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It’s been a while since a posting but things have been progressing nicely at The Actors’ Surgery. Katie was off working as Acting Coach on the feature film ‘Kick Ass 2’ at Pinewood Studios and directing a couple of shows at the end of 2012 but we still managed to fit in a few Masterclasses and meet a whole new host of fantastic actors.

As we come to week 5 of our latest Advanced Acting Masterclass, I feel very privileged to continuously work with such open and willing participants with such a thirst for learning. 

The Actors’ Surgery takes a ‘sink or swim’ approach and prefers to challenge participants. We have been very lucky that our members are totally up for that challenge and are willing to push their own boundaries and make themselves vulnerable.

It is becoming clear that the more trained an actor, the harder it is to be simple. The goal over these 5 weeks has been to strive for truth and simplicity and it has been wonderful to see each member progress and move towards achieving that in performance.

Next Masterclass will be a Beginner/Intermediate starting Wednesday 27th Feb for 5 weeks. 

This week saw us tackle Improvisation. The spontaneous variety. There is something wonderful about watching people squirm with fear at the thought of not knowing what they are going to do when they get up and then seeing that fear turn into pure joy as they give in to the feeling and simply listen and commit to their imagination and the person in front of them. Some truly joyful, dramatic, comedic, moving and insane material generated by the group. 

We looked at how to develop the drama in a scene and move it forward. We looked at accepting offers, the power of saying yes, driving objectives through a scene and being open to being affected by our partner in the scene.

When we are actively doing something to the other, a scene cannot fail to have life.

There is nowhere our imaginations cannot take us…

Last Wednesday saw the first session of our Beginners 5 week Masterclass. With a full house there was an exciting and expectant feeling in the air. A range of ages and experiences, the group introduced themselves and immediately it was clear that this was going to be a very positive group of people, all here for different reasons; to improve and develop their acting skills, to target bad habits in their acting, to feel more comfortable with public speaking, to build confidence, to meet new people and to have fun.

We began with some games and a healthy competitive spirit was soon established. Then we began work on some of the fundamentals of Acting: ‘Objectives and Actions’ - What do I want and what do I actively do to try and get it? A practical exercise which involved everyone playing a short paired improvised scene in which they used playing Actions to try to acheive their Objective, looking closely at how we can directly affect and be affected by the behaviour of the other person in the scene with some clear and interesting results.

It was wonderful to see the bravery in the room and this group of initial strangers getting up and doing. Saying yes is so much more liberating than saying no…

This week: Improvisation - more saying yes!

THE ACTORS’ SURGERY MASTERCLASSES JANUARY 2012

The Actors’ Surgery will be running 5 week Masterclasses from January 2012.

BEGINNERS:

Are you interested in Acting and have little or no experience? The masterclass will provide a fun and informal introduction to Acting and a chance to build your confidence, learn new skills, challenge yourself and meet new people. Over the 5 weeks, we will explore a range of games and exercises, proving that there is an actor inside everyone.

For more info or to sign up for classes Jan 2012, email us at theactorssurgery@gmail.com

ADVANCED:

Are you a trained/professional actor? It’s important to maintain your skills and keep up regular practice. An actor must continue to develop and grow and work on perfecting their craft. The masterclass will explore a range of exercises and approaches to acting to help actors to remove their blocks and inhibitions as well as offering a more personal approach and addressing individuals’ needs.

For more info or to sign up for classes Jan 2012, email is at theactorssurgery@gmail.com

www.tobeseen.co.uk

From November 2nd - November 30th, The Actors’ Surgery will be running an Advanced Acting Masterclass with classes every Wednesday,  7-9pm at Universal House, just off Brick Lane.

We will cover a range of techniques and exercises and approaches to acting including looking at: Improvisation, elements of Stanislavski’s System, Meisner’s repetition technique amongst others. We will apply these techniques both to text and devised work.

Book before October 15th for the special offer price of £50 for the whole 5 weeks!

Email theactorssurgery@gmail.com for more info or to book your place.

This week we did a small exercise on sense memory and how emotional/sensory triggers can be useful as a tool in the present moment. We also worked with short scripts and developed improvisations using them as a starting point.

Using actions and objectives to drive the story, we explored various relationships/levels of dramatic tension finding the light and dark moments and focusing on opening up, listening and responding to the other person and unfolding events. 

Welcome to the newcomers who gave so fearlessly!

During the class this week, we worked intensively on paired improvisations using our own writing and developing it in the moment. 

Using self generated material, we used a variety of exercises to explore ways of developing story, playing actions to affect the other and increasing the importance of the objective to see what that does to the actor and their scene partner.

This helped the actors to access a deeper truth in their performance, to pay full attention to their partner in order to affect a change in them and to remain in the moment, fighting for their objective.

We played with the idea of ‘raising the stakes’ to increase the importance of the objective which we began to refer to as a ‘need’ rather than a ‘want’. Some very exciting scenes were produced by the actors involved.

A big welcome to the new members of The Actors’ Surgery. 

During the class we looked at the fundamental principle of Objectives and Actions.

We explored ‘doing things’ with our words and activating the text with a view to achieving our wants and needs.

We used improvisation to generate imaginative material to which we could apply objectives and actions practically and use them to affect the other person in the scene.

We observed physicality and the levels of intensity that we can apply to the actions we choose. Also the ways in which playing a specific action can help us to actively ‘do’ and how we can use them to affect change and provide us with a variety of options for playing a scene.

Acting Classes for Beginners and Experienced Actors.

The Actors’ Surgery offers Acting classes for adults in London.

(Beginners and Advanced).

We aim to provide a healthy approach to Acting for those who are new to it and to help experienced actors to diagnose and eliminate any blocks or problems they may have through regular practice and skills maintenance.

Weekly workshop style classes run by professional tutors starting in September 2011 in London.

Please contact for more information or to book a place: theactorssurgery@gmail.com