Prague Playhouse Acting Studio

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  • Classes Starting May 4!

    We are very happy to announce that we will resume limited classes starting May 4 and a wider group May 11 (and new students). If you are interested in joining the class, you MUST register here.

    We will be wearing masks, washing hands and practicing social distancing the entire class. Can’t wait to see everyone!

  • Classes will resume once restrictions on movement are lifted

    The Spring Term which was supposed to start today is postponed until the government eases restrictions on movement. If you would like to sign up for the class (once it returns), please click here.

    I realize that everyone is dealing with the movement restrictions and probably not thinking that much about acting class. I will be posting some activities to do in the coming days. If you have any ideas of what to do while self isolating (besides obsessing over the news), feel free to post here!

  • CLASSES CANCELED UNTIL MARCH 30

    Due to the quarantine and to be safe (after all, these are just acting classes and not worth getting sick over!), there will be no more acting classes in the winter term. If you are interested in signing up for the spring term, which is scheduled to start March 30 (subject to change based on how the emergency situation progresses), please fill out the form here (http://contacts.pragueplayhouse.com/form/do/fid/2). At the very least, that will add you to the class mailing list where you will get detailed information about when the class will start and how to register.

    Stay safe out there! Wash your hands!

  • Virus Update

    As of now, the classes will continue as planned. Obviously, no one wants to come in contact with the virus and hopefully no one wants to spread it to others, so please: if you are feeling sick or if you have been in contact with someone who is sick (even with just a cold), stay at home. The classes are important but at the end of the day, they’re just acting classes.

    All students will be asked to wash their hands before class.

  • Fall Term Starts September 16!

    I’m really looking forward to getting back in the classroom after a nice long break! There have been a lot of people interested in the class, but there is still room if you haven’t signed up yet. Please take a look at the Acting for Beginners page for details and you can sign up here if you are interested!

    Class starts at 18:30 at Frantiska Krizka 1, 3rd floor, Prague 7!

    Hope to see you there!

  • What do you want?

    The last week, I had the pleasure of coaching some young actors who are working on a major TV show for Netflix. The actors were lovely and keen to get to work. We spent the majority of our time on defining and simplifying objectives. Objectives are some of the most basic circumstances you can define when analyzing a scene. Basically an objective is asking the question “what do I want?”.

    By defining what you (or, if you are inclined to think about things this way, your character) want in a scene or a particular interaction is a great way to give a sense of direction, rather than just going through the lines. A good objective will help the actor by providing something to focus on (as opposed to thinking about “what would I do in this situation” or “how would I feel”).

    There are some ways to refine your objectives which will help them be more effective:

    1. Make them as active as possible (instead of “I want to understand” or “I want them to listen” or “I want to feel a certain way”). An active outcome will free you up to feel all sorts of ways and get you out of your head
    2. Make them about the other person in the scene. If what you want has nothing to do with the other people in the scene, then maybe you have an “activity” (something you need to get done), but often you can find something you want from someone else in the scene. This will force you to interact with them and respond to what they are reacting to you.
    3. Make it as simple. In order to work for you, an objective should be as simple as possible. Try to make it ONE thing (rather than “I want X but I am worried about them wanting Y and I also am kind of afraid of getting X”, just make it “I want X”. Them wanting Y might get in the way (be an obstacle) of what you getting what you want and make you work harder to get X. Usually once you get down to the simple objective, it becomes something that is universal which is easy for you as the actor to buy into (see the next point).
    4. It doesn’t have to be related to the script/plot! This is a weird one. If your character wants to deliver a letter, but what’s in the letter means nothing to you, have a think about what would motivate YOU (the actor) to deliver the letter. There are no wrong answers here and what you are looking for is a way for you to connect and care about your (or your character’s) objective. If you give a shit, it’s going to be something you’ll fight for.
    5. Make it specific and concrete. The more concrete the objective is, rather than heady or an idea of something, the more of a chance you have at committing to getting it.

    Objectives are a simple and powerful tool to connect to and commit to the action that the author wrote for you to undertake in the scene. It’s ok at the start of looking at the scene to come up with broad objectives that are not terribly simple or action based (ie. not following the above points). But keep at it, keep refining them to make them more concrete, more personal, more simple, more needful of the other person in the scene. If you get to the point where you are simply driving for what you want and letting the other people’s reactions hit you, then you’re in a good spot!

  • Memorizing Your Lines

    Memorizing Your Lines

    I’ve been recently struggling with memorizing lines. I have seen actors who can sit down in the makeup chair with the sides, go over their text, and get it perfect when they get on set. I want to be able to do that. Right now, my memorizing techniques are quite labored: I write out the text longhand and learn it line by line in a monotone, moving backwards and forwards through the handwritten lines. Its a very thorough system, but it’s not great if the lines change when you go for your line-up rehearsal (the rehearsal with actors on a film set before the camera and lighting gets set up… unfortunately, sometimes the only rehearsal you get on a film).

    Memorization happens fastest when there is more information than just the words that can be stored. The more things you connect to the words, the more pathways your mind has of getting to them faster. This is often why actors have an easier time memorizing lines once they are in blocking rehearsals. The words have been associated with a particular piece of stage business or a location in the physical space.

    But in an audition situation, or when you’re walking on a film set for your day in front of the camera, I tend to miss words or replace words with my own variations. Not a great habit. So I’m on a quest for how to memorize lines quickly and word perfect that doesn’t require me to go through a stage rehearsal process. This is what I’ve found:

    1. Chunking. This is a process whereby you break down a line into distinct sets of words, or chunks. Memorizing chunks of words, instead of individual words, lets you memorize much more in the same amount of time.
    2. Physicalization. This is creating a physical movement, or the intention of a movement to go with every word in your text. If your text is “murder” and you pair that with stabbing someone with a knife, it will be much harder for you to say “terrorism” (this happened to me recently in an audition in the line “The man is wanted in the US for _________”). Physicalization also has the added benefit of bringing your acting into your body, instead of just being in your head.
    3. Singing. Create a tune to go with your lines. This allows you to associate musical notes with certain words and could help you remember which particular word is coming next. Be careful with this one, though as you don’t want to lock yourself in to a particular way of saying the word.
    4. Handwriting. This is the technique that I usually use: write out your lines by hand. Pay attention to the writing of it, say the words to yourself as you’re writing. Again, this creates a parallel pathway to the particular words and doesn’t require you to lock yourself into a particular way of saying them. I generally write out the words without punctuation so when I read it I don’t get learn where the lines are supposed to start and stop.
    5. Mental Mapping. This is a technique whereby you create a room in your mind. The more vivid and detailed the room is (include as many senses as possible: colors, smells, textures, tastes, etc), the more attachments it will have to the things you put in it. Create a dresser or something where you’re going to store your lines. Then you place your lines in order within your room. Going through the places where you store your lines, you will be able to visualize what the lines are. I haven’t tried this technique and am not sure how applicable it is to line learning, but it feels like a good technique and I’m excited to try it.
    6. Strange Connections. Similar to the Mental Map, strange connections makes use of your imagination to create strong connections between the words. Take the words of the text and come up with strange and improbable animals or things in weird clothes doing the things or creating a visual picture of the words. The stranger the better: we remember out of the ordinary things more easily than mundane things.

    Further reading:

  • Auditions: Prepare More!

    Auditions: Prepare More!

    It’s easy, especially in a market like Prague, to get complacent about auditions. There isn’t a ton of local competition, a lot of the competition there is is based on look rather than experience and talent. Sometimes it is enough to just show up and go through the motions.

    But if you do more work going into your auditions, you will have a much better chance of booking the job you’re going for AND building a great reputation as a prepared, professional actor with the casting director, producers and directors you read for.

    Here are some things that you should have going into an audition:

    • Know the text. This is a huge mistake that people make going into an audition. You want to know the text as well as you possibly can. Knowing the words you have to say gives you an incredible amount of flexibility and security in how the audition will go.
    • Know the stakes. Stakes are what is important in the scene. Even if you only have one line, what are the stakes? What are the consequences of getting or not getting what you want in the scene. Authors don’t write scenes about everyday nothing situations. Scenes are there to put the characters in them through something. So don’t assume that the answer why you say something or do something in the scene is “just because”. Know why you are there! If your part in the scene is very simple, maybe the stakes won’t need to be played (generally they shouldn’t be anyway), but doing the work to know what is important in the scene is always time well spent.
    • Know the given circumstances. These will inform the stakes. Generally the given circumstances are Who, Where, What, When types of questions: Who is in the scene and what are their relationships? Where and When (both time of day, time period AND when in the script/story ie. how far into the story) does the scene take place? What is the physical behavior in the scene (what are the characters physically doing)? What happened just prior to this scene in the story (often this is not the previous scene in the script, but something inferred by the dialogue)? Answering as many of these types of questions will not only allow you to know more what the stakes are, but to know what the tone of the scene might be.
    • Rehearse! Find a friend and go through the scene beforehand. Try to remain flexible in how you do the scene as the casting director may give you a note that is different than how you rehearse. But the knowledge that you have gone through the scene several times before you get in the casting room, will be very valuable!
    • Let go! Once you’ve done all this work, let go of all of it. Don’t focus on any of the work when you are in the audition. Just go through the scene and listen to any instructions the casting director might give you. Trust that you have done the work and that the most meaningful parts of it have stayed with you. Try to listen and respond truthfully to the person who is reading opposite you.

    Doing all of this work doesn’t guarantee you will get any role. But it will make casting directors sit up and take notice of you. Especially in a market where most people are not doing that much work on their auditions. Remember: In the land of the blind, the one eyed man is king. Or something to that effect.

  • Accent Classes Have Started!

    For those of you that were interested in working on reducing your foreign accent when speaking English, we have started teaching accent reduction (based on American English) classes. The classes meet once a week, either on Monday morning at 10am or Wednesday afternoon at 16:00. They last 1 hour and the course is 12 weeks long. The cost is 2.000 Kc. Join in! Classes run until the beginning of July, 2015.

  • No class today! We start on sept 17

    For those that didn’t get the email, I am shooting out of town today and will not be able to teach. We begin the fall term on Wednesday, September 17! Excited to see you there!