Teaching Actors

Ross W. Prior

Description

Teaching Actors draws on history, literature, and original research conducted across leading drama schools in England and Australia, to offer those involved in actor training a critical framework within which to think about their work. Prior, who brings to this volume more than twenty years of experience as both a teacher and performer in the field, devotes particular attention to the different ways in which teachers and students acquire and share knowledge through practical craft-based experience. The first book-length treatment of how actor trainers work—and understand their work—Teaching Actors will be an invaluable educational resource in an increasingly important area of theatre training and research.

 

Chapter 1: Historical Background 

Chapter 2: Theory and Practice of Actor Training 

Chapter 3: Encountering the Great Divides 

Chapter 4: Current Organisational Practice 

Chapter 5: Vocational Expertise and Knowledge 

Chapter 6: The Actor Trainers: A Case Study 

Chapter 7: Drama Schools and the Industry 

Chapter 8: The Training Process 

Chapter 9: Communicating Knowledge

Chapter 10: Towards Better Practice: A Conclusion

 

Sujets

• Subjects
• Teaching
• Performing Arts
• EDUCATION
• Theatre
• Performance art
• General officer
• Subject
• General

Informations

• Publié par: Intellect Books
• Date de parution: 24 juillet 2012
• Nombre de lectures: 0
• EAN13: 9781841506982
• Langue: English

Extrait

First published in the UK in 2012 by
Intellect, The Mill, Parnall Road, Fishponds, Bristol, BS16 3JG, UK
First published in the USA in 2012 by
Intellect, The University of Chicago Press, 1427 E. 60th Street,
Chicago, IL 60637, USA
Copyright © 2012 Intellect Ltd
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without written permission.
A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library.
Cover designer: Holly Rose
Copy-editor: MPS Technologies
Production manager: Jessica Mitchell
Typesetting: Planman Technologies
ISBN 978-1-84150-570-1
eISBN 978-1-84150-698-2
Printed and bound by Hobbs, UK
This book is dedicated to my life mentor Gerald Taylor,and to all my students past and present.
Pulchra sunt quae visa placent.
The beautiful things, when seen, please.
Table of Contents
Acknowledgements
Foreword
Prologue
Chapter 1: Historical Background
Chapter 2: Theory and Practice of Actor Training
Chapter 3: Encountering the Great Divides
Chapter 4: Current Organisational Practice
Chapter 5: Vocational Expertise and Knowledge
Chapter 6: The Actor Trainers: A Case Study
Chapter 7: Drama Schools and the Industry
Chapter 8: The Training Process
Chapter 9: Communicating Knowledge
Chapter 10: Towards Better Practice: A Conclusion
The Epilogue
Bibliography
Acknowledgements
The author wishes to thank the following people for their additional input and continued encouragement:
Dr Philip Taylor, Professor John Stevenson, Professor John O’Toole, Daniel Plowman, Jessica Mitchell and The University of Northampton.
A particular debt of gratitude is extended to Professor Michael Gaunt for generously offering his insightful commentary upon the manuscript.
Finally, thank you to those splendid practitioners in Australia and the United Kingdom who supported the research found in this book by allowing me to personally interview them. You are what makes it so.
Foreword
Michael Gaunt
Ross Prior’s timely book examines the necessity for a re-assessment of actor training, which in the last century ‘has grown without a clearly articulated philosophy of teaching and learning practice’.
In the book he discusses a language for actor training and argues that there is a need to re-assess not only how actors should be trained but also how teachers of acting should be trained. Within the book the author presents a wide range of topics that relate to current training practices in which he sets out to promote discussion and scholarship. Dr. Prior contextualises actor training past and present, its theory and practice, the notion of vocational expertise and the organisation of acting courses in drama schools. He widens the discussion by introducing case studies relating to selected contemporary trainers. Importantly, he contrasts best practice in the vocational training of actors in drama schools with that found in some academically based university drama courses that seek to train actors without the support of proportional technical training.
The book questions current modes of actor training relating to the synergy of performance techniques and skills. A key question for the trainer is – what sort of actor will appear at graduation and how employable will he or she be in the market place? The reader is asked to consider if current practices in training serve the actor and ultimately the industry. How does course content respond to major changes in employment opportunities for actors, both at the onset and in the course of their professional lives? Formerly actor training in the UK prepared the tiro actor for a career that would in the main involve him or her working in a theatre environment as a member of a company, firstly within the repertory system and later on national tours, or in London. For the few, there were opportunities to work in companies such as those at the Old Vic and the RSC, and later at the National Theatre. Typically in the second half of the twentieth century there would also be increased opportunities for some actors to be employed regularly, or from time to time, in film and television studios.
In the last decades employment opportunities in theatres have declined as regional and repertory theatres closed, or changed their operating systems, as funding increasingly declined: permanent companies of actors began to disappear. With the loss of the repertory companies, in which young actors could be nurtured over a period of time and work with experienced actors in a wide repertoire of plays, it can be argued that an invaluable and irreplaceable training ground for the theatre actor has been lost. This major loss subsequently placed a heavy responsibility on the drama schools in the UK. By the 1980/90s, in addition to the more usual two years of mainly technical training (in acting, voice and movement) an extra year of training was introduced by leading drama schools to provide student actors with an opportunity to gain performance experience in a series of publicly performed studio theatre productions prior to graduation. Such productions normally reflected a mixture of play genre that aimed to consolidate in practical terms the philosophy and training principles of individual drama schools. Today employment opportunities are more usually to be found within the world of advertising, television, musical productions and, for the lucky few, theatre and film: the permanent acting company increasingly is something of the past. The author argues convincingly that following these major changes some drama schools have been slow to adapt syllabi and training methods to reflect contemporary employment opportunities.
Dr. Prior’s conclusions have currency, as they have been drawn from the study of current published literature, and significantly, face-to-face interviews with senior drama school personnel working in Australia and the UK: his conclusions are strengthened by his personal experience in the field. Teaching Actors presents a series of topics and issues that should be of interest to anyone involved in the vocational training of actors within the drama school setting. The book should be of value to faculties as they review aspects of pedagogy within acting courses in preparation for validations, re-validations and accreditations. The significance of balanced course components developed progressively year by year within an acting syllabus – acting, voice, movement and the sustaining of a role in public performance – underpinned by professional careers advice is emphasised. These component subjects support the student actor’s training and introduce him or her to the concept of lifelong practice to sustain personal development: above all they can ensure that graduates are properly prepared for employment as professional actors. Equally the book’s argument and discussion should attract the eyes of bodies responsible for validating and accrediting acting courses. Drama schools provide an ideal set-up to enable the parallel training of stage managers, theatre technicians, designers, costume designers and property makers. Such environments become even more significant when courses and modules are connected to the technical training of actors in film and television: however, as training for the camera is introduced into an already crowded syllabus, course planners have to consider what should give way, what might be lost and at what cost.
Appropriate staffing arrangements are paramount to the success of any training process. Dr. Prior postulates that there should be a re-assessment of teacher training. At present there is almost no formal training for actors who wish to teach acting in the drama school sector. There is now an MA Actor Training and Coaching and an admirable voice course available at the Central School of Speech and Drama and many movement and dance teachers gain teaching qualifications during their training period. Acting teachers often repeat the classes they received in training, which is all well and good, but unless a drama school has a clearly defined acting course supported by agreed delivery styles the teaching of acting can sometimes be disparate and consequently confusing to the student.
Dr. Prior’s conclusions have been extensively researched. His knowledge of and experience in teaching in higher education is evident throughout the book. There are many books in print that discuss the subject of acting, but not infrequently acting methods and techniques are discussed in isolation and are not considered in tandem with the essential acquisition of physical and vocal techniques to support the process of acting and characterisation and stimulate holistic and imaginative work. The essence of this book is encapsulated in the crucial question ‘how should acting be taught?’
Professor Michael Gaunt FRSAMD FRSA
January 2012
(Former actor, past principal of the Guildford School of Acting – GSA and the Birmingham School of Acting.)
Prologue
As so much of the actor's craft is learned unconsciously, it should not be toosurprising to discover that not everyone is able to pinpoint or even explainwhat it is they do 'intuitively'.Hayes Gordon 1992
Training! Training! Training! But if it’s the kind of training which exercises only the body and not the mind, then No, thank you! I have no use for actors who know how to move but cannot think.
– Vsevolod Meyerhold. 1
A great deal of personal observation has led me to ponder the ‘teachability’ of acting. For many people actor training remains a unique and mysterious phenomenon of the theatre industry. Distinctive training techniques resemble at times a collection of ‘magic spells’ that are learnt and passed on. The sorcerer in the guise of the actor trainer weaves incantations in the name of Stanislavsky (1980 [1936]), Meyerhold (1921–2), Chekhov (1953)