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An Acting Journal from New York City. Both an online "how to" acting book and resource for how to survive and thrive as a beginning actor in the city of a thousand lights and a thousand stories. This well-written, up-to-date, informative, useful, and ey
Recent Posts Tagged With 'Acting'
Being 'In The Moment:' Some Clues About How Actors Do This
Question: What's the relationship between the audience and the actor? Answer: People sitting around watching other people pretend to do things. ~ observation attributed to Bart Simpson...
Auditioning for '30 Rock:' Acting & filming On The Set, my Experience
Whenever I get called to audition for something, I read the scene and visualize what it would look like as I'm reading it. Like moving images in my head. Like I'm watching a movie. Of course I factor...
Philippe Petit, Artists, Actors, Dreams & How to Live
The 9-11 anniversary, I’m sure, is a sad day for most of us, yet there’s a story that’s come to the fore over the last few years, an old story, but one that’s finding renewal, and one that I ...
Breathing & Acting & Connecting & Presence
(The Cat & The Moon closes tonight).Jim True Frost on the value of theater work: The deep process and craft that you employ in the rehearsals and in the nightly repetition of a theatre job...
Beliefs, Success, and Happy Birthday to Me!
We have time to grow old. ~ Vladimir, Waiting For Godot Today is my birthday. I was worried about how I would feel -- often I don't acknowledge my birthday (because I don't want to be reminde...
Here's an example why actors need to meet with industry professionals
Lately I have been asked by many actor friends and acquaintances if they should pay to meet CD's, Agents and Managers. My answer is simple- YES, ABSOLUTLEY. Actors should attend what are called MEET &...
Connecting Thought to Breath: How to "Think" and "Feel" like the Character
(More than in any other play, what follows is the basic technique I've been trying to use durning Cat & The Moon rehearsals). Shakespeare, through Claudius, gives us a great description of bad ac...
The Actor and the Play: What's your Job?
The author's need is to write the play. That actor's most important need is to interpret the play.(The Great Stella Adler, from the chapter "The Actor's First Approach To The Author" in her The Techn...
Cast. 13th Street Repertory Repertory Company Theatre production of: The Cat and The Moon
Work in Deborah Carlson/Word of Mouth Studios on really, Really, REALLY cold reading has been paying off: I did a monologue by "Sydney," a cynical divorce lawyer from John Patrick Shanley's Where's M...
Cast!!!! New York City's longest running Off-Off-Broadway play, Line, by Israel Horovitz
This whole exercise of writing down your goals? -- it really seems to work!!! Quite a while ago, I wrote down that I wanted to work in The 13th Street Repertory Company's production of Line, New Yor...
Two Great Acting Books: 'True & False' by Mamet & 'How to Stop Acting' by Guskin
Insights From Deborah Carlson's 'Word Of Mouth Studios:' Fear and Play the Solution
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 ...
Charlton Heston (1924-2008): 'I can't remember a time when I didn't want to be an actor.'
Born John Charles Carter on October 4th 1924 in Evanston, Illinois, Charlton Heston's career spanned an almost unprecedented 50 years of stage, television and film work, winning the SAG Academy Award...
The Power of Stillness
In a previous post, it struck me that we get the opportunities we need (that is, whatever I'm doing now: this particular role, that particular theatre/venue, the quality of the production, everything...
My mindset as an Actor and Business person
Hello all, I have been acting now for 3 1/2 years and have learned a great deal from working with several industry professionals and books which I have read. My approach to my craft and business ...
New Challenges and Art Creating Moral Panic
I got cast in an original play that opens in Brooklyn in early April. The character is a charismatic religious figure, but while a bit heavy-handed, he's quite benevolent. It should be fun to do becau...
Upcoming Show/Reading Announcements
Some Upcoming Announcements of Note: The Last Jew In Europe has been extended again @ the Triad theater, 158 W. 72nd Street, NYC: the first extension was into February and now it's been extended into...
Unstoppable Sweetness
Over his entire career, Payton rushed for 16,726 yards, and scored 110 touchdowns. He also caught 492 passes for 4,538 yards and 15 touchdowns. Payton was the NFL's all-time leader in rushing yards a...
The Structure of Language, The Structure of Thought, Joseph Papp and How to Act.
There's an interesting article in Backstage about Charles Durning's well deserved Actors Guild's 44th annual Life Achievement Award. After WWII, in the early 50's, Durning started reading Shakespear...
Last Jew In Europe Extended
The Triad took away our remaining January Monday evening performances (mostly because the other shows they rent to are cabaret, and they can open the bar), however, the producers informed the cast las...
A Milestone: Off-Broadway Debut
I finally have time to catch my breath, to look forward (planning for next year) and back (seeing how far I've come -- one of the main reasons for keeping this blog). Looking back, in brief: I arriv...
Rehearsal: The Value of "Speed Throughs?" (A lot) less than you might think.
It's 4AM here in a cozy little apartment across the East River in Brooklyn, the season's first Nor 'easter is obliterating my normal view of the tip top of the Empire State Building as it sweeps...
Angel Heart Closes: Lessons Learned.
On a frigid city wind-swept Saturday evening, December 15th (ahead the season's first Nor 'easter), on East 3rd Street, The Lower East Side, New York City, we closed out Angel Heart. While it was on...
Don't Skim Over Text: From Rhythm to Meaning Part II
Simon Ager of Omniglot, a second (third, forth, & fifth) language acquisition and linguistics blog, followed up on my Don't Skim Over Text. The Organization of Language: From Rhythm to Meaning pos...
Oration, Recitation, Rhetoric, and How to Think your way through Text
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 pe...
Upcoming Show Announcements
Stage adaptation of Angel Heart by Christopher Dames. Produced by Urban Theatrical Players. Opens at the Nuyorican Poets Cafe, New York City at 7PM on Thursday, December 13th, 2007. Angel Heart is hi...
Don't Skim Over Text. The Organization of Language: From Rhythm to Meaning
Deborah Carlson of Word of Mouth Studios has started running us through some surprisingly helpful and insightful exercises designed to make us more aware of the rhythms inherent in language prod...