like It 167 Toporkov, Vasily 70–1
Hamlet 37–8 training of actors 2–3, 4, 13–18
King Lear 101, 168 tricks 152, 154–5
Othello 168 trigger mechanisms 45, 61, 62, 64, 72,
Romeo and Juliet 183 77–84, 87, 89, 100–1
Shiffman, Frank 142 Tucker, Bobby 141
shock value 10
Shurtleff, Michael 126 units in scenes (beats) 130–1
Silverberg, Larry 91
Sinatra, Frank 136 Vakhtangov, Evgenii 7, 11, 17, 39, 63,
singing 72, 83, 86, 122, 135, 166, 179, 183,
breathing and 24 191, 198–9
jazz 132, 136, 139, 141–5 Van Gogh, Vincent 31
skills of acting 2 Vaughan, Sarah 136
Skinner, Edith 14, 15 via negativa 141
Soloviova, Vera 17, 123, 198 Viewpoints 13, 69–70, 202
Sontag, Susan 88–9 voice 36–9
specificity 44, 45 tone 99–100
Spolin, Viola 103, 133 vocal range and flexibility
spontaneity 153 exercise 37–8
stage acting 7–8 Volkonsky, Sergei 36, 157
presence 56–7
Stanislavsky, Konstantin 4, 5, 6, 11, waiting exercise 63
12, 16–18, 24, 28, 29–30, 33, 36, Walker, Jewel 14
45, 51, 53, 58, 60, 63, 64, 66, 71, warm-up 27–8
72, 83, 84, 86, 89, 94, 98, 103, 106, Washington, Denzel 159
110, 111, 118, 120, 127, 133, 134, Whitaker, Forrest 171–2, 174
140, 143, 144, 147, 151, 152, 154–8, White, Ruth 56
161, 163, 168, 169, 170, 176–7, Whyman, Rose 36
181, 184, 190, 193, 194, 196 Wilde, Oscar 167
biography 197–8 Williams, Heathcote: The Local
Stanley, Kim 15, 44, 50, 56–7, 73, 124, Stigmatic 15
126, 133 Williams, Maggie Lloyd 122
Steiger, Rod 73 Williams, Michelle 159
Stella Adler Conservatory 13, 200 Williams, Tennessee 5
stepping into character exercise 185–6 A Streetcar Named Desire 159
Stern, Marshall 137 Wilson, August, Fences 159
Strasberg, Lee 4, 13, 16, 48, 53, 54, 62, Wilson, Robert 56
70, 73, 78, 81, 121, 133, 139, 140, Wright, Nicolas: Mrs Klein 119
146, 173–5, 199–200
Streep, Meryl 134 Yale School of Drama 200, 201
style 189–90
Sulerzhitsky, Leopold 17, 98, 198 Zakhava, B. E. 82
Sun Tzu 172, 174 Zarrilli, Phillip 21, 98, 202
Suzuki, Tadashi 202 Zazlov, Arnie 14