Daily Acting Tip Journals Semester 1

1. Daily Acting Tip Journals Semester 1 Things an actor should know but often forget…. Put the date and add them to your journal at the beginning of class

2. 1.Beats- The actor’s signposts • A beat is to acting what a paragraph is to writing. The beat changes when the subject changes. The beat usually defined by the text or could be emotionally developed • It is important to analyze and mark the beats in the text to help develop the rhythm of a scene and the play. • It gives the actor units of measurement to help in memorization and emotional sign-posts • Sometimes beats are arranged on a subtextual basis by what you mean instead of what you say.

3. 2.An Action • An action is either what you want the other person on stage to do, to feel, or to understand. • If you are alone onstage the action has the same definition only applied to you. • Each large performance will entail hundreds of different actions and a good actor will attempt to define each and every one.

4. 3.The Obstacle • In theatre, every action has an obstacle or else the action is undramatic. • Sometimes the obstacle is outside himself and sometimes in his own head. • An actor needs to understand and define the obstacles for every action they face in a scene to help build the tension of the scene.

5. 4.Action and Obstacle in Balance • If an action is significantly stronger than the obstacle, it is achieved to easily and the result of the moment will be undramatic. • If the obstacle is too powerful the action is too soon abandoned and this would be undramatic. • It is important for the actor and his team to help create a significant balance between the two forces on stage within the dramatic beats.

6. 5. Tactics • Since action is what you want the other character to do, the tactic is how you get them to do it. • There are an endless variety of tactics an actor may choose for each dramatic moment or action they need to define. • It is important to try various tactics and not settle on the first or easiest one to perform.

7. 6. Working Backwards • Read a script all the way through at least twice focusing on the last FIVE pages. Understand them thoroughly • What happens there? What are the metaphors? What is the meaning that the play as a whole carries? • Use the ending as a backward road map to tell you how you got to where you are when the play ends. • How can you make those final moments more special?

8. 7.Subtext • Subtext is basically what you mean underneath what you say. • When you define your subtext for a line it almost immediately help you to define your action. • It’s useful to try to decode your fellow actor’s subtext if they don’t share it with you in rehearsal. Knowing where each other is coming from is important to building the dynamics of a scene.

9. 8.The Arc • There is a difference between what your character wants and feels at the beginning of a play and at the end. • There is an arc for the whole play, for an act, for a scene and sometimes even a beat. • Once you define the starting point, try to find the top of the arc and then the descent. What animates change? • Understanding the arcs in the play will help give you variety in your performance.

10. 9.Transitions • Transitions are the moments you move from one idea or objective in a scene to another. • Transitions can be portrayed by a change of tone or rhythm, a pause, a move, a look or even a silence. • Mark them in the text. They help to signal the thought moments and changes your character goes through from beat to beat.

11. 10. Theme ThreadsThree#10 Theme Threads • Theme threads are strings of meaning that run through a play. • If you don’t know what the plays about, how will you know the important moments and if you don’t know the important moments, how will you act your part? • Write out the theme threads for the play and then the ones for your character. • How does your character weave into the plays fabric?

12. 11.Backstory • This is the character’s offstage life both mentioned by the text and imagined by the actor. • It helps you to clarify your actions onstage and make a fuller life for the audience to enjoy. • Don’t play a character to support a backstory but use the backstory to support your character.

13. 12. Mysteries • Relish and pursue the unanswered questions about your character that a playwright provides. • These are often the most rewarding discoveries during rehearsal and performance. • Pursue them in your thoughts, in your discussions with the director and fellow actors, because they can finally really open up a part to you.

14. 13.Personalization • All roles, no matter how well written, never come to life except through you and your experience, the way you bring your personality and understanding to a role. • Bringing your personal life to bear on the creation of a character is what makes it yours and the richer experience for the audience and for you in reaching the characterization

15. 14. Inner Monologue • This is what you think when you talk. It is the composite of backstory, acknowledgement, circumstances, actions, tactics and picking up what other characters are giving you and reacting. • Some write this out but it is best to draw on the spontaneity of the moment defined by your work on each beat and the character’s moment to moment motivation

16. 15. Framing • Framing is the way we reveal key moments in a play to an audience by a distinct action which makes the moment stand out. • It can be done by using pauses, using a prop, making a significant move, a change in tone, or by using the space dynamically as well as other ways that will become apparent in a script or through rehearsal. • It is a way to make the key moment stand out from other moments.

17. 16.Neutral • Neutral is a way to change the velocity of powerful scenes where continual ranting, screaming or over-emotional acting will wear the audience and the actor down. • You need to find moments in intense scenes where you can approach the emotion from a quiet neutral place to give emotional variety and sometimes an added introspective weight to a scene. It can also reflect a moment of clarity in an otherwise frantic emotional state.

18. 17.Doing it in one • Most reactions and moves should take place in one beat. How long is this? One second! • This helps the flow of the action. If you use too many beats for one reaction you must have a very specific reason for it or it should be a very important reaction the needs two or more beats of the scene.

19. 18.Taking Focus • Taking focus is important to know how to do if you have an important line or thematic action that helps the stories impact. • Take focus by moving if you’ve been still or stopping if you’ve been moving, change the rhythm of you speech, talk in a louder voice or a quieter voice if others have been loud anything that draws attention • Taking focus inappropriately is a big NO NO.

20. 19.Ancillary Action/Business • Ancillary action are the things we do when we talk. This is really important to add if you have long speeches that no particular dramatic action is taking place. Find something to do, fix your clothes, tie your shoes, drink some tea, clean your glasses, handle a book, look through your purse. Something natural that gives you a secondary activity. • Tie the activity into your speech naturally. Don’t do it for the sake of doing it.

21. 20.New Energy • You should usually try to raise the energy level at the top of a new “beat.” • This could mean speaking louder or a change of emotional energy to help define the transition. • Actor energy tends to run downhill unless consciously manipulated and motivated to keep up the drive of a scene. • If there is a pause or silence, re-energize the moment after that.

22. 21.Stakes • Directors often use the phrase “raise the stakes” of the scene. This means the importance of what you want and your means of trying to get it must be more intense and immediate. You need to increase your emotional motivation and intensity to get the proper power and impact in a scene. • It’s always best to go too far at first and let the director bring you back if necessary.

23. 22.THE PAUSE • Pauses are an important part of creating dramatic beats, but they must be filled with something the audience will understand. • A pause can show contemplation • A pause can increase tension after an accelerated emotional buildup • A pause can relieve tension or set up another moment. • Use the power of the pause wisely

24. 23.DEFINING MOMENTS • Beware of identifying too many defining moments for your character, but it is important to identify the most important ones to play. • Playing too many moments flattens out a performance, playing too few makes for a boring performance. • A large part obviously has more defining moments but all characters should be able to identify at least one moment that defines them.

25. 24. OTHER’S NEEDS • Get your ego out of the way and share the stage. Your are performing a story where your character should be interacting with others and not seeking personal glory or notice in a particular role. • Give the stage and be a generous actor. • Learn to listen onstage as your character and let the way the other characters relate and speak to you develop your response.

26. 25.What’s the attitude? • Know your attitude for what you are saying. • No lines should ever lie flat. No line is unimportant and every word should get its value in volume. • Never throw away a line and know the attitude for what your saying

27. 26.THE BUILD • The build is a technique for creating rising tension to an obvious emotional or comic top. • It entails each actor topping the other in volume and power until the beat reaches it’s peak. This is usually about six lines long but sometimes can be less or more. • The build creates dramatic and comic tension and takes the audience on the story ride with you.

28. 27.Clean • Something that is clean is precise, planned, sharp, defined, completely in control….clean. • You see when something starts and finishes. • Points made confidently without hesitation • Whatever is necessary to make the point is there, no more and no less. • Like a great athlete, you aspire to a kind of clean perfection in the work.

29. 28. Loud Enough • An actor needs to gage the size of the space and the necessities of the role to determine what voice is loud enough. • As the size of the auditorium increases, volume and articulation need to increase. A smaller space allows for a more intimate voice. • You need to practice with the director to gauge what is LOUD ENOUGH for the role.

30. 29.Focus • Some moments in a play are more important than others. An actor must define those moments and put them into particular focus in the play. • Learn how to make the important moments “LAND” with the audience by changing things up like pace and volume, framing and other techniques discussed previously and in future tips.

31. 30.Pace • The basics of pace relate to information and emotion. Emotion drives pace forward increasing speed. Information slows pace so it can be understood. • Simple information can move fast but complex information must move slower • Stage speech will always be a bit slower than in normal life so the audience can hear and follow no matter the plays pace.

32. 31.Buying the Pause • A pause can set up something important the audience needs to hear. It changes the pace and creates a moment of reflection. • A pause usually breaks an established rhythm and usually is physically still as well like hitting the pause button on a recording • Too many pauses creates a jerky uneven rhythm and lessons the value of the pause.

33. 32. Setting up Drama • In drama as in comedy the set-up to an important moment is just as important as the moment if not more so. • The line before the dramatic moment should be spoken clearly and defined by the momentum of the play to that moment. • Take special care in creating pace and momentum up to the line before the crucial dramatic action.

34. 33.Overlapping • There’s something very realistic and challenging about overlapping lines in a play. • It usually occurs where pace and dramatic action is accelerating and need to be timed perfectly for the proper effect. • It should develop to a point that seems and feels spontaneous and real.

35. 34.Posture • Posture describes the physical nature of your character and needs to be as carefully developed and the emotional life of your character. • It defines how your character feels about him or herself, the period of time they exist in, and their status in society. • Pay special attention to your posture in your character development.

36. 35.The Visual Cue • We pick up cues not only by lines delivered on stage but also from visual cues. • You can enhance a line by reacting properly to a visual cue, like a look or a wink or a hand gesture. • The person giving the cue needs to make sure it is clear and timed to work well as a cue. Make it “clean.”

37. 36. Pointing Your Feet • Historically, opening up or keeping your upstage foot ahead of your downstage foot is the proper behavior particularly for a proscenium stage. This makes a nice picture. • Newer directors are trusting the profile and even the back of the actor to portray meaning and breaking up the old “opened-up” look. • Try to find what is natural but know it needs to be shared with the audience.

38. 37.Prop Acting • Props are often symbols or metaphors for behaviors a character might have. They reveal a great deal about a person by the way you use them. • Make sure you are as careful with how you use your prop as you should be in creating the psychological profile of your character.

39. 38. Sitting • Sitting gracefully on stage is often more difficult than it seems, yet how you sit reveals a great deal about your character, their dignity or lack thereof. • If you must maintain eye contact with another character find the chair with the back of your leg and sit down in one easy movement.

40. 39. Punctuation (physical) • Gesture is punctuation clarifying text, as is sitting, standing, starting, stopping, entering, leaving, putting something down or picking it up. • Make gestures punctuate ideas in the text that require the special attention of movement or action. • Let the gesture serve the text not draw away from it.

41. 40.The Long Pause • This is the pause before a defining moment in the play…or maybe you forgot your line… hopefully it is the former. • The pause should be building tension to the release and revelation of the moment of truth. • These pauses should be up to six seconds but not much longer…it will feel like more to the audience.

42. 41. Cuing • Just as in music, cuing has a rhythm. • Be aware of picking up cues at a lines end and be aware of the rhythm of a scene. • Comedy cuing is always faster than drama unless it is an argument or action scene when cues must flow.

43. 42. Curtain Lines • The last lines of a play bring closure to the process. They should reflect the final mood and the feeling an audience will go away with. • Make sure these are clear and punctuated with the final feeling of the play…dramatic or comic. • The last line of a play is an important actor’s responsibility to finish the story well.

44. 43. Listening and reacting • Sanford Meisner says the best actors are good listeners. Listening and reacting to what the other characters are saying is a large part of becoming a complete actor, • You must be careful not to steal focus by over acting your listening or moving inappropriately during another person’s lines but work hard at listening and not anticipating how you react. Just react to the moment.

45. 44.Try It Twice • A director gives you a direction and you say, “ I don’t like that.” The director says “Try it.” Do try it. Try it at least twice or more before giving up on the director’s suggestion because usually they have a goal in mind for the moment you are working on.

46. 45.Schtick • Schtick refers to an actor’s bag of tricks that they rely on too frequently sometimes to save time. A funny accent, an eye patch, a limp, a stutter, a voice…something they have had success with in the past they repeat…again and again. • Use you tools based on the needs of the character and not on what you think is convenient and quick

47. 46.Narrative Essentials • Exposition – The method of giving essential information in a play • Plot- The story line, the moment to moment telling of the events • Characters – The people who inhabit the play’s world • Theme – The message the playwright and thereby the director and actors wish to impart.

48. 47.Tragedy • The pinnacle of human literary achievement is tragedy. They are somber, meaningful, and thoughtful and deal with profound human emotions • The Protagonist is a significant person engaged in a significant struggle, but fails. • Often the outcome seems predestined but still elicits the audience’s pity and compassion

49. 47.Comedy • In comedy the protagonist is usually an insignificant person who faces gigantic challenges but somehow, though there are failures along the way, overcomes and triumphos in the end.

50. 48.Physical Comedy • Physical comedy involves doing pratfalls and large physical gestures for a laugh or effect. • These must be rehearsed for timing and safety but must be attacked fearlessly and integrated with the character work you are doing. • Many of the best comedians started with physical comedy as their base.