Workshop
An introduction to the basics of acting:
Three-day workshop for Peter Sklar's US-based Beginnings youth drama company.

A group was flown from all over the US seeking a British perspective to some of the basics of acting. We delivered a three-session programme addressing the question from three contrasting yet inter-relating points of view.

On day one Selva Rasalingam focussed on spatial awareness in respect of environment and acting colleagues through games and exercises concerned with spontanaeity, co-operation and visual attention. Through the course of this session the participants explored elements of in-the-moment impulses and the beginnings of how to prepare for creative collaboration.

On the second day Rod Smith and Judith Sharp developed the subject of interaction between actors and their actor colleagues and between actors and audience. The session was centred on listening and the fundamentals of commanding attention through speech. It also explored the relationship between an actor's inner life and how an audience reads the action it is offered.

On the final day Hilary Tones and Sam Parks introduced the students to a number of artificial stimuli in the form of impro scenarios to release their creativity, and to encourage the students to explore their enjoyment, and fear, of the playing space. The students went on to explore strategies to deconstruct text (both classical and contemporary) to gain insight into possible character choices.