Recently in Breath & Voice Category

(The Cat & The Moon closes tonight).

The deep process and craft that you employ in the rehearsals and in the nightly repetition of a theatre job provide a way into acting that camera work never can have (Jim True Frost, Interview, ActorsLife.com).

. . . the deep process and craft, the value of a nightly theater job -- there's nothing like it for growing and learning.

I've been blessed with a fairly long run of the Cat and Moon -- about 6 weeks, and I can't remember working harder on a play after it's opened.

Breathing

Deborah Carlson's Word Of Mouth Studios hammers home, almost each week, the directive to speak no faster than you can breathe. Patsy Rodenburg calls this letting the breath drop.

I find this difficult to do partly because I'm not used to doing it, partly because I'm worried I'll drag a scene down pace wise, and partly because characters are often in an excited or heightened state, i.e., they're thinking and speaking rapidly.

However, if I go faster than I can breathe & think, I speak before my body and mind are naturally ready to speak -- what Ms. Rodenburg calls this getting ahead of the text.

More Insights From Deborah Carlson's 'Word Of Mouth Studios:'

Rehearsals for Other People are finally done, the show has opened, and I now have to time to catch up on a ton of writing that's been slowly piling up into a precarious teetering tower on the corner of my desk.

We're getting to the end of a second 6-week session working on scenes from Uncle Vanya adapted by Brian Friel.

Chekhov is great to work on because it's all to easy -- perhaps especially with Chekhov -- to play the "problem" rather than the "solution." Playing the "problem" means focusing on what the character doesn't want. For example, Vanya wants Elena, and -- we all know that will never happen -- and Vanya probably, somewhere deep inside, knows this too, but he stays focus on his love for her and indulges in fantasies of a life with her (that he, at some level, of course, knows will not happen). Playing the problem is playing Vanya depressed, resigned, bitter -- doing his monologues from this perspective, in affect telling the other characters something he already knows, i.e., how about depressed he feels, how resigned he is, how bitter he is. That's not what Vanya -- or any character in his place -- is doing.

The play and scenes take off in beautiful flights of longing and desire, longing and desire of the true human spirit, when you play the solutions. Great advice, but -- exactly how do you really do that? This is what I've learned so far:

Rehearsals for The Last Jew In Europe have been going well, smoother then with most shows. For reasons I can't quite put my finger on, the lines have been easier to learn than in other shows. I suspect, however, that this may have to do with my strong, almost fanatical text-based approach, and simply always, in rehearsal, saying my lines like I mean what I'm saying.

The role is further challenging for me because I need to have a convincing Polish accent -- I find Dr. David Alan Stern's Acting With an Accent series a terrific resource (amazon.com probably has the best prices):

Something else I found surprising -- I just stopped working on "building a character," i.e., I've just been working within a strong text-based approach, and the notes I've been getting from the director have been your intentions are good, they're on the right track, they're right there. However, I've never really thought about, or at least put much effort into thinking about, my "character," my "actions" or "intentions" simply because Tuvia, the playwright, has done all the work for me, i.e., all that stuff is IN the lines! 

Everything I've been learning in Deborah Carlson's Word of Mouth Studios I've been faithfully and rigorously applying in rehearsal and preparation, and it seems to have taken me quite far, much farther than I ever expected, at least for this production. This approach, in my estimation and experience, is definitely the foundation of acting -- you're dead, theatrically speaking, if you don't have it -- an actor may be using this approach natually/organically, but if they're not, they'll need to learn it (like me).

One of the great Orators in the Western Cannon is Shakespeare's Marc Antony. It's little known that Marlon Brando, early in his career, played an electrifying Antony, and you can see part of his performance here, skillfully turning the crowd against Brutus in his speech after the murder of Caesar. Play the movie clip ("Dogs of War" monologue) and then you'll have the option to play the next clip, the "Friends, Romans, Countrymen" monologue as an introduction to the lost art of public speaking, of speaking aloud: Oration, Recitation, Rhetoric. . .

Visual Thesaurus interviewed Harvard Professor James Engell, author of The Committed Word: Literature and Public Values, who revived the study of rhetoric at his university after a 60 year hiatus -- and who argues that a classical literary education is critical for today's communicators:

the definition of literature [in the 19th Century] was broader [than it is today]. It meant not just poems, plays and novels and the criticism associated with them, which is what usually people take to mean by "literature" today. "Literature" back then really meant the written record of human experience, particularly anything in which attention was paid to the resourcefulness of language, its aesthetic qualities, its richness of vocabulary, its persuasive effects and its ability to engage emotion and intellect at the same time. Historical works were considered literature. Works on politics were generally considered to be literary.

"How To "Think" your way through a text by speaking it, to really "get it" at all levels, intellectual, emotional, is not only the foundation of classical literary education, it is the foundation of Theatre, of Acting, and it's a lost art there too:

In a critically important class here in New York City, new actors are being taught a new respect for "the text," i.e., they're being taught to not skim over the text as they speak but to pay attention to the natural organization of language, to pay attention to and take in its rhythms in order to find out what the author or playwright really meant.

Disclosure about how well I'm trying to manipulate you: the headline of this post ('Oration, Recitation, & How to Think your way through Text') has an Emotional Marketing Value Score of 22.22%, not bad, but below what a professional copywrighter could do. On the plus side though, it does appeal primarily to your spiritual side.

This is actually a HUGE topic -- just type in "rhythm language" in goggle, and you'll pull up links to 100's of research groups and labs in major universities all over the planet, not to mention links to literally tens of 1000's of research articles and books on the topic. The relationship between language and thought is one of the main questions today driving research in the area of Complex Systems and Brain Sciences.

For my purposes, however, the exercises we're doing really derive from the foundational work of Edith Skinner's Speak with Distinction: The Classic Skinner Method to Speech on the Stage (Applause Acting Series) -- one of the very first "acting" class I ever took at HB studio -- but Word of Mouth Studios has taken it all a step further.

Work at Deborah Carlson's Word of Mouth @ A/C Studios is starting to pay off.

As part of my plan to earn my living (or a good part of it anyway) by acting, I auditioned for Ray, one of the talent agents at Actor's Reps Of New York & Lost Angeles, Inc. Because I'm non-union, they'll cast me mostly in background/extras parts (in my book however, that still a paid ACTING job), and with a little luck, maybe some under 5's, which would be great!! Actor's Rep gets a 10% commission of any work they book for me.

Anyway, Actor's Reps require a cold reading, a monologue. It's really an audition to see how you handle text, how you cold read. For a non-union person like me, they really just want to meet me to make sure I'm not (too) crasy -- nevertheless, I took the reading seriously. After the reading, he said "who ever you're studying with -- keep studying with that person. That was a good reading."

That was a great compliment because I'm sure the very short 30sec monologue is something he's heard 1000s of times -- and he's been in the business for 32 years!

Actor's Reps deal with both union and non-union talent. Their their main objective is to help the "start up" actor.

Notes from Word of Mouth @ A/C Studios/Early rehearsals for Riant Theatre's production of The Upside Down Mirror by Emanuel Fleischmann

First we form habits. Then they form us.
  ~Rob Gilbert

Habit is either the best of servants or the worst of masters.
  ~Mark Twain

As long as habit and routine dictate the pattern of living, new dimensions of the soul will not emerge.
  ~Henry van Dyke

When I'm learning a role, at some point, I write out my dialogue. This 1) helps me to remember it (a technique I learned from Ed Hook's The Actor's Field Guide: Notes on the Run) and 2), it helps me to focus on each word.

A third incredibly helpful purely physical technique I'm practicing is quite simple -- breathing: while self-rehearsing, I let my breathe fully drop, all the way, down to the bottom of feet, before speaking, and then I just go slow enough to "be" in each word.

Specifically, here's my new self-rehearsal technique:

1. I read and read and read the play to get the sense, the meaning, the thought or intent behind each line of dialogue. It's not that easy, at least for me, but it does becoming easier with experience.
2. Once I've got the meaning, then I integrate the breathe into the meaning: I let my breath fully drop (so I can feel what I'm saying),
3. and I pay close attention to my partner and what I'm trying to communicate

So what does it mean, really, to integrate the breathe into the meaning?

How to Rise the Stakes

A couple of weeks ago, I had a cold reading audition. It went well (though ultimately I didn't get cast).

I thought I would try to get more out of my audition experience by taking the opportunity to do an audition "post-mortem" at Word of Mouth @ A/C Studios. I wrote Deborah the follow email:

Hey Deborah,
       Tomorrow, could we take 10-15 to do a post-mortem of an audition I just did. The sides where from a play (attached), just pages 43-44, and I was Donny. Basically, Donny is a pedophile (another one! :), and the short scene is about Donny trying to convince his wife Ellen to stay home (the real reason being he's afraid of what he might do with his daughter if let alone with her).
       I read the scene once, and then the director said he wanted me to read it again but "raise the stakes." He explained the context of the scene to me, i.e., the real reason why Donny is trying to convince Ellen to stay home, but I already understood this. So, my instincts told me that the director wanted to see a "guilty" Donny, or basically, play/show the "subtext" somehow. I could have been wrong, but that's how I interpreted his direction.
      My next instinct was NOT to do that, i.e., I choose NOT to "indicate" or "show" the subtext, but then I found myself not sure what to do other than what I had just done, but just breathe deeper, slow down, etc. Anyway, my question is -- what should I have done with that direction? Were my instincts correct? I wanted to do a bit of post-mortem, 10-15min or so, and get your advice. Thanks Deborah.

- Cheers,
Christopher

Deborah wrote back:

We’ll talk about what the director meant. You were right to not be obvious or indicate the subtext but I’ll explain what he was talking about . . .

I ran across a great article in Backstage that reaffirms the training approach we're taking at Deborah Carlson's Word Of Mouth Studios.

Betsy Aidem (She recently received an Obie Award for sustained excellence of performance) has this to say about how she learned to approach plays -- and how it helped her to move forward:
Not surprisingly, Aidem cites an acting teacher, not a buzz-creating role, as her career turning point: Zina Jasper. She studied with Stella Adler and Harold Clurman and knows how to understand what a playwright is trying to say, Aidem says. She has a lightning-rod ability to connect what's on the page to the heart. Up until I started working with Zina, my experience of a play was totally subjective.

I thinks there's two goals, at least for me: 1) understanding what the playwright is REALLY trying to say and 2) connecting that to my heart. On this second point, it's the distinction of "knowing" what's going on a scene and actually "living/doing" that. Often it seems I "get it" (or at least think I do), but the "doing" it doesn't automatically follow. It's like what Morpheus tell Neo in the first Matrix movie: "There is a difference between knowing the path and walking the path."

This is exactly the strength of Deborah's approach: how to read, and how to connect. If I'm not working towards those two goals, I might get lost in that subjective place Aidem talks about.

A rough night tonight on the coast of Wales near Barkloughly castle: more notes on how to approach learning a monologue, avoiding fundamental acting errors, and removing specific obstacles.

New Training/Lessons:

• Placing the voice: (see The Actor Speaks, exercise 17, p.75): speak "1," "2," "3," . . . "10" alternating between the top and bottom of my vocal range (using just enough breath -- see The Actor Speaks, exercise 21, p.79), and then find my middle/natural voice/tone -- it is from there that I should always speak.
• Building more breath support: Sigh from the top of my range to about half way down (to my eyes, my middle/natural voice/tone) and then intone a speech: use lips, full breath, and go slow. When I start the sigh, train myself to be immediately on voice, i.e., no empty breath before a sound.
• Find the high palette: (see The Actor Speaks, exercise 17, p.75). "ooo" into "ah," full breath, easy, slow, place the vibration. Intake should be silent if my palette is up.

Soliloquy notes:

All soliloquies are to someone who listens and "gets it." Communicate clearly the thoughts to that person, and I'm half way there, the most important part of the way.

Acting: A Serious Discipline and a Craft

Notes on doing monologues:

With all monologues, you "think" yourself into consciousness, you "figure it all out" as you go along. Most -- if not all -- monologues are "insight" based.

Train myself to be "on" the text (see The Actor Speaks, exercise 51, p.176): communicate only with eyes and breath -- no extraneous movements of my head and body: just breath, move nothing else.

Notes on Vanya:

After Elena leaves, his monologue -- don't play the end: he doesn't feel like a fool until he says it.: Be exactly where Vanya is, and that's IN the words, ON the line I'm speaking, and NO WHERE ELSE. My full attention needs to be on where he is right now, NOT on where he's going. Train myself to always work this way.

Most characters, especially Chekhov's, are usually "unhappy," i.e., they're striving for what they're convinced will make them happy, and the mistake I'm making is to put a negative spin on everything they say, i.e., assuming the characters feel unhappy or negative or upset when speaking just about anything. In Vanya's monologue, thinking about Elena, remembering when they meet, imagining how things could have been -- that gives Vanya great pleasure (and he's drunk too) until he realizes what a fool he's been. All stories have a natural arc -- find them.

Notes on voice and acting:

• Thoughts go to the end of a phase, sentence or group of sentences -- "hold the thought" -- see The Actor Speaks, p.46-7, 55, 170, 173, 176, 193-7, 202-3.
• A GREAT way to discover how I emotionally connect is to build up the line on Voice breathing one word at a time ("Breathing The Text" from The Actor Speaks, p. 170). Often the piece, sections of it, will become more clear to me.
• If I can hear myself breathe, the palette is not lifted and I'm sitting on my voice. Always up, over, and out.
• Don't wait for thoughts and feelings before I speak -- thoughts and feelings come with breathe.

Notes on how to work a scene:

• Read through it thought by thought -- note how I feel, but don't try to figure out how the character must be feeling or how they might be saying something. Concentrate only on what they objectively say. Understand the thoughts and communicate them -- then and only then will the feelings follow, and I won't know how I'll feel until I'm actually feeling in the moment.
• Listen, answer, top my partner -- take the energy and throw it back, with more energy if necessary.

Acting is NOT about saying something -- it's about discovering something.

Capacity Exercises:

When breathing out on an "S" and "Z" (from The Actor Speaks, p. 47), smile and keep the upper palette up.

Monologue Work:

Gabe ("Dinner With Friends"). Clumping my way through it, falling off the end of each line (going down). Goal: Think my way through it, but 'hold it up.' Exercise -- intone each "thought," and then speak the thought, and then speak the entire piece. Don't punch or empathize certain words -- concentrate on being clear to Tom: make the meaning clear.

Do the Journey Of The Walk (from The Actor Speaks, p. 197) , and do the monologue again.

Excellence is an art won by training and habituation. We do not act rightly because we have virtue or excellence, but we rather have those because we have acted rightly. We are what we repeatedly do. Excellence, then, is not an act but a habit.
~Aristotle

I've started working with Deborah Carlson Word of Mouth @ A/C Studios:

Technique Will Hold You ... "joans voicess" Closes

Deborah Carlson is one of the few New York City actors that teaches an approach grounded in the work of Patsy Rodenburg.

While not anti-method, this approach foregrounds the importance of the text and trains one in a physical technique of breathe and voice/body.

Rather than try to abstractly discuss this type of approach to acting, I'm simply going to record my class notes, in the hopes that this will accelerate my grounding in this technique.

Most of my focus so far has been on monologues, how to rehearse them, how to perform them. Here are some answers to questions I had about monologues:

Training Goals: This year, I really only have four goals, all are important, but the last two are probably my priority, and one will be a serious commitment:

• Improv Class(es): I will take improv class(es) at the P.I.T. They were highly recommended to me by a woman who's now an understudy for one of the characters in Tony N' Tina's Wedding
• Subpersonality Work: I will take Jason Bennett's subpersonality work: it seems promising, and it makes intuitive sense to me.
• Vocal work: Deborah Carlson stuck a cord in me with her approach, esp. the class she teaches based on the work of Patsy Rodenburg. It's an approach that (at least from what I heard today) seems to compliment Meisner and my own intuitive way of working (i.e., breathing, listening, and reacting rather than acting -- and I also seem to have trouble breathing sometimes).
• A Serious Commitment To Consistent Training: Finally, it's time now for serious training. I've been working on my own, and doing as much "on the job" training as I can, but every serious actor in the city, especially the ones who are consistently working, are highly trained. So, I'm looking at a major acting conservatory school in the city -- I won't be able to go full time, but it's a two year program, and the plan, starting in the fall, is to start study there, and also study with the owner of the conservatory who is a master teacher.

So, to sum up: I need to start consistent vocal work now; between now and the fall, I want to take 1 or 2 improv classes and Jason Bennett's subpersonality workshop. As $$ is a factor, and the move has tapped me out, I'm going to try to take these two classes in the spring and over the summer, probably starting in May or June.

Performance Goals: Again, between now and the Fall, I'd like win 1 to 2 opportunities on stage and one student/independent film.

• Luck has been with me of late: I was just offered a part in a show that goes up in Manhattan in Spring, so -- that's one down.
• Audition for 13th Street Rep., and then audition and win a role in Line. This is actually a very major goal: to be a member of the company and in the longest running off-Off Broadway Play in the city would be a dream come true and a major achievement. This needs to happen by the summer.

Seeing Visions: I need to "see" myself doing things: Visions before plans & goals. I often have "Visions" when my mind is quiet, when I'm still, grounded, centered, and then I know deeply, exactly what I want, and I can "see" myself doing it. Want to learn to "see" myself as S.S., H.K., successful (& great!) actors, winning auditions, working. Find a life-coach, someone who can help me build this skill.

Daily Monologue And Audition Training and Experience Goals (this will be critical for my growth and learning how to develop discipline):

We are what we repeatedly do. Excellence, then, is not just an act, but a habit.
      - Aristotle

Between desire and fulfillment lies habit: small things done daily will have BIG long-term effects.
     - Me

• This comes from Larry Moss's The Intent to Live (a GREAT acting textbook, one of the best I've ever read): the goal is to learn one new monologue a month and to use his "Monologue Workout Program" exercises.
• Keep developing my cold reading skills.
• Vocal Exercises 4 times per week.
• Try to audition once a week.

As I'm coming to see, this type of training is really critical for highly trained actors how don't have much audition experience. However, while I am not yet a highly, well trained actor, this work will be invaluable for the future. So how will I do this work? Here's my schedule:

• Monday, Wednesday, Friday : 8-8:30am, workout; 8:30-9am, shower, breakfast; 9:15-10am, monologue work; Evening: 7:30 or 8PM, sight-reading practice for 15-20min, cold reading for 30-45min.
• Tuesday, Thursday: 8:30 - 9:15am, shower, breakfast; 9:15-10am, monologue work; Evening: 7:30 or 8PM, vocal work for 30min, sight-reading practice for 15-20min, cold reading for 30-45min.
• Saturday, Sunday: exercise (45min), painting, writing, vocal work (30min).

Work In Perfect Faith: All Love, No Fear

My goal is to keep this schedule unless I'm preparing for a performance (which actually I will be, in the spring).

OK -- the Daily Monologue And Audition Training and Experience Goals will be the foundation of everything. Then take these classes, and . . . take a shot at getting into Line. After the summer end, then focus primary on training while still being a member of 13th Street Rep.

- C'est simple

1st) Training. Since I've never had formal training, I find myself putting together my own program. It looks like the two pillars are: basic acting technique and auditioning skills. The real teacher, of course, is real-world experience. I find I have to audit or take a trial class to get a feel for the teacher -- I need to feel comfortable, I need to be on the same wave length, and there needs to be something there that I feel, instinctively/intuitively, I need to learn:

• JZ, a former actor and professional agent, at Weist-Barron has been good for me -- intutitively I thought I would learn a lot, & that's turned out to be the case. We're on the same wavelength. We're moving into scene work in work. Here's where I'll confront my strengths and weaknesses.
• Impossible Casting -- C.L. is an astute, tough, no nonsense, supportive guy, former casting director and (from what I can tell) well networked into the NYC casting scene. He knows what he's doing, what he's talking about, and I "get" it. Beyond this, two important things happened at the free class: 1) I found I worked pretty well with him, and 2) he zeroed right in on what I think my big problem is: thinking too much/over-intellectualizing what I think is going on; not getting out of my own way/not quite trusting myself, trying to do MORE ; and some problems breathing while performing which I strongly suspect impedes being in full contact with what's going on with me in the moment. He said I need to simplify -- very interesting observation as I was just thinking about how great acting, at it's heart, is always about one simple thing. No coddling with guy -- good: what I need is very good feedback on what's going wrong, and I think I might get it here. He focuses primarily audition for film, theatre, and commercials.
• Deborah Carlson, Word Of Mouth Studios. Something tells me her work could be very good for me.
• Jason Bennett's subpersonality work seems promising, and it makes intuitive sense to me.

       So after JZ this fall, I want to try out both Deborah Carlson and Jason Bennett, for basic technique and to help address some fundamental weakness, and I'd like to start with CL to develop a solid audition technique. Impossible Casting also runs inexpensive showcases, casting directors that CL brings in -- my goals are to get my audition skills up to a professional/competitive level in order to participate in these casting showcases. Apparently CL won't recommend that you do this until he thinks you're ready, and he pushes you to get ready.

      All this can cost some $$, but not a bad as one might think. However, my ultimate goal is to get as much real-world experience as I can, so . . .

2nd) Audition for 13th Street. I've been having some trouble setting up/finding out when their auctions are, but Abe says I just need to talk directly w/Edith to set up a time, so I'll do that first thing next week. Audition piece, Gabe from Dinner With Friends, Donald Margulies. Auditions are usually set for 6:30 PM every Tuesday evening. Target date: 11/15/2005. Work with Tom to prepare for the audition -- he's a highly experienced and skilled audition coach. Even though the audition at 13th Street won't be a huge deal, I'll work with Tom to give an audition as if my life depended on it, and that'll give me a chance to see how we work together preparing for serious auditions. CL is also a very good candidate for this role.

3rd) Daily work . . . I know what I need to do and what I want to do.

Just came from Annie Chadwick's second Career Development Workshops for Actors, ShowBiz Sunday at The Drama BookShop. This week it was Meet The Pros, a panel of the 5 top acting coaches in New York City.

All either where or are working professional actors. Deborah Carlson stuck a cord in me with her approach, esp. the class she teaches based on the work of Patsy Rodenburg. It's an approach that (at least from what I heard today) seems to compliment Meisner and my own intuitive way of working (i.e., breathing, listening, and reacting rather than acting -- and I also seem to have trouble breathing). Tom Demenkoff also struck a cord -- a highly experienced and skilled audition coach. Even though the audition at 13th Street won't be a huge deal, I think I'll work with Tom to give an audition as if my life depended on it, and that'll give me a chance to see how we work together. Clearly for important/professional auditions, working with an coach is almost essential . . .

Finally, I was one of Annie's invited guests, so I attended the workshop for free! Her invitation was out of the blue -- last spring when the series closed for the summer, she sent out a request for reviews of the workshop. I sent one in, and she remembered that, but more interesting, she somehow noticed that I've been to almost everyone one of the workshop despite the fact that 99% of my the time was spent listening and absorbing (and summarizing in this journal) everything I've learned and asking only a very few questions -- in fact, she couldn't quite put a face to my name and asked me to make sure I introduced myself to her. A very nice, very gracious attractive woman, a very talented actor/singer, and a career coach (Up-To-Date-Theatricals).

Life In A Poetic Universe, Rest Of The 2005 Goals:

...Most actors fail not because of lack of talent but because they

• don't work hard enough
• aren't disciplined
• are literal rather than truly imaginative
• see their limitations as deal-breakers
• are ruled by their negative side
• are NOT persistent

...The actors who make it work hard.

...I discovered that every single night of the year's run, Ruth Gordon came to the theatre an hour before the rest of the cast and onstage alone went over all her stage moves and her part to keep it fresh and disciplined and new. What most actors don't know is that"newness" comes from discipline, not from inspiration.

       - all from Michael Shurtleff's Audition (p. 224-8)

I've just finished Michael Shurtleff's Audition. First published in 1978, it's still in press, and out of a possible ranking range of 1 to almost 4,000,000, it's ranked (as of yesterday) in the top 3000 books sold on amazon. Well deserved popularity, and it sets the stage for my own creativity routine . . .

1. Monologues & Cold/Warm Reading Practice & Vocal Workout

Goal -- One hour/day, 3-4/week. Suggested days: Monday, Thursday or Friday, Saturday & Sunday
Goal -- 15 minute vocal workouts, 3-4/weeks. Suggested days/times -- when no one is home, wh