Scene Study vs Character work
Scene Study vs Character work
The main format that’s been available for learning/practicing acting over the past many decades has been "scene study". This being a long tradition, you can find clips of teachers like Uta Hagen, Stella Adler and Lee Strasberg on Youtube giving their critiques from decades past.
However, I've come to feel that an actor doesn't really need to "study scenes" anymore. I feel we need space to have expansive experiences of our creative potential, to feel connected to ourselves and others, to explore our humanity.
I also take issue with the teacher-as-critic model. Get up, do your scene, get critiqued. That format can put the actor in a performing/judging dynamic rather than a discovering/experiencing one. It breeds self-consciousness, not presence. It doesn't develop a sense of creative freedom the actor desperately craves.
The most important skill of the actor is being able to use oneself energetically to step into different character realities and experiences. This involves a deep understanding of character and how it manifests in their own body and life.
I’m so interested in the intersection of character as a human reality and character as a dramatic tool. Writers don't create stories out of scenes, they create stories out of characters. People with particular needs, fears, beliefs, compensations, and strategies for survival. Character is the engine of story. Character creates action, tension, insight and pathos—that generates scenes.
Since Character is the heart of all drama—so why not study Character instead of scenes??
Scenes just happen when actors are in-character. Whatever changes a director wants to a scene can usually be accomplished by making changes to the character, their belief, their aim, their demand, their sense of the other characters. A character who demands all the power in the room creates one scene. A character who expects rejection creates another. An actor that is agile energetically and knows these places in themself can make these shifts and feel creatively free.
Acting spaces can be about coming to the edges of your own character and creative blocks. Getting comfortable in the creative unknown. Moving energy through blocks. Making a genuine inquiry into your own humanity and what/how character actually works as a "mark upon" your humanity.
I feel the art and healing potential of acting come alive when actors focus on the WHO of the character not the HOW of playing a given scene.
That's what my Sunday Masterclass has been all about. We work with embodiment, with the edges of your own creative blocks, with what it actually feels like to inhabit a character fully — and then let go of it. It's practical, it's deep, and it tends to change how actors work and function in the world as artists.