Editor Michael Counts
Lyon College

Associate Editors Jane Brody
Louisiana State University

David Wiles
Carleton College

David Thibodeaux-Thompson
University of Illinois–Springfield

Managing Editor Paul Kassel
SUNY New Paltz

Supervisory Board Robert Barton
University of Oregon

Cheryl Black
University of Missouri

Dennis Black
University of North Carolina, Charlotte

Rebecca Fishel Bright

Beaka Eaton
Miami University of Ohio

David Kaye
University of New Hampshire

Frank Trezza
SUNY New Paltz

The Other Blocking: Integrating Improvisation and Stanislavksi 1

How About a Student-Generated Acting Curriculum?. 7

Acting Lessons in 30 and 60 Second Packages:
Effective use of Commercial Voice-Over Copy In Acting and Voice Classes 13

Teaching Emotional Availability. 23

A View from the Inside: Naropa University’s MFA in Theatre:
Contemporary Performance. 31

Freeing the Actor to Follow Impulse: Using Authentic Movement-based Technique in the Acting Class 37

Book Reviews. 45

The Other Blocking: Integrating Improvisation and Stanislavski

Improvisation is as old as theatre itself, having been used to express both religious ritual and storytelling. Although it has never gone out of fashion completely, scripted acting has often overshadowed it. When stand-up comedy began its assent in America during the mid-80s, improvisation found renewed interest and its tenets began being incorporated more and more into actor training. “Classic” theatre games—trust walks and mirror exercises—began coexisting with character-based improvisation, such as acting out the back-story for your character. In America today, a rift exists within most theatre training programs between Stanislavski-based actor training and an improvisation-based approach. What this has created is a generation of actors not necessarily trained in Stanislavski-based vocabulary being guided by directors who speak almost exclusively through those terms. This article will examine both the common terminology of improvisation and methods of incorporating improvisation into a traditional rehearsal process for the purpose of bridging the gap between improv-trained actors and Stanislavski-trained directors.

TheatreSports

I have been using improvisation in my acting classes at New Mexico State University for many years as a companion to traditional Stanislavski-based training. While many consider improvisation just playing “games,” I use improvisation more formally, teaching not only exercises but also terminology and dramatic elements. My background in improvisation is based on TheatreSports, an improvisational style and format developed by Keith Johnstone of the Loose Moose Theatre Company in Calgary, Canada. Johnstone, tired of seeing enthusiastic audiences at sporting events and passive audiences at the theatre, attempted to create a form of theatre that would mirror the active and vocal audience responses of ancient Greece and Rome. He developed a series of exercises and games that encouraged actors to be more physically and emotionally active in their storytelling; to force actors to seek positive, playable actions; and to allow the audience to sense risk in performance. Ultimately what was developed was TheatreSports: two teams of actors competing against each other for points. These points are sometimes awarded by judges, but most often by audience applause. The teams challenge each other to specific improvisational games, soliciting suggestions from the audience to ensure the scenes are not pre-rehearsed. Some games, such as “What Happens Next,” rely on the audience to not only give inspiration at the beginning of a scene, but throughout. An emcee, usually dressed as a referee, ensures fairness of games and that the audience’s suggestions are heard and accepted. The emcee also monitors the performers for “fouls;” objectionable language or content usually lands a performer in the penalty box for a period of time while their teammates perform without them. If your scene becomes passive you may receive a “Warning for Boring,” which, if not fixed, can end your scene. The match lasts about an hour, with one team deemed the winner and allowed to return to defend its title in the next match. Team names, cheers, and a coin-toss, usually in the form of an elimination game, complete the event. Anyone who has ever seen one of the matches knows how successful Johnstone was in his goal to bring audience excitement back to the theatre.

When I first began teaching a beginning acting class, I relied heavily on TheatreSports games to teach actors the basics of performing: opening out, projection, and general comfort in front of others. As I continued my work, however, I began to understand that many of the tenets of improvisation overlapped my work teaching Stanislavski-based acting. Today, about a third of my class is devoted solely to improvisation, a third to Stanislavski and a third to monologue and scene work. I have discovered that I can teach my students complex concepts twice: once through improvisation and once through more traditional exercises, so by the time we reach scene work they have a keener awareness of what I am asking from them. This also allows me alternate ways to reach students for whom Stanislavski-based concepts frustrate or confuse.

The Vocabulary

There is a specific vocabulary I use when teaching improvisation that has counterparts in traditional training. The first term, and the one I spend the most time impressing upon my students, is blocking. I explain that in traditional theatre, blocking means the physical staging, but in improvisation it refers to rejecting a bid: an idea for a scene. The most common way a bid is blocked is by simply saying “no.” Here’s an example of this:

HE: Do you want to go to the zoo today?

SHE: No.

HE: Ok. How about if we go get ice cream?

SHE: No, thanks.

HE: Well then, what do you want to do?

SHE: I don’t know.

Here, SHE is rejecting each bid given by her partner. The scene becomes stagnant and passive as her partner is forced to think of more bids. There’s no action. By saying “yes,” action, both physical and emotional, is encouraged in the scene.

While “no” is the most common way to block, there are others, such as “that’s not a ____,” “you’re crazy,” “what are you talking about,” etc. Beginning actors often want to say no because they feel it makes them sound witty or superior. Some do it because they feel it brings conflict to the scene. I explain that conflict comes from two people wanting opposite things, not one person wanting something and the other one not wanting to give it. Once they understand that getting rid of blocking actually helps progress the scene, the results are amazing. A simple exercise I often use is having two actors improvise a scene, where one actor can only say “yes,” “you bet,” or “sounds great.”

Another method to promote action in a scene is by avoiding wimping and waffling. Wimping entails ignoring a bid. Here’s an example:

SHE: Do you want to go to the park?

HE: Oh, look, here’s a dollar bill.

HE, either because he’s not listening or dislikes the bid, simply ignores it. Now SHE must respond to his new bid, leaving both SHE and the audience to wonder why the first bid wasn’t developed. Instead of progressing action, the scene becomes about bidding.

Waffling is talking about a bid, but not actually doing it.

SHE: Do you want to go to the park?

HE: I’d love to go to the park.

SHE: It’s so pretty this time of year.

HE: Yes, and it has that great merry-go-round.

SHE: I love that merry-go-round! Plus, we can get cotton candy.

HE: It’s such a pretty day to go.

Here, instead of doing the action implied by the bid—going to the park—the actors simply talk about the bid. Again, the audience is left frustrated by the lack of action, and the performers become talking heads, rather than actors.

I also discuss with my students the importance of expanding. Expanding is simply taking a bid and exaggerating the circumstances or adding urgency. If a scene is about baking cookies, I coach my actors to expand on that idea by baking a million cookies, or the world’s biggest cookies, or over-baking the cookies so there’s a fire, or needing to bake cookies quickly before the guests arrive. This concept of exaggeration comes from the elements of comedy, and supports raising the stakes of the original bid. I often play a game called “Yes, and…” where the performers begin each statement with the words “Yes, and…” This automatically forces the performers to expand on their bids, and more dynamic scenes result.

Games

Armed with this vocabulary, I begin side-coaching my acting class as they progress through their scenes and games. It is not uncommon to find actors who are initially frustrated by the constant side-coaching begin coaching their classmates themselves. Side-coaching also provides a non-threatening way for students to give each other feedback, and is more concrete than “that was really good.” After a month of game playing and side-coaching, the entire class begins to pull together as a unit, having felt the joint success of going out on a limb creating scenes, and unable to hide behind specific characters or lines.

There are well over a hundred games TheatreSports uses, many of which have been developed from numerous sources, including Viola Spolin’s influential Improvisation for the Theatre. These games have been gathered by Unexpected Productions (among others) and put together in an online playbook called The Living Playbook. Here, like plays in a football playbook, games are divided into categories such as “Narrative,” “Warm-up,” and “Scenes Using the Audience.” Rules and game variations, as well as alternate titles, are also provided. The Living Playbook is a sort of bible for teachers of improvisation, and it is from this source that most of my games are pulled.

Stanislavski

After a four or five weeks of improvisational work, students then focus on learning the vocabulary of Stanislavski-based acting. I explain that these are the basic tenets of American Realism, and the terms most American directors will use in rehearsals. We discuss concepts like the Magic If, beats, objectives, tactics, stakes, and so on. At first, these terms seem to have a complex theoretical meaning. The mystification quickly dissipates; however, as they begin to realize that what we have done the last few weeks in improvisation has a direct correlation to Stanislavski.

At first we talk about an objective, what a character emotionally wants. Students are often initially confused, offering examples like, “to hit him” or “to explain that I want to be left alone.” The trigger verbs and passive objectives don’t get to core of text analysis. I press them to think in terms of why, not what: to look for the emotional reasoning. It is a struggle, but when pressed for an example after a class period or two, students provide stronger objectives like “to win John’s affection” or “to humiliate my mother.” However, when I explain that an objective is simply the internal, emotional want behind a bid, a light bulb seems to go off. If a bid in improve is “Get out of my room,” I explain that there must be some emotional reason behind this request: maybe you’re angry with your brother and want to punish him; maybe you’re scared of what will happen to you if you’re not alone; or maybe it’s a way to reestablish your sense of authority. That emotional reason is the core of your objective. The line of text is your bid. This immeasurably helps students understand the key difference between what you want and why you want it.

Next, I talk about tactics, how you get what you want. Without improvisation, asking a student to come up with 10 different ways to win John’s affections becomes difficult and tedious. However, post-improvisation, students feel more comfortable taking physical and emotional risks and pushing towards action. Having been trained against waffling, the results are consistently clear, creative and often compelling tactics, emanating from the student’s imagination, rather than what they think is “right” or “real.”

Other terms, such as stakes, become simple when compared to the concept of expansion that students have already developed. Also second nature by this point is more complex concepts such as being in the moment, risk-taking, playing opposites, and listening. When these concepts are reiterated as the basic tenets of American Realism, they sink into students on another level, thus allowing students who may not have gotten it through improvisation, to get it through traditional terminology (and vice-versa). I offer two ways to think about the same thing, and it dramatically increases the level of understanding by my students.

Supplementing Rehearsals

It does little good to teach improvisation in class if one does not use it outside of class in the context of a rehearsal. Many directors already use improvisation in a limited way: they’ll take some rehearsal time to have characters improvise important back-story, such as when two characters met, what their first date was like, etc. I myself have used this method to great success. In fact, some of the best theatre I’ve ever witnessed was improvised scenes from actors I directed in Nicky Silver’s Pterodactyls. We spent a 4-hour rehearsal fleshing out the somewhat repressed memories of the characters, things like Emma’s funeral, Emma’s trip to a psychiatrist, Emma and Tommy’s first date, and Todd’s life post-leaving home. By using their imagination to supplement their given circumstances, the actors developed incredibly detailed and truthful characterizations. They were in the moment with each other constantly, listening and reacting in ways they were not when rehearsing with lines. An actor who always had trouble with emotional work found himself crying at his “daughter’s” funeral, while another allowed himself to go further with his characterization than the script allowed, giving him a visceral understanding of the highs and lows of his character’s physical and emotional life. It was incredibly compelling theatre that seemed to be greatly lessened once lines and “acting” were reintroduced. However, the exercise gave each actor a renewed sense of discovery and investment in their characters, and it proved a pivotal day in the rehearsal process.

This rehearsal got me thinking: how can I bring more of this to every rehearsal? I didn’t want to just have special rehearsals where it seems like we’re interrupting the process to accommodate improvisation, but how do I make improvisation a vital component of every rehearsal? I began experimenting with different methods: starting rehearsals with warm-up games that encourage listening and responding; spending multiple rehearsals improvising back story; having actors put down their scripts and improvise their scenes. While helpful, these didn’t really didn’t translate to more compelling moments onstage using the playwright’s words. Finally, I hit upon a particular exercise that really seemed to strike a chord with my actors. It was a TheatreSports game called Scene-in-Reverse.

The concept behind Scene-in-Reverse is fairly simple: starting at the end of the scene, work your way backwards to the beginning. In improv, this game is challenging but very dynamic as both actors struggle to form a cohesive story. Using scripted lines, it became a very different game: since the actors had a script, they knew what was going to happen next, but they had to play it as a moment before. Immediately, they began processing beats in a more detailed and sophisticated way. Thought was put into emotional transitions since they could no longer rely on the playwright’s lines to do that work for them; the emotional journey of the characters were constantly being reexamined, as the actors filtered through what the characters knew and when they knew it. It eliminated anticipating moments. The result was phenomenal. When asked to run the scene forward after this exercise, what developed was a true sense of interplay between characters. Not only did this exercise clarify what was happening for each character at each specific moment, but it also prompted the actors to restructure their tactics into something more immediate and dynamic. Gone were the “just waiting for my cue” or the “I’m listening. See me listening” looks. In their place was a very instantaneous and honest progression of reactions.

I have since used other games and incorporated elements of long-form improvisation into my rehearsals, and the result is always positive in helping actors find both action and honesty.

Conclusion

Stanislavski-based direction doesn’t work with every actor. It doesn’t work with every style of theatre. Yet most directors rely solely on those terms to express their thoughts. We have seen elements of improvisation-training entering the theatre in various ways: through actors trained in Viewpoints or physically-based European styles or those who never received formalized training. Since our job as directors is to communicate with each actor in a way that makes the most sense to them, it behooves us to re-train ourselves to facilitate maximum understanding among our diversely-trained casts and to bridge the gap by integrating improvisation into our rehearsal process.

Tom Smith

Tom Smith is an Associate Professor, currently teaching improvisation, acting and directing at New Mexico State University. He is currently at work on his first book on both long and short form improvisation entitled The Other Blocking. Tom is also a published playwright and a member of Dramatists Guild.

How About a Student-Generated Acting Curriculum?

I know what you’re thinking: a STUDENT-generated acting curriculum? You are imagining the question going out at the beginning of term; the replies coming back: a few well-reasoned responses; numerous “I don’t know’s;” several responses of “I need on-camera training—I want to be a TV star!” Obviously, a student-generated acting curriculum will not work unless the students involved have a body of knowledge on which to draw.

Several years ago, I was interviewing theatre teachers in professional actor training programs about their process, and one of the teachers made a remark that has some pertinence here. He was young and idealistic (as many of us are, or have been), and I remember him saying that although he felt it his duty to prepare his students to perform in the existing professional theatre, it was his dream that some of them would go on to transform the theatre (Mann 33).

Unfortunately, the odds are against this happening. According to Helene Beauchamp, “the kind of process a person goes through and learns is directly related to the kind of theatre that person will do” (19).

What do our students learn? Well, if we (like the teacher above) feel obligated to prepare our students for the prevailing mode of actor performance today, that would be Stanislavski-based “realism.”[1]

Although the theoretical implications of Stanislavski-based realism are seldom articulated, they are distinctive. The purpose of this theatre is generally perceived as either to show or teach us something about the human condition and/or to entertain. From the actor’s point of view, this involves the audience identifying with the character the actor is playing. For this to happen, it is currently generally agreed that the actor must access and portray genuine human emotion and action. Training implications are clear: the primary necessity is for a well-developed psycho-physical approach, with the emphasis on objectives, tactics and actor-to-actor intercommunication “in the moment.” So, as educators, we pick and choose in-class activities that will most readily develop the skills needed—and, voila, we have the basic curricula for most undergraduate acting programs.

Of course, we all realize that there are other types of performance “out there,” and that even within realistic acting, additional skills are often required. But what do we choose to teach? There are so many possibilities, and we have so little time in most actor-training programs. Often, we choose to supplement the internal work with voice and movement classes, training in period styles (Greek, Shakespeare, Restoration) or genre styles (improvisation, theatre of the absurd, epic theatre). There are even some university and professional training schools that specialize in approaches to theatre that are fundamentally different from Stanislavski-based realism—Lecoq or Suzuki training, for example, or Boal’s Forum Theatre.

So why don’t more of our students seek out these opportunities to expand on their range of artistic expression? I believe one reason is that (particularly for those students who do not live in large urban areas with access to professional theatre), the bulk of the professional acting they are exposed to is on television and film—and most of that is realistic, or even naturalistic.[2] Secondly, they do not see why they might want to do something “other.” According to Phillip Zarrilli, when one is “inside” a particular system of acting practice, the practitioner accepts “certain sets of assumptions” which “often remain at the periphery of consciousness (if at all) since when one becomes enculturated into a system of practice it often feels natural” (322).

So what do we, as educators, do to encourage our students to move beyond their comfort zones? Well, for starters, we might deconstruct realistic acting with them, discussing its theoretical underpinnings. We might, for example, ask why certain concepts are taken for granted in acting classes, such as the idea that students are acting “badly” or “wrongly” if the spectators do not believe the emotion or action portrayed to be true-to-life. If contemporary students of acting are to appreciate the performance alternatives open to them, they must become aware that alternatives exist and that their own theatrical development may have prejudiced them towards one particular approach and away from others. They must also be introduced to alternative ways of working—and not just the practice, but the theory. They need to understand that beneath every acting practice is a theory, whether that theory is articulated, or not (Belsey 4).

I believe that the basic theoretical concept underlying all performance is the “purpose” that those involved see for their art or practice. Whether one wants to entertain, to teach, to question, or to provide an experience, particular modes of performance best facilitate that purpose. Those modes of performance then suggest other elements, such as: the organization of the production team, the theatre and performance space, design, technical needs, the particular relationship between performers and spectators, etc. Flowing naturally from the purpose of the theatre and the production and performance demands, comes an understanding of the training needs for both performers and others wishing to become involved in the theatrical event.

To encourage our students to appreciate types of performance other than realism, I would suggest that we need an acting curriculum that STARTS with theory. Once the students have an understanding of the purpose behind a particular approach, they can make an informed decision as to the type of theatre in which they want to engage. Once that decision is made, the particular training required for that theatre becomes obvious and can be pursued.

This brings me back to the original question: Is it possible to institute a student-generated acting curriculum? Well, probably not entirely. We still run into the problem of too much material and too little time. But it should be possible, at least, to expand on the current options and allow the students input into their own training. For example, perhaps your department believes it is possible in a four-year undergraduate acting program to offer four separate approaches to acting. You still have to make choices—but what an exciting prospect! Will it be realism, activism, post-modern approaches to performance, gay and lesbian theatre, Asian or African theatre, etc.? And with this sort of a curriculum, it should be possible to change those four choices as the department, the world of theatre, and student interest develops–to be always on the cutting edge, should you so desire.

What follows is simply an example, a description of what I might implement were I given the opportunity to design an acting curriculum for an undergraduate theatre program. Even were I to be fairly conservative and choose only to provide training in approaches to acting that have had a strong influence on North American acting practice in the past century or so, I can still envision a vibrant and varied curriculum. Let us say I choose realism, political activism, symbol/image theatre, and improvisational theatre. In Year One of the acting program, all of the students in the program would take the same courses. These would be: 1) Lecture/demonstration classes providing an overview of the theory and practice of the four separate streams of performance available for study; and 2) General, non-specific training of the voice and body concentrating on strength, flexibility and control. At the end of Year One, each student would have the opportunity to design his/her own training program, choosing two streams of performance for additional training.

For the second and third years of the training, separate courses would be designed to provide the necessary skills and knowledge for each stream. In general, this would consist of practical exercises designed to develop specific acting skills, additional information on the theory behind the practice, and work on scripted scenes or performance texts in the various performance modes popular with each type of theatre. Specific voice and movement training could be incorporated into these classes, or taught in separate courses, as appropriate.

Students choosing the realism stream would take courses similar to what most of our students take currently: training in psychologically-based acting techniques, script analysis and scene study, and on-camera techniques. Voice classes might concentrate on enhancing the student’s “natural” voice and movement classes might concentrate on developing the student’s ability to fully express physically what he or she is doing or feeling.

For the political activism stream, I would probably start with Brecht’s theory and his exercises designed to develop the epic, alienated style of performance. I might then work through other significant approaches, including the Worker’s Theatre of the 1930’s, the techniques used by the various political theatre groups of the 1960’s, guerilla theatre, Forum theatre, and conclude with a study of the methods used by contemporary groups working in this brand of theatre.

For styles of performance that make use of symbol, sign or visual image, there are a myriad of choices. One might look at the work and theories of Edward Gordon Craig and Adolph Appia, the American “art theatre” of the 1920’s, theatre of the absurd, performance art, and the work of various post-modern practitioners. Students in both this stream and the political activism stream could share voice and movement classes, as the vocal and physical demands of both performance styles require a heightened vocal and physical dexterity.

In the improvisation stream, students would learn commedia dell’arte and other physical comedy skills. They could study clowning, practice Spolin’s theatre games, study “Second City” techniques, and play theatre sports.

The final year of study would be both a culmination of the work done to date and a preparation for a subsequent life in the theatre. Each stream would have a semester-long course in which the students and professor would develop a major production or evening of work showcasing the selected performance approach and the students who specialized in that stream. (In the scenario I am using as an example, each student in the department would be in two major productions that final year). Vocal and physical training could, once again, be incorporated into the courses or taught in accompanying classes designed to complement the rest of the training.

All students would also take two additional courses in the final year: one designed to teach them how to create their own work, and one in the “business” of the theatre. For the realism stream, the business course would be slanted more towards how to break into the mainstream professional theatre—audition techniques, photos and resumes, how to get an agent, etc. So long as realism is the prevailing mode of theatre in North America, the students in the other streams will require training in such areas as: non-profit theatre, grant-writing, fund-raising, self-promotion, self-employment tax laws, etc.

I will be the first to admit that the thought of implementing an acting curriculum such as I suggest is a daunting one. Most people currently in actor-training professions were trained, themselves, primarily in Stanislavski-based realism. Although many of us have sought training or practice in other approaches in order to supplement our knowledge and broaden our students’ experience, how many of us are truly capable of extensive pedagogy in, for example, Asian approaches to performance?

But moving towards such a curriculum need not require an immediate overhaul. One could start modestly, offering one or two additional streams. Choose the performance approaches that members of your faculty feel comfortable offering. Then encourage current faculty to continue supplementing their knowledge through faculty development opportunities; and when contemplating new hires, request diversity of training and experience in the backgrounds of new faculty members. This sort of hiring practice will soon be paid back double. Your students will perceive another reason for studying at your institution—the possibility of some day teaching in a similar curriculum.

Laurin Mann

Works Cited

Beauchamp, Helene. “Training to Survive, I: The Making of Survivors: The Space Within.” Canadian Theatre Review 88 (1996): 18-22.

Belsey, Catherine. Critical Practice. New York: Routledge, 1980.

Mann, Laurin. “Teaching Acting: Four College Programs.” Canadian Theatre Review 78 (1994): 32-37.

Zarrilli, Phillip B. ed. Acting (Re)Considered: Theories and Practices. New York: Routledge, 1995.

Dr. Laurin Mann is a graduate of the Advanced Acting Program of the Banff School of Fine Arts, Laurin Mann received her MFA (Acting) from the University of Oregon and her Ph.D. (Acting Theory) from the University of Toronto’s Graduate Centre for the Study of Drama. She acted professionally in the Toronto area for eight years and currently teaches acting at Texas Tech University.

Acting Lessons in 30 and 60 Second Packages: Effective use of Commercial Voice-Over Copy In Acting and Voice Classes

For many years I worked as a voice-over casting director and taught workshops at The Voicecaster in Los Angeles. As a voice-over teacher I had to find a way to convince students who had been told for years that they had a great voice, that what they really needed was to learn how to act. As veteran voice actor Rodney Saulsberry writes in You Can Bank on Your Voice, “It is your acting ability that makes you more desirable than the next voice talent. You must approach each piece of copy with the thought that voice-over is voice acting” (62). Executive producer Phil Lee agrees, “only a true actor can bring a mediocre script to life and ‘mine’ copy for every iota of value” (qtd. in Lewis 111). In my workshops I had students work on commercial copy that in a mere 30 or 60 seconds gave them an opportunity to progress from simply reading words with a nice voice, to actually acting the script. When I began teaching traditional acting and voice classes in an academic setting I continued to include commercial copy in the curriculum.

Why bring commercial copy into a traditional acting class? First, I find that these short pieces provide a unique opportunity to quickly introduce students to some of the basic concepts of acting before moving on to longer, more challenging dramatic texts. Secondly, and perhaps more importantly, students are already familiar with commercials, therefore when I ask students to work on a commercial, even during the first class, I always have eager volunteers. And finally, with a 30 second commercial, such as the Great Expectation spot that follows, in a very short time the student performing the script will progress dramatically. This sets the stage for the willing and eager participation by students who observed this progress. It is not necessary to have every student work on commercial copy – watching peers overcome challenges can be a valuable learning experience for the entire class.

GREAT EXPECTATIONS DELIVERS

Beginning acting students need to grasp several concepts. These are generally presented by acting teachers through a list of questions students must answer as they analyze the scene or monologue they are performing. For example, in her book There’s Money Where Your Mouth Is, Elaine Clark discusses the “five basic principles to building a character: Who are you? Where are you at this moment in time? What are you doing? Why are you there? When is the action taking place?” (45). Bernard Graham Shaw, author of Voice-overs – A Practical Guide, concurs, “It is vitally important to know the who, how, what, when, where and why of a script” (15). Robert Cohen’s G.O.T.E. system (Goal, Other, Tactics, Expectation) detailed in his book Acting One, is yet another example of an approach actors use to explore a text (61). I use a Great Expectations commercial to help students quickly grasp the following concepts:

· playing an objective

· talking to someone

· creating memories as a part of character development

· sounding like a real person talking, rather than someone who is reading words off a piece of paper or a teleprompter in their head.

I explain to the class that this is a voice-over for a television commercial, and that the left hand side of the page describes what viewers see while the right hand side of the page contains the text that is heard.

I ask a student (let’s call her Heather) to read Betty’s lines (not the announcer line at the end). I give Heather just enough time to skim through the copy once and then ask her to perform the spot. Next I start asking a series of questions. “Who are you talking to?” is the first question. Typically, students say “All those single people out there”. Voice-over actor Terri Apple notes in her book Making Money in Voice-overs, that “Rule Number One is imagine you are speaking to a real person” (33). And, as James Alburger recommends in The Art of Voice Acting, “always talk to just one person” (21). I’ll tell Heather that she needs to be talking to only one person, and for this spot it is preferable if it is someone she actually knows. Once Heather tells me who she can imagine talking to – and she doesn’t have to actually name a name – I ask her if that person is single and looking to meet someone. It works best if the student picks someone who could use the dating service. Then I’ll ask Heather to do the script again. Usually simply talking to someone makes a big difference. If the performance is still not improved I’ll ask Heather to pick someone in class that looks like the person she has picked to talk to and have her do it once again with that person in front of her. I remind students that when they are going to be working on monologues they will need to be aware of whom they are talking to, and be sure that this imaginary person is always present and reacting to what they are saying.

The next question I ask Heather is “Where are you?” There really is no right or wrong answer, I just want her to imagine the setting in which the conversation is taking place. Now I ask, “What is your Objective?” Students generally find this one easy – to convince my friend to try Great Expectations. In order to keep the objective strong I’ll ask Heather “Why are you telling your friend about Great Expectations at this particular moment, why not last week, or next week, why NOW?” If she can’t come up with a good reason I ask her to imagine that she had gone by the Great Expectations office that morning and saw someone signing up for the service that looked perfect for the person she has picked to talk to. If Heather’s friend doesn’t get to the Great Expectations office right away that special person will be taken. This is a good way to show the difference between just having an objective, and having an OBJECTIVE, and how actors can use imaginary circumstances to intensify their performance. As Cohen explains, finding goals “always involves imagination,” adding that actors need to create goals “with such vividness and enthusiasm that they can lead to an exciting and clearly defined performance” (23). Now I’ll ask Heather to visualize where she is, who she is talking to, and what she wants, and then do the script again. Inevitably, the performance is vastly improved from her first attempt. But Wait! There’s More!

In order to help Heather achieve a natural, conversational style with the performance I ask her to throw in ad libs that will ultimately be removed. I encourage her to add expressions such as, “you know”, “I mean”, ”Hey”, “I guess”, to help make the text her own and let the words flow out of her mouth naturally.

Next, I ask Heather “How does Betty feel about Dan?” I ask the class look at the video portion of the script and speculate what might be the occasion of the party depicted in the commercial. Usually they agree that it might be an engagement party. So once again I ask Heather “How does Betty feel about Dan?” Clearly, she is madly in love. I tell Heather that in order to successfully act the role of Betty, she (Heather) must imagine someone she is madly in love with when she talks about Dan. I tell her that it doesn’t have to be a real person in her life, she can imagine anyone at all. This is a good way to discuss the concept of substitution with your students. Clark describes a related substitution story in her book, “a woman in one of my classes had difficulty breathing life into a script about a kitchen appliance. I had her substitute a mental picture of Mel Gibson every time she mentioned the kitchen appliance, and the copy came alive! (101). Similarly, Heather will be a more effective actor if she can find a substitute for Dan.

Next, I ask Heather if she had eaten anything yet today, and I ask her to describe what she ate. Then I ask her if while she was telling me what she ate, did she have a little home movie in her head, for example, did she see the food, the setting in which she ate the food, the people with whom she was sitting, etc. This is a simple exercise to remind students that human beings see images when we speak; we remember things visually when we talk about them. I tell Heather that when the real Betty says the line “I remember the first time I saw Dan’s tape” she would have a visual memory of the event. Therefore, in order for Heather to successfully act the role of Betty, she must create that home movie. So, I begin to ask Heather/Betty a series of questions about that experience. I tell her again that there are no right or wrong answers, just be creative. How long ago was it that she went to Great Expectations? How many tapes did she see that day? How long were the tapes? Was Dan among the first or among the last of the tapes she watched? Did she watch all of Dan’s tape? Did she watch all of the other guy’s tapes? Where was she when she watched the tapes? What was it about Dan’s tape that made her know he was the one she wanted to meet? This process only takes a few minutes, but when it is over Heather has a real memory of the event, and when she says the line “I remember the first time I saw Dan’s tape” she actually has something to remember. This step is also recommended by Michael Schulman and Eva Mekler in Contemporary Scenes for Student Actors, when they describe how to approach a scene. “Knowledge of a character’s past is not sufficient for the actor. You must ‘live through’ that past via your imagination by creating complete fantasies about the people and incidents of the character’s life” (31).

Now I ask Heather to do the commercial once again, still keeping the ad libs. The final time we do it I ask her to try and retain the natural conversational quality but to stick to the script as written.

In a short time I have demonstrated to the entire class the importance of knowing who you are talking to (and about), of playing a strong objective, of making the words your own, and of creating memories for the character you are playing by vividly imagining the events they talk about. The class has heard the improvement, Heather has experienced the improvement, and I (the instructor) now have a class full of students eager to try these questions out for themselves on other commercials, monologues and scenes.

Neutrogena – A Path to Inventive Choices

I have noticed a tendency among my acting students to make a choice, and then stick with it. In the event it is the best possible choice there isn’t a serious problem, but often they make the most obvious choice in a scene or monologue and leave it at that. Sometimes the most obvious choice is not the best choice. Clark advises, “don’t always stop at the first or most obvious choice, but dig deep and explore the full realm of the script. . . . The more creative the choice, the funnier, more unique, and more real the spot will become” (49). The importance of having a variety of ways to interpret a script is echoed by casting director Donald Case, “My pet peeve is actors who have no range, but think they do; they ‘offer’ me a second read, exactly like the one they just did, or don’t make an adjustment but think they have” (qtd. in Lewis 108). When my students fall into the trap of limiting themselves to only one choice, and an obvious one at that, I bring out the Neutrogena commercial and challenge my students to be more creative and open themselves up to the possibility of moving beyond the obvious choices in their scenes and monologues.

The text of this commercial is quite simple:

I’ve tried many shampoos . . .

but my scalp is still itchy and flaky. [4]

When I cast this spot at the Voicecaster the direction was just as simple, “a real person”. I will give this commercial and the directions to several students and give them a few minutes to prepare. I ask them to come in one at a time and do the spot for the class. Once they do the commercial they can then stay in the room to watch the others. I do not tell them in advance, but when they come into the room to do the spot I ask them to do it three different ways. The students watching see right away the limited range of choices that students come up with when working on this simple line. Usually most students come in with an annoyed attitude and are at a loss in terms of finding two other choices and usually their three choices consist of, a little annoyed, annoyed, and really annoyed.

When all the students have finished I talk to them about the many possibilities this simple line presents for the actor. For example, you could actually find the situation amusing, or you might find it bewildering, or simply matter of fact. You could be embarrassed because someone just caught you brushing dandruff off your shoulder, or perhaps you want a friend to know she or he is not alone when you notice them scratching their scalp. You could discover the information for the first time as you are saying the line, or find it frustrating. Ultimately all these choices come from returning to the basic questions, who am I talking to, where am I, what is my objective, in other words, what are the given circumstances. The reason this spot works in an acting class is because the obvious choice – annoyed – is very obvious, and students rarely look beyond the obvious for something different. And yet, when we challenge ourselves to find something different, a world of possibilities open up. I tell students that even if they decide to return to their first choice when working on scenes and monologues, it is important during their rehearsal sessions to experiment with a variety of choices in terms of objectives, obstacles, and tactics in order to find the best choice. When Harlan Hogan is asked “Can you learn ‘just the right’ interpretation?” He responds, “maybe the question should be, is there only one ‘just right’ interpretation?” (44).

By working on the Neutrogena commercial students experience first hand that multiple “just right” interpretations are possible. In fact, a producer told Hogan of the frequency with which an actor who did the “wrong” reading has landed the job. The producer explained, “after listening to actor after actor audition a script exactly the way they asked for it, sometimes someone reads the script in a way they hadn’t asked for, or even imagined, and ends up getting the job (134).

Bank of America and Milk–Finding the Voice for the Character and the Character for the Voice

In voice and acting classes getting our students to expand their vocal range can be a challenge. And yet in many cases the wider their vocal range, the wider the range of roles students can play. Clark confirms “actors are hired because of their wide range of vocal abilities” (46). I have two commercials that I use to help students work on expanding their vocal ranges. First is a spot for Bank of America. In this commercial the actor starts as high as possible in his or her vocal range, and progressively gets lower and lower in his or her vocal register. Rather than a slow progressive glide down their range, there are specific points in the copy at which the actor lowers their voice. These points will be marked with a / in the copy.

Bank of America

Hello there. I’d like to take a minute of your time today to give you some good news: California’s lending leader has taken home equity loan rates in the right direction / lower. In fact, you probably haven’t seen low rates like these in a while. And now, Bank of America offers the safety of a 5% cap on variable rate loans to help keep your rate/ low. Whether you’re planning home improvements, special investments, business opportunities – whatever – come to Bank of America. And you’ll be eligible for a $200 cash rebate if you apply for a variable rate home equity loan by May 31^st. /So if it’s low rates you want, stop by the Bank of America to find out more. We’re talking low. [5]

The commercial is divided into four sections. With each section the actor must speak in a lower voice. Men are asked not to go into their falsetto voice, just use their normal speaking voice but go as high as possible. Students learn to first technically expand their vocal range – I am careful to warn students not to do anything that hurts their voice – but ultimately they learn to become a different character for each section. For example, with the women the first and highest voice often turns into a perky, smiley, happy homemaker type character, the second is often a working mom and savvy shopper, the third section is a high-ranking business professional, and generally the lowest range voice ends up being a sexy vamp. While these may be stereotypical character types, students learn from this exercise to think about vocal quality as they work on character development in scenes and monologues.

The commercial for Milk presents a different challenge. In this spot the female talent need to provide the voice for a girl who is seen onscreen. This onscreen character goes from age 10 to age 17. For the male talent they do the voice for a boy who goes from 13 to 19. In this case the vocal changes are not as extreme as with the Bank of America commercial, but students learn to make subtle vocal changes in their delivery. With both of these commercials the student experiences how both subtle and extreme changes in their vocal performance can have an impact on the character they are creating and visa versa. When they return to scene and monologue work they pay more attention to their vocal choices.

National Dairy Board – Female Version

National Dairy Board – Male Version

Pushing the Envelope Freeing the Voice for Character Work

Some of our students may find that their talent is in character work. The student who plays Lady Bracknell in The Importance of Being Earnest needs to create a voice for the character that is likely different from her (or his) everyday voice. I have found the best way to get students to go to the extreme in terms of creating character voices is to ask them to work on the voice for an animated character in a commercial. Once you have experimented with and vocally mastered a talking chicken, finding the voice for Lady Bracknell will be a snap. I am quite specific in terms of the directions I give my students for this assignment.

Directions for Cartoon Commercial Assignment

You have been given a commercial to prepare. This is a talking dog, potato, chicken, etc. You need to prepare three different character voices for this copy. Do not feel that you need to be restricted by any directions that may be on the copy. You have total freedom to create any kind of chicken you want. However, each of your three choices must have the following three things:

1. A vocal signature. A signature can come from a number of sources:

a. A speech impediment, like porky pig’s stutter, or Daffy Duck’s wet “S’s”. A lisp is another example.

b. A repeated word or phrase that your character says NUMEROUS times in the copy. For example Fog Horn Leg Horn always says “I say, I say, I say”. You can look to find this kind of signature in the actual text, for example if your character says “Oh Boy”, that could become a signature. In which case they could say it many times. Or you can also just invent a repeated phrase to be your vocal signature. In either case, this word or phrase should be included in your performance several times, even if it is not in the original copy. Be sure not to say it the identical way every time. For example “Oh Boy” could be said to mean, golly gee I’m excited, or also, oh no I’m in trouble. You can say “Oh boy, oh boy, oh boy” you don’t have to only say it one time, several times in a row is fine too.

c. A repeated noise, For example a grunt, a “duh” type noise, a funny giggle, a sigh, the signature doesn’t have to actually be words, it can be noises. Sneezing or hiccups can be vocal signatures as well.

d. A repeated intonation pattern. For example, Snagglepuss. He has a distinct vocal pattern when he says “Exit Stage Right” and that is his vocal signature.

2. Each of your three characters should use a voice that is not your every day normal speaking voice. You can work on achieving a voice that is unusual in many ways:

a. Try physically contorting your face and body. Move your lips all the way to one side of your face, see what that does to your speech and voice, and how it influences your character. Spread your lips apart while you speak. Put something in your mouth, no choking please. Shake your body as you speak. Experiment with several kinds of physical configurations to see how they change your voice.

b. Give yourself a physical condition, for example, you desperately have to go to the bathroom. How will that alter your vocal performance?

c. Go ahead and watch existing cartoon shows and imitate the voices you hear. Try to combine some of the voices you hear to create choices that are your own rather than simple imitations of existing voices.

3. You must name each of your three characters, draw a picture of them (I’m not expecting great art work), and know what each of your three character choices are wearing.

Some Sample Copy for this Exercise

Buster Barkin – A Talking Dog

Hi. I’m Buster Barkin, and I’m here to tell you how to keep your budget from going to the, uh, dogs. If you like bargains and saving money and having fun, then drop by The Flea Market any Saturday or Sunday. It’s like a couple of hundred garage sales all under one woof. Er, I mean, roof. And for just fifty cents, you can bow-wow . . . er, browse all day. So, come to The Flea Market. Which one? The Flea Market – - the one right next door to the dog track. Where else? [8]

Spokespotato

Look, can blame you, some of my best friends are potatoes. But once in a while, wouldn’t you like something a little more special? Like the new Savory Classics from Rice-A-Roni. Oriental Stir Fry and Almond Chicken and Wild Rice. Look, just try one. I mean, worst case –your family never asks for potatoes again. I can live with that. [9]

Talking Chicken

Some of my best friends are chickens. In fact, my only friends are chickens. Which is why you should be eating more Bumble Bee Tuna!!! Oh, Bumble Bee Tuna makes an awwwwesome salad. But NOT chicken salad. Brrrrrrrr. Not egg salad, oh no don’t eat that! But tuna salad. Bumble Bee tuna salad. Tasty, tasty. I mean look at me. You know how I’ll taste FOWL! JUST FOWL! [10]

In this article I have given several examples of how acting and voice teachers can effectively use commercial voice-over copy in their classes. This kind of copy can be used to teach many important concepts of acting and voice work in a short time period. Students are eager to volunteer since they are familiar with the genre, and quickly gain the confidence to progress to more challenging dramatic texts. Give it a try in your classes, and have fun.

Davida Bloom

Works Cited

Alburger, James. The Art of Voice Acting. Woburn, MA: Butterworth-Heinemann, 1999.

Apple, Terri. Making Money in Voice-overs. Hollywood: Lone Eagle Publishing Co., 1999.

Clark, Elaine. There’s Money Where Your Mouth Is. New York: Back Stage Books, 2000.

Cohen, Robert. Acting One. Boston: McGraw-Hill, 2002.

Hogan, Harlan. Tales and Techniques of a Voice-Over Actor. New York: Allworth Press, 2002.

Lewis, Pamela. Talking Funny for Money. New York: Applause Theatre & Cinema Books, 2003.

Saulsberry, Rodney. You Can Bank on Your Voice. Agoura Hills, CA: Tomdor Publishing, 2004.

Schulman, Michael and Eva Mekler. Contemporary Scenes for Student Actors. New York: Penguin Books, 1980.

Shaw, Bernard Graham. Voice-overs: A Practical Guide. New York: Routledge, 2001.

Davida Bloom is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Theatre at State University of New York at Brockport. Her interests include feminism and theatre and the scholarship of teaching and learning. She has been published in the Journal of Religion and Theatre, Youth Theatre Journal, Stage of the Arts, and Academic Exchange Quarterly.

Teaching Emotional Availability

Most of us try to become the kind of actor who can summon convincing emotion at will without self-indulgence, trepidation or tortuous preparation. My students of the postmodern generation sometimes suffer from a pervasive self-conscious irony that can block free emotional expression. Postmodernism by its very nature involves a habit of gently mocking rather than fully embracing. These actors have no trouble being big or honest but being big and honest can present a huge challenge. I teach a course titled Lyric Performance that strives to open up emotional pores and unclog expressive arteries for actors afraid of being “cheesy” or inauthentic.

The reason for the course name is that the scripted material actors work on includes highly charged speeches from Shakespeare and what I call “anthem numbers”, passionate and personal songs from musical theatre. These two forms of theatre share moments when the show stops and an actor, often alone onstage, must pour out huge, heartfelt emotion. Anything less than trying to knock it out of the park and the audience feels cheated. These pieces simply demand big and honest. I chose “Performance” because students both act and sing and “Lyric” because it was the closest word I could find for the opposite of cautious mockery. It is variously defined as “literature expressive of the writer’s feelings rather than intellect or outward events….verse which is most representative of music in its sound patterns….writing characterized by subjectivity and sensuality of expression…..performance which is highly enthusiastic, emotional, ecstatic and/or exuberant.” These last four “e” words can bring terror to the post modern psyche, committed to the “s” words – sly skepticism, and safe sarcasm. Nevertheless students clamor to get into this course probably because they really want to break out.

The seed for this class was actually planted when I took my doctoral comprehensives and one sadistic committee member challenged me to find connections between musical theatre and Shakespeare, believing them to be at opposite ends of the spectrum, from pop mentality to high brow culture vulturism. . Somehow, a storm of similarities came to me in that moment. They not only share that point when everything stops and an actor need to go for it, but also they both move back and forth between presentation and representation, combine the intimate and the spectacular, the oratorical and the naturalistic, often have huge casts representing entire cultures, frequently have scenes of great public gatherings or rituals, involve heroic sometimes “archetypal” characters captured at their brightest and most intense moments. They are often more likely to be set in an exotic location and /or time period, have minimum exposition/indecision but rather plunge into action, and fundamentally need performers who can pour out powerful emotion with great dexterity. . One of the values of blending these two theatre forms is that students rarely reject any possibility afterwards and are far less likely to limit themselves in subsequent choices.

I should also state that I have a strong bias towards personal growth projects as part of an acting program in a liberal arts setting. Since our students chances of successful professional careers are about one in a hundred, I think we need to do more than just train actors in the craft itself. The ultimate liberal arts objective is to find out more about who you really are and how you might fit into the world. Acting should be a life enriching experience with countless personal insights and skills for everyday encounters part of the educational pay-off.

On the first day of Lyric Performance class, everyone takes a vow that anything shared here stays here, since much personal information may be shared reluctantly. Actors draw names for partners. I am a big believer in chance putting you with the person you really should be working with no matter how much past history may have suggested otherwise. Partners do sharing exercises with each other the first and constantly connect throughout the term.

The first big assignment is called My Lyric Self. Each actor puts together a 30 minutes or less presentation, essentially a one person show, where the following information is shared:

1. a song that always gets to you

2. a poem or verse speech you wish you’d written

3. a cause you support with all your heart

4. a cause or movement you utterly oppose

5. a role model and/or a quotation that inspires you

6. your perfect meal in perfect circumstances

7. a childhood, high impact memory

8. your most vivid moment in the theatre

9. a role you must play before you die

10. your message about your art

Material may be presented in any order or format the actor chooses. Lyric Selves are spread out over a period of three weeks, with two each class period. (The class meets for three two hour sessions each week). It is rare for anyone to present without some powerful primary emotion coming forth, though exactly where will vary from actor to actor. I have come to believe that it is the close juxtaposition of highly charged sources of feeling that creates an almost “can’t miss” sense of availability. Often performers come close to losing it, recover, feel a sense of catharsis, get powerful positive feedback from their peers, and vow to be braver in going where a performance needs to go in the future.

I prepare and present this exercise and so do any teaching assistants who may be studying the pedagogy of the class. This is part of the trust needed for this kind of work… I believe we need to occasionally put ourselves on the line and share at the same level we are requesting of our students. On a personal level, no matter how well each of us involved in this class thought we knew each other before, the depth of our understanding and connection increases significantly and this spills out into our other work together.

Daily warm-ups are traditional in activity, starting on the floor with tensing/relaxing the entire body, curling into fetal position, working to a standing position by uncoiling vertebra by vertebra and then shaking out. The key to the warm-up for this particular class is side coaching which encourages actors to reach in, grab and expel the “emotional cowards” in themselves and gradually evolve with each movement upward to become an “emotional warrior”. Basic warm-ups are followed each day by a new breathing exercise, where actors learn to use breath to change body temperature, to achieve calm, focus, muscle relaxation, digestive patterns, and range of other adjustments. Because breath is such a key part of emotion and we will eventually learn the powerful breath patterns of Alba Emoting (described later), this tends to provide a base of confidence that helps students through those challenging and complex patterns when we get to them. They know they can change how they feel physically with breath, so it is a smooth transition to changing and even generating emotion.

The class is always working on small assignments that take no more than five minutes to share. A sample of these daily work-outs include:

1. My place – Write (in class) about a private place where you would go to be alone and renew with no limitations of budget or reality. Describe it both physically and psychologically. Begin each sentence with “My place” (When students are done they are asked to cross out ‘My place” and substitute “I”). We read these aloud in circle.

2. Schadenfreude- Availability means being open to all emotions, even this dirty, shameful one. (The joy I feel at the failure of my friends. Example “Your best friend applied to Yale and gets turned down. You are ecstatic largely because you could not even have qualified and want to keep him in your world.”) We applaud each sharing wildly, just because the actor has the courage to share. Note: Public perception of this emotion tends to settle on enjoying the downfall of arrogant celebrities. It is far more powerful and devastating when experienced with people you really know and love.

3. Weirdest Thing Ever- Students share their closest experiences with the paranormal or just with miracles. This tends to remind everyone to say “yes” to characters who function outside explainable phenomena and to open up to all possibilities…

4. L’Esprit de l”Escalier – The French term for the “spirit of the stairs” where someone said something obnoxious to you at an event and only when you are halfway down the stairs leaving do you think of a brilliant comeback. Students tell the story, cast classmates in key roles and now get to say what they were unable to say at the time. Everyone reports this as a big cathartic release and many proceed on their own to put the “finishing touches” on encounters that are not really complete.

5. In Memoriam –Students draw the name of an actor or singer who has died in the past year, research them and present a brief speech honoring them, ending in “Rest in peace (name of the diseased)”. While these performers were often household words in their day, many are now completely unfamiliar to most of the class. Actors need to struggle to determine what can be learned from their life. And almost always, there is some reason why the student has drawn this name.

These brief exercises, aside from being fun, tend to shake up actors’ perceptions about their emotional lives. Sometimes the most gentle, loving people just cut loose with a vicious schadenfreude or a long sublimated and explosive l’esprit (and we always give them ovations). Sometimes the most remote and cynical students find tenderness. This is all about shaking it up. Again, I usually model most of these as a way of opening up sharing.

We do not usually do not coach material prior to the first showing, wanting to determine what actors can do on their own first. After an extensive critique, we then set up out of class coaching sessions for individual attention. In class, we focus on shaking up the material and unearthing new possibilities. Here are three of the most reliable exercises for songs and speeches:

1. Spoken Song –Making the song a monolog always reminds the performer to deeply evaluate and act each moment. Since a song is a speech that happens to be set to music, the return to moment by moment discovery releases crucial transitional discoveries.

2. Sung Speech-Conversely, the speech sung reminds the actor to release the music in Shakespeare, trust the rhythms and take it to a place between conventional speech and song. Actors sing without accompaniment and are encouraged to change musical styles within the body of a speech that given the variety in Shakespeare, could actually start out as a tender pop ballad, move into abrasive rap, and even end in grand opera.

3. Contemporary paraphrase- More and more actors need to take Shakespeare into modern lingo to make sure that they comprehend deep in their bones what is going on. Shakespeare speeches need to morph to contemporary speech so the actor understands word by word, phrase by phrase, the speech’s progression. Then they take these lessons back as an under layer when speaking antiquated language.

These may seem like the most obvious projects in the world, but I promise you they produce profound changes. The following exercises are adapted from Fred Silver’s book Auditioning for Musical Theatre, which should probably actually be titled How to Act a Song. If they are not entirely clear here, do examine his book.

1. Subtext-Actors write out what goes on between and behind the words. Partners, standing right behind them, read these out loud feeding into the song as the actor presents.

2. Stage Directions-While seemingly mundane, finding very specific gestures and movements moment by moment often frees actors to a greater emotional abandon. Again partners read them while the actor is singing.

3. Parallel Event- This is a complex but effective technique where the actor creates a story like but not precisely matching that of the song.

(An actress asked to lose weight for a role and way too encouraged to do so by her boyfriend, but really wanting to buy some Ben & Jerry’s, sings “Don’t Rain on My Parade” with insertions from her personal version of the song after each phrase. Partner does the parallel universe version.)

4. Confrontation- Partners write very in your face challenges to come between each line in both songs and speeches. As the singer/speaker performs, partners push them to respond in often threatening or at least confrontational ways. This always adds electricity to the performance.

These exercises, while important, are also time consuming. Partners are assigned to experiment with all of them, but actually draw to demonstrate results in class. So we have two examples of each, which are enough to clarify the parameters of the exercise and help partners’ to determine if they need to try again.

As this course has developed, I have been able to bring as guest instructor a brilliant vocal coach (Marie Landreth) who does a workshop using the song “Motherless Child” to get each actor to go deeper, but also to achieve more technical support for those deep decisions and then to coach each actor out of class. Considering this is a class about emotional expression, it is surprising how Marie’s focus and that of the entire class in critique and coaching ends up being highly technical. One of the pervasive lessons of this kind of work is that if you want to be free to take great emotional risks, you want a very strong technical safety net, that in fact your technique can give you permission to take emotional risks and actually release you into powerful expression. While the contribution of a vocal coach has been considerable, it is not essential, so please do not be inhibited from trying this kind of work for lack of this particular resource.

During the second half of the term, after a myriad of breath manipulation exercises, we learn Alba Emoting. It is described at length in sources listed at the end of this article. A quick summary: Susana Bloch recorded subjects under hypnosis experiencing powerfully the following states: fear, joy, anger, tenderness, grief, and erotica. The exact patterns and amplitude of breathing, sources and degrees of muscle tension, and physical tendencies regarding gravity and contact, among other characteristics were identified and have been demonstrated to be universal among cultures. Her work has naturally expanded to the theatre where actors can learn the exact nature of powerful primary emotions and have the choice then to engage fully in them or to present them by design. Information is specific in ways we seldom have noted, such as that in extreme joy exhalation invades inhalation and in sadness inhalation invades exhalation. Or that tenderness involves the very smallest low frequency breathing and fear may often involve not only irregular breathing, but also incomplete or interrupted exhalations. Anger often amounts to a closed mouth with both inhalation and exhalation through the nose. Erotica will have a nearly equal inhalation/ exhalation relationship. The exercises are particularly useful for those who tend to start to feel and then circumvent, such as students (often women) who instantly redirect their anger into grief and those (often men) who do just the opposite. The results are amazingly powerful and empowering.

Alba Emoting also teaches a process called Step Out, which allows actors to instantly discard an emotion that may be trapping them. This is a movement and focus ritual involving patterns that are antithetical to the primary six emotions. For example it involves looking up and at a distance, since all the emotions tend to involve either an inner or close focusing of the eyes. It involves massaging muscles in the face that often tighten during extreme emotion. Knowing they can escape an emotion, of course, makes actors more courageous to go there.

Actors keep a private journal not to be turned in unless they want feedback. One of the major entries is My Emotional History (“A narrative of your journey from emotionally available small child to hopefully emotionally available adult actor”) in which actors identify information that may be of use to them in availability: suggestions for this entry include:

· Negative influences – : Instances of emotional abuse, vivid memories of mockery, disdain, chastisement, punishment, possible negative brainwashing and unwise role model choices.

• Circumventing – Any personal tendencies to begin to feel a primary emotion and to channel it to one of the others or an ineffective blend.

· Positive Influences: - Instances of being given permission to vent, optimal home conditions, inspirational moments in the work of others,

Various experiences serving as reminders of the value of disclosure.

Analysis – Which of the big six emotions are you most & least available and expressive in? Why do you think this is the case? What degrees of freedom do you experience onstage and off, in various interpersonal exchanges? What are your plans or intentions to take this information and move forward?

It is very rare for students turn in journals, but when we check in with each other in class, they often report valuable insights from doing the entries.

Some students (often male) students report that “I have not cried since…” some inhibiting event years ago. In this class, they are the hardest nuts to crack because of the power of impacted habits. When they experience release, it is often awkward, embarrassing, immature, and explosive- very much like what they would have expressed back then if they had felt free to do so. Sometimes the other more evolved members of the class may be privately critical at such a display. I always send the word around the rumor mill that this guy is just going back to pick up where he left off and needs our support for that.

The last week of the term, the speeches and songs are presented in two showcases. This has become a much anticipated event in the department to many fellow students showing up to support the actors who present their two pieces back to back, with recorded accompaniment for the songs. Partners never present at the same showcase and are always asked to be first respondent to their partners when we debrief in class the day after each showcase. This week we also present an assignment called Eulogy in class. It may be about the death of anything in the actor’s life. Possible topics include:

· a person or pet close to me who has died

· a source of inspiration who has died

• a relationship that is over
• a life stage that has ended
• a way of life that is no more
• a valued object I have lost
• a place I no longer live

There is a guideline script to provide structure. Each of these statements is completed:

“I am here to honor [name]

[Name] ended or died because…..

This is important to me because…

I am changed because of this in that….

Examples of how this influenced me are…

What I miss most is…

When I think of [name] I always think of….

When I struggle with moving on, it is because….

I can grow beyond this because….

My message to [name] is….”

This assignment, while far shorter in length, tends to produce similar performer /audience engagement to that of the Lyric Self. It helps to put everyone back in a space similar to that experienced earlier in the term while the primary focus has moved to presenting scripted material in showcase. It tends to allow actors to find connections between sharing what it important to them as people and sharing what is important to the characters they are performing publicly.

This class involves more personal work than some teachers may be comfortable monitoring. I can testify that even though some of it may seem digressive and even indulgent, there are big pay offs when actors connect the work to what they are doing with text. These activities should not be confused with Substitution, where an actor might insert her own experience into a character’s situation. This is more about remembering what it felt like to be open, vulnerable and brave. It is not so much recalling a specific emotion or experience, but the memory of being available. As one student put it, “I am very proud of finding a way to not cheat who I am when I share here. Now I need to make the same promise to never cheat any character I ever play.”

Some resources:

Bloch, Susana, Pedro Orthus and Guy Santibanez-H. “Effector Pattern of Basic Emotions: A Psychophysical Method for Training Actors”. Acting (Re) Considered. Phillip B. Zarrilli ed., London: Routledge, 1995

.Dal Vera, Rocco. “The Voice in Heightened Effective States”, The Voice in Violence, The Voice and Speech Review. Voice and Speech Trainer’s Association, 2001.

Rix, Roxanne. “Learning Alba Emoting”,Theatre Topics 8:1, 1998

Silver, Fred. Auditioning for Musical Theatre. New York: Penguin Books, 1985.

Robert Barton

Robert Barton is head of the acting program at the University of Oregon, author of Acting: Onstage and Off, Voice: Onstage and Off (w.Rocco Dal Vera), Style for Actors and the soon to be published text Theatre in Your Life and accompanying anthology Life Themes. He has also written numerous articles for Theatre Journal and Theatre Topics.