I recently coached a smart, young actor on a monologue from a play. (Yes, Zoom Acting Classes are happening!) He’s just starting out, but seems to have quite an aptitude for the work we are doing. We approached the work with a list of questions: Who are you? Where are you? Where are you coming from experientially? (You can see these questions in context, in section one, “Objectives”, of my acting ...  Read More

Just coached a talented young actor (or actress, depending on how you feel about labels!) This time it was sides from a play, instead of a monologue. In the play, the character just had a strange experience and sits down to tell her friend about it. Once we figured out what had just happened previous to the scene beginning, we became a little fixated on that backstory. But, really what’s going on ...  Read More

I did a coaching recently where the actor had an audition to play a real person. He had not received the sides yet, so we worked on a bit of an interview that this real person did. Conflict is essential to any play or screenplay, so of course it follows that an audition piece should have conflict in it. Not every interview has conflict in it. Many times, the interviewer has respect for their subje...  Read More

When working on a scene or monologue for an audition (with or without a coach) look out for those transitions. If each beat is a new way of talking about a subject, or if a beat is a completely new subject, between the beats are transitions. Let’s say there are two kinds of transitions: Fast and slow.In most cases transitions should be as quick as possible. I recently worked with an actor on a mon...  Read More

I recently had a chance to coach an actor on a monologue for a reading of my new play, One More Time with Malice. Often an actor will want to make the most dramatic choice, especially in an argument. But, if you think about it, when we get into an argument, we often look for the first opportunity to get out of it. Okay – to articulate our opinion and then to get out of it. Perhaps this is the way ...  Read More

...  Read More

...  Read More

...  Read More

...  Read More

...  Read More

...  Read More

...  Read More