The AM or PM classes are part of the Homework. This is where you learn to build on the technique of Lee Strasberg, which is covered in Induction. You also expand your application into scene work. You only need to attend one Tech & Scene Study class per week for the arch of the classes, but you are welcome to come to more each week; there is no extra charge. Classes run AM or PM, so there is flexibility to work around other demands.
Homework is to embrace the discipline that acting starts with what you need to do before you get to what you want to do. With self-tapping, much now starts in your own home space. Plus, the challenges of the actor are increasingly bringing your creativity & craft to a very technical environment. Homework builds the truth that the first studio is your own space, which becomes your primary creative place to act from.
The Studio gives the expansive space to build both technique and scene work. Homework is the primary place to build your foundation; Studio is where you have the opportunity to play & create more with what is technically evolving. Acting is personal and collective so working from both spaces enables you to meet each step and each challenge.
METHOD HOMEWORK each week
Monday 10 – 12 noon 0r 7.30 – 9.30 pm (Technique)
Tuesday 10 – 12.30 noon 0r 7.30 – 10 pm (Scene Study)
METHOD STUDIO Week 1
Saturday 10-6 pm
METHOD / VOICE & MOVEMENT STUDIO Week 3
Saturday 10-6 pm Method
Sunday 10-5 pm Voice & Movement
METHOD STUDIO Week 4
Saturday 10-6 pm
Sunday 10-6 pm
I want to discuss how you consider the steps of classes offered in each Monthly Method Acting Unit leading to the Method Studio .
Acting is about preparation. Firstly, the longer-term objective of developing your instrument and craft and how you construct an approach to any potential acting opportunity in the shorter term. If these can’t effectively be engaged, your work will be random.
Homework
Homework is the primary. It also represents the initial dead space in that the actor begins the journey. The dead space represents the initial sense of no natural external stimulation except the text itself. Alternatively, you could consider dead space and inert space. Requiring interaction from you to bring it to life. You have yet to create any relationship in such a primary space to feed off, just like when you receive a self-tape for an audition or prepare to work on a role you have booked. It is how you turn nothing into something. Although you only see obstacles at first, you find the means to unlock the opportunity.
About your instrument, the work is always primary. Each time you engage in relaxation and sense memory. Each time you work yourself experientially, you build and develop your instrument.
As important as the instrument is the relationship between text and character. Like the musician, you should pick up different music pieces to practice your craft and expand your vocabulary and understanding. Not to stick to the tunes that you know and like most. In the demands of the industry, this level of sketching sustains you when you have to make quick, creative choices.
Therefore homework is your studio. Without this foundation, you cannot truly grow in this industry—the technical demands in the 21st-century present considerable challenges. Consequently, the challenge and discipline of homework are to build the muscles to create with such obstacles rather than just overcome them.
Studio Method
The face-to-face work now has true meaning in the context of the homework. The primary homework preparation means that the studio space becomes a studio to explore and expand the primary work you have established in homework. It becomes a more organic opportunity to examine the potential of your instrument and your creative process where you can pull apart and engage both the character and the text—building a richer ability and a greater understanding of both yourself and the opportunities of acting.
This also expands into the important parts of an actor’s craft, VOICE & MOVEMENT. To fill the character, the role, and the text with your creative thoughts, impulses and emotions, you need the creative muscles that bring real shape and dynamics to your acting.
The intensity of the STUDIO days replicates the challenges and opportunities of the camera or the stage. Now you can bring your primary and process work into scene work. Or to immerse and observe fellow class members reaching out to fulfil such a creative challenge. Everybody will work with sense memory and text in the morning, evolving the ability to work from your thoughts, impulses and emotions. To create from a heightened state of self while obtaining the lucidity of creative thinking.
The Choice
As Stanislavski said, talent is in the choice. Nothing is automatic, particularly in acting. The specific steps of the four-week unit are designed for you to engage and unlock your true creative potential properly. To develop the sensibility and creative muscles to take on the challenges and opportunities of the professional acting industry.Â
In straightforward terms, the pillars in each unit are to see how you can raise your game.
Sam