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So torr 14 –
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2. Terminology

3. The actor most clearly personifies the
stage for the general public
THE ACTOR IS theatre itself

4. The Actor’s Training and Means
 In acting training, different aspects of acting are singled out for
specialized attention:
• Dancing (Ballet, Jazz, Folk Dances etc)
• Movement (Contact Impovisation, Movement Improvisation, Stage
Fight, Tai Chi)
• Music (Theory of Music, Singing, Dictee)
• Speech & Articulation
• Drama Studies (Text Analysis, History of theatre)
• Make up & Costume Design, Stage Design

5. The Actor’s Instrument
Actors spend years mastering their instrument –
themselves
(Body – Voice – Acting Styles )
 Body & Voice are the actor’s primary means of expression
 These must be flexible, disciplined and expressive
One of the actor’s primary challenges is to understand
how the body and voice function
 Work toward gaining control over one’s physical
instrument
 Eliminate any inhibiting tensions.
It is difficult to achieve physical and vocal freedom and
expressiveness without some concern for the psychological
processes that may create tension or block creative
expression (No Sir I can not sing…)
Improvisational exercises or theatre games help overcome

6. Movement, Gesture and Business
 Actors need to feel comfortable with their blocking and
movement
 The actor must fill in many details of the character’s
movement
 Physical characterization often involves a basic threestep process
 Consider physical traits required by the action
 Identify physical traits that may be dominate in any
given beat
 Apply appropriate distinctiveness through greater
specificity

7. Observation and Imagination
 Actors need to develop the habit of watching other
people
 Actors must also develop imagination in order to “feel
their way” into the lives of others and into fictional
situations
 Identify the given circumstances
 Particularize objects with the properties of real ones
(hold the gun correctly)
 Endow objects, places and people with the emotional
significance and value they have for the character

8. Concentration
Actors must also learn to control, shape and integrate
their basic skills (Body & Voice) as the script and the
director demand.
 One mark of control and discipline is concentration:
I.
II.
The ability to shut out all distractions
The ability to concentrate on present stimulus as it
occurs to create the illusion of “the first time”

9. Stage Vocabulary
Many routine tasks have been reduced to a set of conventions that actors are expected to know:
Among the basic conventions is the division of the stage into areas:





Upstage – Downstage
Stage right and stage left
Up right, up center, up left
Right, center, left
Down right, down center, down left
The actor is also expected to be familiar with body positions as they relate to the audience
 Full front
 one-quarter
 one-half
 three-quarter
 full back
Other terminology may supplement designations of area and bodily position
 Open up Turn in, turn out
 Share a scene
 Give stage Focus
 Dress the stage
Some devices are used to emphasize or subordinate stage business
 A “planted” prop A masked, “cheat ed” or faked action
Actors normally strive to be graceful
 Movement should be precise and clear
 The more actors know about other aspects of production the better they will be able to
utilize these elements in their acting

10. Creating a role - Questionaire
 The most basic task of acting is to understand the role
 Levels of characterization
a. Biological
b. Sociological
c. Psychological
d. Ethical
 It is helpful to determine which traits are necessary within the dramatic action
 The actor needs to understand the “spine” of the role
What the character wants
What the character is willing to do to get it
How these are manifested in each scene, beat by beat, and how they develop
throughout the play
 Actors also need to examine how their roles relate to the others in the play
 What does the character think of others?
 How does the character present him or herself to other characters?
 What does each of the others think of the character?
 What is the function of each of these variations within the dramatic action?
 The actor needs to understand the script in terms of its:
 Themes
 Implied meanings
 Overall significance
 Subtext
 Actors need to examine their roles in relation to the director’s interpretation of the script

11. Psychological and Emotional
Preparation
Actors must be able to project themselves imaginatively
into the world of the play, its the specific situations and
their characters’ feelings and motivations
 Experiments with ways of inducing empathic
involvement have yielded various methods
 Emotion memory
 Research and observe appropriate subjects
 Improvisation and theatre games

12. Vocal Characterization
 Actors may modify their vocal patterns considerably for purposes of
characterization
 Variable factors of voice
a. Pitch
b. Volume
Quality
 Variable factors of speech
1. Articulation
2. Pronunciation
3. Duration
4. Inflection
5. Audibility
6. Intelligible
7. Variety

13. Memorization and Line Readings
It is helpful to memorize speech and movement
simultaneously because they reinforce each other
Memorization is aided by a few simple procedures:
a.
b.
c.
d.
Actors memorize their cues in connection with their lines
Actors study the meaning and purpose of their lines
Familiarity with the sequence of beats that make up each scene
Actors require repetition for memorization - even if it is provided
by another simply holding a script copy and providing cues for the
actor to repeat his or her lines over and over again
a.Actors form distinctive line readings through the controllable
factors of voice and speech as filtered through an understanding of
their characters

14. Dress Rehearsals and Performance
Actors are usually not able to work with all properties, settings,
costumes, makeup and stage lighting until dress rehearsal(s)
Of special importance are the costumes and makeup:
 These alter appearance, movement and gesture
 Rehearsal garments are often helpful to the performers:
a. They help the actors understand how they might use their costumes
b. They help the actors understand how their costumes might affect their
performances
 The actors need to understand and be able to apply the makeup
for their characters
Performance is the ultimate goal:
1.Preparation equals confidence
2.Stage fright is common
3.Performers must guard against letdowns and mechanical performances especially in long runs