Disciplines

Sanford Meisner

The late Sanford Meisner was an enormously influential acting teacher who taught at New York’s Neighborhood Playhouse for fifty years. One of the original members of the Group Theatre, he was part of a generation of American acting coaches who further developed the work of Russian director Constantin Stanislavski.

Summary of Meisner Technique Classes

Meisner Level 1:
An Introduction to the Meisner Technique for the Beginner

There are two separate introductory Meisner Classes, scheduled as follows:

Meisner Level 2:
Meisner Technique for the Beginner

For students who have completed the Introductory class or who have equivalent training and wish to continue and/or those seeking to prepare to enrol in the full-time program next year.

Meisner Technique Advanced Program

A powerful session that will introduce you to the Basics of the Meisner Technique through a series of step-by-step improvisations leading up to scene work in the final 3 weeks. Students will give a public performance for an invited audience on the last day.

These classes will provide you with a solid base for further Meisner training and will also complement the on-camera film acting class.

Voice and movement work is included in each session.

These sessions are for Advanced Meisner students who have taken one or two previous sessions or those with equivalent Meisner training from other schools.

Classes are held in Italy. April – May 2012

Decroux

Étienne Decroux, known as the “father of modern mime” developed ‘mime corporel dramatique’ as the only movement technique specifically for the physical actor. Past students of Decroux include Marcel Marceau, Jean Louis Barrault and James Dean. Decroux’s detailed analysis of the parts of the body, the range of movement and the dynamic and expressive qualities gives an actor a rich palette of possibilities with which to create a role.

All classes will practice single elements of the body in single directions. This movement analysis class incorporates simple figures*, principles of movement, and body language. The advanced level includes work on walks, displacement and more complex figures and emotions.

* A figure is a series of movements which have a meaningful expressive quality.

Masterclasses in…

On-camera acting

Classes:

In-front-of-camera experience.

• On-camera technique
• On-camera – relationship to the camera.

Audition and work techniques per medium

• Differing mediums
• Approach.
• Managing each medium whether in an audition or on location.

Screen-writing

This course will be centered around the structure of storytelling and the techniques involved in taking a story or the inspiration for a story, and turning it into a working screenplay. The course will mainly be focussed on the basis techniques for developing stories for mainstream audiences and how to give it color and originality.

An equal mixture of theory and practical.

Weekend classes in June and July 2012.