Hi Bonnie!
First off I just want to say that your articles have been incredibly helpful to me and I am so grateful to have access to all that information! I really appreciate the candid, straightforward, no-sugar-coating tone of your writing and look forward to reading the latest when I start my week every Monday.
In a recent Your Turn, Mavis Martin wrote in about practicing daily techniques. This is something I am extremely interested in and have found it difficult to get advice on from my acting teachers. It seems to me that like the fastest way to improve my craft would be similar to developing any other skill — through daily “workouts” that I can practice solo (in addition to partner work). Other than Uta Hagen and Larry Moss’s books, finding daily solo exercises has proven to be quite the challenge. Many teachers believe that the independent work of an actor comes in the form of homework but that to practice “acting” by yourself is kind of impossible.
For this reason, I’m wondering if you can either forward my email and address to Mavis in hopes that she might be willing to share some of her exercises/sources or maybe do an article on this subject?
Thanks!
Justice Darragh
Hi Justice,
Ooh, what a great question! I’d love to know some of Mavis’ tips on “daily techniques.” In fact, I’m so certain that Mavis isn’t the only one out there doing individual workouts that I’m going to post this as today’s Your Turn. I’m hoping quite a few of our readers who do daily individual actor workouts will write in to share their tips with you — and with all other readers who might be looking for just such a thing!
I definitely believe that actors can always be building their craft. Even when alone. Sometimes especially when alone! But let’s start by opening up this question to you awesome readers out there. What daily (or not-so-daily) practices do you engage in, to build your actor muscle when you’re outside of class?
Please, take a moment and shoot me an email in which you share your rituals, your tips, your thoughts on whether it’s even possible to build your craft when you’re alone. I’ll gather the responses and create a future column around those awesome pieces of feedback and guidance from those of you who are out there doing it every day.
Woo hoo! Lemme hear from you. Email address is below, as always.
Bonnie Gillespie is living her dreams by helping others figure out how to live theirs. Wanna work with Bon? Start here. Thanks!
Originally published by Actors Access at http://more.showfax.com/columns/avoice/archives/001049.html. Please support the many wonderful resources provided by the Breakdown Services family. This posting is the author’s personal archive.