First steps in 'Acting 101' - planning the course
ADVICE TO ACTING TEACHERS - 'ACTING 101' - an introductory course in acting for 18-22 year-olds
| If a hammer is missing from your toolbox, you'll be inclined to ignore nails. That's why I try to spread out a range of options here. |
| I tell you what I have rejected from my 'Acting 101', as much as what has been excluded. |
| Here are my bundle of views, judgements, theories and guesses. Does anything here help you plan, rethink or justify your labour? |
| I don't offer a Swiss Army Knife with a different device for each acting technique. Here are some of the results of a lifetime of teaching acting, of trying out different systems as they came in and out of fashion. |
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I have arrived at ACTIONING as the central approach. |
| This is an acting course focused on 18-22 year olds, who are in third-level education ('ACTING 101'). They may or may not have had experience of training from school or college. |
| Sometimes it has been refreshing to teach students who have had no previous experience. Some students have compared my work with their previous acting teachers (and it can be an effort to move them on to focus completely on acting techniques.) |
| Frankly, I have often had to encourage some previous acting baggage to be discarded and to focus on acting techniques, instead of additional functions of acting courses in education. See 'Hits' and 'pits' - what is OFF the menu |
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I narrowed this course to what I thought was achievable - 'excerpt acting', realist texts, 'natural casting', monologues and 'excerpt scenes' for 2 to 6 actors.
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| See - 'NATURAL CASTING' - ONLY CHOOSE ROLES THAT ARE NEAR TO YOU (age and gender). |
To 'Hits' and 'pits' - what is OFF the menu
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