Actors Art

Esper worked closely with Meisner for 17 years and has spent decades developing his famous program for actor's training. The result is a rigorous system of exercises that builds a solid foundation of acting skills from the ground up, and that is flexible enough to be applied to any challenge an actor faces, from soap operas to Shakespeare.

Constantin Stanislavski (1863-1938), arguably the most influential director in the history of the theater, was the founder of the renowned Moscow Art Theater. A pioneer of psychological realism and improvisation on the stage, he devoted his life to developing the performance techniques now emulated throughout the world.

In this essential guide to acting, internationally renowned directing coach Judith Weston demonstrates what constitutes a good performance, what actors want from a director, and what directors do wrong. She also goes over script analysis and preparation and how actors work, and she shares important and helpful insights into the director/actor relationship.

Stanley Kubrick, the director of a string of timeless movies from Lolita and Dr. Strangelove to A Clockwork Orange, 2001: A Space Odyssey, Full Metal Jacket, and others, has always been depicted by the media as the Howard Hughes of filmmakers, a weird artist obsessed with his work and privacy to the point of madness. But who was he really?

Uta Hagen, one of the world's most renowned stage actresses, also taught acting for more than 40 years at the HB Studio in New York. Her first book, Respect for Acting, published in 1973, remains a best seller in print. In this brand new audio edition of her second classic book, A Challenge for the Actor, she greatly expands her thinking about acting in a work that brings the full flowering of her artistry, both as an actor and as a teacher.

This book describes a technique developed and refined by the authors, all of them young actors, in their work with Pulitzer Prize-winning playwright David Mamet, actor W. H. Macy, and director Gregory Mosher. A Practical Handbook for the Actor is written for any actor who has ever experienced the frustrations of acting classes that lacked clarity and objectivity, and that failed to provide a dependable set of tools.

In this step-by-step guide, an actor and improvisational teacher brings his tested methods to the page to show how actors can take risks and gain spontaneity in all genres of scripted theater. Through 28 lessons - each of which includes warm-ups, points of concentration, and improvisation exercises - Improv for Actors provides insights into thinking and reacting with fluidity, exploring a character’s social status, using the voice and body as effective tools of storytelling, and more.

This comprehensive course is designed for actors aiming to master the diverse range of accents found across the United Kingdom and Ireland, offering an extensive foundation in both technical and cultural aspects of accent work, while maintaining accessibility for the novice learner. With an emphasis on authentic performance, the program provides step-by-step guidance on dialect production, using a wide variety of oral posture guidance, pronunciation exercises, and practical lexicon that actors can apply directly to their work.

I love stories. I have mostly told other people's, but now, in telling my own, I realise how all our stories are connected by that great leveller of acclaim, loss, fortitude and fortune: being human. When I look at my life from the alleged halfway point, some patterns are revealed: one, that the story does not necessarily begin or end where it should; two, happy endings are overrated. And three, happy endings are almost never the end. This book is memoir-ish. A tell-most. Largely because there's a lot I don't remember, and a lot that's not worth talking about.

From private feuds and on-set disasters to fanfare that swept the nation and the realities of child stardom, culture journalist Ashley Spencer offers the first unauthorized look at the heyday of TV’s House of Mouse, featuring hundreds of exclusive new interviews with former Disney executives, creatives, and talent to explore the highs, lows, and everything in between.

Actors! Engage your mind and your body in order to develop your characters fully. The Lucid Body technique breaks up stagnant movement patterns and expands your emotional and physical range. Through energy analysis, this program shows how to use physical training to create characters from all walks of life - however cruel, desolate, or neurotic those characters may be.

With numerous examples and exercises, Michael Chekhov's To the Actor seamlessly synthesizes his many years of theater and theater instruction into a concise, engaging handbook of techniques essential for every actor. With his tested methods you will learn how to more easily call up emotion, develop a character, strengthen awareness and train your body and imagination to reach its full potential.

With a foreword by Academy Award winner and theatre legend Horton Foote, this inspiring new book will strengthen in you the most essential and vital skills of great acting! It will lead you to a very personal way of working, as an actor who is absolutely authentic and tremendously simple—so rare in today's theatre.

In the most important theatrical audiobook of this or any other decade, twitter sensation @tips4actors gives you all the advice you need to take your acting to the next level. How to upstage your fellow cast members, what to wear on the first day of rehearsals, where to go for a poo in London's glamorous West End - it's all covered in here!

Supernatural, a three-time People's Choice Award winner and Tumblr's 2015 Most Reblogged "Live Action TV", has made a name for itself by supporting and encouraging its fans to "always keep fighting", and a memorable line from early in the show's run, "Family don't end with blood", became an inspiring mantra for many who found community in the fandom. In 25 powerful chapters written by Supernatural's actors and fans, Family Don't End with Blood: Cast and Fans On How Supernatural Has Changed Lives examines the far reach of the show's impact for more than a decade.

Richard E. Grant’s life changed almost overnight when he was cast as the lead in Withnail & I in 1986. He kept a diary of the experience, the bestselling With Nails, and now it is published for the first time in audio, read by the author. Funny and revealing, told with trademark candour, join Richard E. Grant on the shoot of a lifetime.

A Long Time Ago in a Cutting Room Far, Far Away is a behind-the-scenes look at some of the most influential films of the last 50 years by Paul Hirsch, a film editor who worked on more than 40 features. Starting with his work on Carrie, Hirsch gives insight into the production process, touching upon casting, directing, cutting, and scoring. It’s a riveting look at the decisions that went into creating memorable and iconic scenes and offers fascinating portraits of filmmakers, stars, and composers.

The first authoritative biography of film legend Bruce Lee, who made martial arts a global phenomenon, bridged the divide between Eastern and Western cultures, and smashed long-held stereotypes of Asians and Asian Americans. Forty-five years after Bruce Lee’s sudden death at age 32, journalist and best-selling author Matthew Polly has written the definitive account of Lee’s life. It’s also one of the only accounts; incredibly, there has never been an authoritative biography of Lee.

David Mamet went to Hollywood on top—a super successful playwright summoned west in 1980 to write a vehicle for Jack Nicholson. He arrived just in time to meet the luminaries of old Hollywood and revel in the friendship of giants like Paul Newman, Mike Nichols, Bob Evans, and Sue Mengers. Over the next forty years, Mamet wrote dozens of scripts, was fired off dozens of movies, and directed eleven himself. In Everywhere an Oink Oink, he revels of the taut and gag-filled professionalism of the film set.

Since its original publication in 1973, Uta Hagen's Respect for Acting has remained a durable classic for all students of acting. As an acting instructor at the Herbert Berghof Studio, Hagen helped to develop the talents of world-class actors like Robert DeNiro, Matthew Broderick, Gene Wilder, Amanda Peet, Austin Pendleton, Whoopi Goldberg, and more. This updated edition illuminates Hagen's original text with a new foreword written by Katie Finneran, retaining the David Hyde Pierce foreword, along with added background on HB Studio.