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DR10  - Section 05 – Intro to Acting
Tufts University - Spring 2010
Instructor: Meron Langsner
T/Th, 4:30-6:45, Performance Hangar
Office Hours: By appointment


            Introduction and Goals

This class is designed to give students the fundamental tools to approach acting in the theater.  The style of acting taught will be primarily based on those methods descended from the Stanislavski System (most of the acting you see in TV and Film), though there will also be more abstract movement work included. 

Acting is a very personal process, and not all methods work for all people.  However, you cannot know whether something works for you until you try it.  To that end, students will be introduced to several methods.  Use what works for you, but try everything before you decide.

Much of the work is geared towards creating and maintaining a state in which the actor feels relaxed, ready, and free to create.

This class should create a foundation that can be built upon by further work and/or study, but should also make the students much more aware as audience members in both live performance and cinema.

 

            Requirements

Attendance is Mandatory and On Time.  Violation of attendance policies will have an adverse effect on the final grade up to and including failure of the course. The department attendance policy will be distributed as a separate document.

Major performance assignments will include a monologue and a scene.  The final scenes will be open to the public.

Major written assignments will include a journal, self evaluations (detailed below), and two performance critiques.  Other assignments will include definitions of terms and profiles of selected theatre organizations in the Greater Boston area.

Students should come to class dressed to move, i.e. loose fitting clothing and/or leotards.  This class will occasionally include vigorous in class movement work.  Please make the instructor and your scene partners aware of any injuries or physical ailments that may impede movement.

All students are required to maintain an acting journal (detailed below) which will be emailed to the instructor on a weekly basis.

Several assignments require partner work outside of class.  You are responsible both to each other and for each other.  The instructor reserves the right to assign both scenes and partners.

All students are required to see two productions and write a 2-3 page acting critique of each one.  One must be a Tufts Department of Drama & Dance production (this semester’s productions are Hedda Gabler and For Colored Girls Who Have Considered Suicide When the Rainbow is Enuf), the other must be at one of the following Greater Boston Area professional theatres: Huntington Theatre Company, American Repertory Theatre (ART), New Repertory Theatre, Lyric Stage, Merrimack Repertory Theatre, Actors' Shakespeare Project, Speakeasy Stage, or Trinity Rep.

This is an analysis of what aspects of the acting did or did not work for you as an audience member, not a newspaper review.  Think of what you would have changed had you been the director.  You may comment on other aspects of the production as well, but only in so much as they relate to the acting.  Ticket stubs are to be handed in with the papers.

Cell phone use or texting is not permitted in class.  

Please refer to the departmental syllabus (attached and included in course packet) for further clarification of policies.

 

            Self Evaluation/ E-Journal

All students are required to keep a journal which will must be emailed to the instructor by midnight of every Friday.  This is a record of your work as an actor, not a diary.  Responses to exercises and readings (both in and out of class), scene and character analysis, performances and films you have seen, and other elements of your work are to be recorded. 

This includes a self-evaluation that answers the following questions:

How does what you have learned so far fit in with other aspects of your education?
What would you like to develop further?
What do you feel you need more improvement on?
What have you learned that you did not expect to?

Journal entries/evaluations should be 2-4 typed pages each week and submitted as doc, docx, or pdf files.




            Course Packets
Course packets will be available for purchase at Gnomon Copy's Medford Location.

 

           Schedule

This schedule is subject to change according to class progress and the instructor’s discretion.  There also exists the possibility of guest teachers conducting workshops towards the end of the semester.

Classes cancelled by the instructor shall be made up in private coaching sessions.

 

Week 1 - January 21

            Class Orientation.  Trust, Respect, Play, and Focus.

            Review Syllabus.             

            Intro to Theater Games.  Physical exercises, concentration and communication.

Assignment:  Definitions of Terms – Groups of students will be given sheets of theatre terms that they will define before the next class.  Each student will staple the terms into their journal for future reference and each group will hand in a completed sheet to the instructor at the start of the next class.  Students will be expected to understand and be able to define the terms throughout the semester.

                                       

Week 2 - January 26 & 28

Assignment: Theatre in Boston: Students will be assigned the names of 2-3 theatres or theatre organizations in the Greater Boston area which they will research and be prepared to give a 1-2 minute description of that they may be called upon to do (from notes) at any time in the rest of the semester.

Reading: Craig’s Actions

Learning to Listen

Conflict, The Moment Before, and Communication & Competition from Audition

 

Week 3 - February 2 & 4

Reading: Character Sketch, Scene Mission, and Action Checklist

Concentration, from Boleslavsky: Acting: The First Six Lessons

Building a Character from Moore, The Stanislavski System

 

Week 4

February 9 & 11

 

Reading: Acting the Fight, from Suddeth: Fight Directing for the Theatre

Langsner: Blood, Revenge, and Safety On Stage: An Explication of a Stage Duel from Gounod’s Romeo et Juliette

               

Week 5 - February 16  

February 18 – Tufts Monday – No Class

             Monologue Work Begins

Reading: Analyzing a Scene

Giatsintova, “Case History of a Role” from Acting

Sarah Jessica Parker from Eight Women of the American Stage

           

Week 6 - February 23 & 25

 Please see me about the option of scheduling private coaching for your monologues during this period.


Reading:  Monologue, Soliloquy, Style and Pace from Shurtleff, Audition

 

Week 7

March 2 & 4

 First Performance Critiques are due in class on the 4th

 

Week 8 - March 9 & 11

Reading: Mary Alice, from Eight Women of the American Stage

The Pinch and the Ouch from Meisner, On Acting

 

Week 9 - March 16 & 18

         Scene Work Begins

Reading: Selections from Mamet, True and False

 

Spring Break: March 20 -28

 

Week 10 - 14 March 30 - April 22

In class rehearsal and workshopping of FINAL SCENES 

Week 15 - April 27 & 29 Dress Rehearsal & Final Performance

 
Final Scenes will be performed in class on the 29th
Final Journals/Self Evaluations must be emailed to the instructor by Midnight of May 2nd

Second Performance Critiques are due in class on the 29th


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