Our specialized acting classes are thoughtfully designed to develop and foster confidence, focus, self-awareness, creativity, sensory awareness, choice making, memory and sequencing skills, preparation, investigative skills, reading, and comprehension abilities. We build the necessary tools for a competent actor who is capable of taking direction with professionalism and has the stamina and resilience necessary while filming or taping productions.
Five Areas of Concentration in Our Ongoing Curriculum:
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Scene Study: Building emotional authenticity and character truthfulness through analysis of dramatic scenes
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Cold Reading: Developing the ability to interpret scripts on the spot and deliver compelling performances under pressure
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Interview Technique: Mastering the casting process through confidence, professionalism, and strategic self-presentation
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Improvisation: Unlocking spontaneity, active listening, and the ability to respond truthfully to changing circumstances
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Character Development: Creating fully realized, complex characters that go beyond natural personality
The students in our classes are always required to play within their age range. Students are never allowed to critique other students. Instead, we encourage them to comment positively on specifics within any actor's performance. As indicated in our class schedule, we do not believe in mixing age groups, as different developmental stages require different approaches. Our style of communication and instruction varies purposefully depending on the age group within the class.
Our Teaching Philosophy: We do not give "line readings." Our staff believes that we are facilitators for even our youngest of actors. It is our job here at our school to expose each actor to many different ways to get to the same place within their emotional subtext. The young actor must learn to make independent choices in order to effectively deal with the independence that is expected of them when on a film set. We actively encourage choice-making by empowering the young actor to trust their instincts.
We often communicate in film terms in order to develop the on-set vocabulary with the young actor, so they will understand directions given to them when filming on professional productions. This prepares them for real-world industry expectations.
Discussing characters, story line, emotional transitions, backstory, and motivation encourages the young actor to look beyond the words to find the emotional subtext within the scene, where the truth lie,s and an honest performance will follow. How we approach these concepts varies with each age group. It is most important to develop the instinct of the young actor, because often the young actor must simply get out of their head and trust their training.
Cold Reading and Interview Technique: Every class includes some form of cold reading exercise, using scenes and monologues from television and film scripts. We approach this in many different ways in order to keep it interesting for those students who have been in our program for several sessions. All characters are age range appropriate. We discuss comprehensive strategies for dealing with many situations within the casting environment, including managing nervousness, maintaining eye contact, general interview protocols, use of space, strategic choice making, full use of the body, creating the environment, establishing relationships, proper script handling, easy memorization of dialogue through sequencing thoughts, and the art of being yourself with the adults you meet, bringing your unique personality and energy into the audition room.
Character Development: Often times casting involves being a "typical kid" when it comes to young actors. Fortunately, young actors are beginning to gain recognition for being trained actors who know "how to act." In these days of national searches and extensive casting, many industry professionals forget that a trained young person can create a character that is completely outside of their natural personality. A young person of almost any age can develop a character equal to an adult actor, if only given the proper training and the opportunity to practice.
Improvisation: This is the key to the young actor learning the art of active listening and character point of view. Approximately fifty percent of our curriculum is improvisationally oriented. Improvisation strengthens the young actor's ability to stay in character and make choices that will be useful when developing backstories, character traits, emotional spontaneity, and scene work.
Philosophy of Coaching: The "art of coaching" involves knowing how to approach these areas while carefully considering the individual personality of the young person with whom you are working. It also involves assisting the young actor in keeping the performance fresh and natural, even within a point of view that is different from the natural personality of the young person involved. Our goal is to develop confident, skilled actors.
