This work is a dynamic, practical, straightforward approach to the creative process of actor training. Combining principles of verbal and nonverbal communication with the basic tenets of Stanislavski's approach to acting, it includes a step-by-step guide for reading, analyzing, and preparing a text for performance. It also provides a template for rehearsing a sonnet, a soliloquy, and scenes from plays of Heightened Language ranging from Shakespeare, Moliere, and Congreve, to plays by Ibsen, Shaw, and Lynn Nottage.

Using improvisation, games and exercises alongside a series of tools designed to illuminate and enhance the creative process, the book outlines the specific steps necessary to engage in the basic tenets of acting: overcoming obstacles and activating given circumstances by playing action-based objectives. Enlarging the field of study to include status, opposition, and releasing, as well as scansion and an emphasis on operative words and images, the actor emerges from this training process prepared to play any text, in any style, under any circumstance with confidence, ease, and a sense of joy.

About the Author
Sabin Epstein is the former Conservatory co-director of the Advanced Training Program at the American Conservatory Theater (ACT) in San Francisco, former Head of Acting for Old Globe/University of San Diego MFA acting program, and former Head of Performance Skills for National Theatre Conservatory in Denver, CO. He was a Resident Director at ACT., Georgia Shakespeare Festival, A Noise Within in Los Angeles, and a guest director for the Juilliard and Guthrie Theatre acting training programs as well as a guest director at major regional theaters and elite training programs around the country. He lives in Denver, Colorado.


Book Information
ISBN 9781476688961
Author Sabin Epstein
Format Paperback
Page Count 277
Imprint McFarland & Co Inc
Publisher McFarland & Co Inc
Weight(grams) 318g
Dimensions(mm) 221mm * 148mm * 16mm