Author Robert Barton uses the NLP approach to illustrate a range of innovative methods to help the actor and directors, including: reducing performance anxiety enabling clearer communication intensifying character analysis stimulating imaginative rehearsal choices. The author also shows how NLP can be used alongside other basic training systems to improve approaches to rehearsal and performance.

Acting Reframes presents theatre and film practitioners with a methodology for using Neuro-Linguistic Programming (NLP) as a tool to aid their practice. Author Robert Barton uses the NLP approach to illustrate a range of innovative methods to help actors and directors, including: • reducing performance anxiety • enabling clearer communication • intensifying character analysis • stimulating imaginative rehearsal choices. The author also shows how NLP can used alongside other basic training systems to improve approaches to rehearsal and performance. The book shows the use of NLP to the reader in a playful, creative and easily accessible style that is structured to enable solo study as well as group work. The text offers a range of engaging exercises and extensive analysis of language patterns used in performance. It is a source for enhancing communication between all theatre practitioners in training, productions, and daily life outside the theatre. Acting Reframes gives actors a richly rewarding approach to help them develop all aspects of their craft.

Reframing Acting in the Digital Age: Nimbly Scaling Actor Training in the Academy refocuses how actors work in TV, film, and stage. In this refreshing text, Preeshl integrates original interviews with 25 theatre, film, TV, and digital media experts from leading international programs to create an essential contribution to actor training studies. These interviews cover diverse topics such as contemporary training methods, industry standards, and experiential learning, incorporating interdisciplinary recommendations from academics and professionals alike to navigate undergraduate actor training in the digital age. Digitally native undergraduates arrive at university being well versed in the digital and technological world, but as technologically savvy as these Millenials and Generation Z are, Preeshl and her interviewees show how acting and production degree programs can reframe these competencies to enable students to acquire and transfer digital skills. This phenomenological study bridges actor training methods across media to promote 'scaling' to update undergraduate actor training for the digital age. By applying the recommendations of these experts to curricular practices, universities may increase market share, diversity, and graduate employability. This in-depth field study is a vital read for acting teachers, students, professional actors, and scholars within theatre and film programs.

Style for Actors is an award-winning handbook and the definitive guide to roles in historical drama. Anyone who has ever struggled with capes, fans, swords, doublets and crinolines should make this third edition their constant companion. The past is a foreign country, and this outstanding book is concerned with exploring it from the actor's point of view. Specific guides to each major period give readers a clear map to discover a range from Greek, Elizabethan, Restoration and Georgian theatre to more contemporary stylings, including Futurism, Surrealism and Postmodernism. New material in this edition covers Commedia dell'arte and non-Western forms of theatre, theatrical fusion and developments in musicals and Shakespeare. The book’s references, images, resource lists and examples have all been updated to support today's diverse performers. Robert Barton takes great care to present the actor with the roles and genres that will most commonly confront them. Containing a huge resource of nearly 150 exercises, suggestions for scene study and applications not only for theatrical performance but also for stylistic challenges in the reader’s own offstage life, this book is an invaluable resource for students and practitioners of acting and drama.

Reader-friendly and practical, ACTING: ONSTAGE AND OFF demonstrates how to adapt onstage training toward offstage performance, and how to apply skills for theatre and film to lead a rich, full life outside the theatre. Humorous, conversational writing helps students learn all phases of actor training, including scene study, auditioning, and improvisation, as well as relaxation techniques for the mind, voice and body. Examples from life, rather than dramatic literature, ensure understanding. Students also learn strategies for connecting with other actors in a scene and in rehearsal. Enlightening and creative exercises help students practice altering their physical and emotional state to become a character while keeping those aspects of their selves that most serve the role being played. Important Notice: Media content referenced within the product description or the product text may not be available in the ebook version.

“What is it that we’re doing, when we’re acting well?” This is the question famously posed by Earle Gister, the legendary head of the acting department at Yale School of Drama from 1979 to 1999. In Acting Action, actor, director, and teaching artist Hugh O’Gorman invites readers to explore the question in detail. Focusing on playing action—one of the essential components of acting passed on to renowned acting teachers Earle Gister and Lloyd Richards by Paul Mann—Acting Action is divided into two parts: context and practice. The first section provides a thorough examination of the theory behind the core elements of playing action. The second section presents a step-by-step rehearsal guide for actors to integrate playing action into their preparation process. Acting Action offers a foundation for how to get started and build the core of a performance. More precisely, it provides a practical guide for actors, directors, and teachers in the technique of playing action, addressing a void in the world of actor training by illuminating what exactly to do in the moment-to-moment act of acting.

People who don’t know theatre may think the only creative artist in the field is the playwright--with actors, directors, and designers mere “interpreters” of the dramatist’s vision. Historically, however, creative mastery and power have passed through different hands. Sometimes, the playwright did the staging. In other periods, leading actors demanded plays be changed to fatten their roles. The late 19th and 20th centuries saw “the rise of the director,” in which director and playwright struggled for creative dominance. But no matter where the balance of power rested, good theatre artists of all kinds have created powerful experiences for their audience. The purpose of this volume is to bridge the interdisciplinary abyss between the study of creativity in theatre/drama and in other fields. Sharing theories, research findings, and pedagogical practices, the authors and I hope to stimulate discussion among creativity and theatre scholar/teachers, as well as multidisciplinary research. Theatre educators know from experience that performance classes enhance student creativity. This volume is the first to bring together perspectives from multiple disciplines on how drama pedagogy facilitates learning creativity. Drawing on current findings in cognitive science, as well as drama teachers’ lived experience, the contributors analyze how acting techniques train the imagination, allow students to explore alternate identities, and discover the confidence to take risks. The goal is to stimulate further multidisciplinary investigation of theatre education and creativity, with the intention of benefitting both fields.