Presentations of Famous Acting Theorists

This week I learned a lot about the acting theories from many different people. These techniques have helped me very much in understanding how to act, how to perform on stage and many other acting skills. I studied Sanford Meisner and I learned a lot from his theories on how to act. I learned that good acting comes from the heart. In my group performance I need to make sure that I always act myself and make sure that I make the lines my own because it is my interpretation of how the character acts. I also learned from other presentations on how to act to where the audience is engaged. I learned that I need to ask what the audience is going to do after I perform. I also learned that before I am about to act sad, happy or mad, I need to think about a time when I was one of those emotions and then transfer that to the stage. There was also a theorists however, that contrasted this by saying that actors don't have to think back to a personal experience, but that they can imagine what it would look like to be one of those emotions. I learned that on stage I need to listen and react to my parter. I need to focus on what my motivation is for the scene and I need to make sure that I always focus on my partner. I also learned about a lot of warm up techniques that can help with communication through movements like the one where you are not allowed to talk but you have to communicate what you are saying through body movements only. A lot of these techniques and a lot of the theorists ideas were based off of Stanislavski's ideas. I think that this will help our group because I need to be able to feel the character in my own way and I need to be mad when I think the character is mad or annoyed. I feel like Helen will be able to use the exercises that we learned to act the way Amanda would, which would be to act annoying. Leslie will be able to use the exercise where there is no talking because Laura does not talk a lot in the scene but there is a lot of body movements that must happen and Leslie will need to be able to communicate her emotions and feelings without talking very much. She needs to be awkward and almost lost in the conversation and in the environment that she is in.We all need to be able to listen and respond to each other on stage because that is a very important part of any performance. We also have to look at the perspective of the audience because that is ultimately the people that we are trying to entertain. So it is important to think about how the audience views each of our characters. If we are trying to portray Tom as angry we need to make sure that the audience understands that we are trying to show that. I feel like all of the things I learned this week will help me to perform well in the upcoming performance in our group.