Being Prepared for the Unexpected
In this podcast Inajá Wittkowski, and actor with more than 15 years of acting and improvisation experience, talks about tools to learn flexibility and responsiveness on the stage and in real life.
Theater and Comedy
The Power of Authenticity in Movement
In this workshop Natalie Bury, a professional dancer, choreographer and actor, guided us in exploring the power of authenticity in movement. Physical authenticity is a powerful means to establish our character’s connection with the audience. As the day progressed, we became more connected to our our vulnerability and the importance of bringing movement out of our authentic self. We gained a better understanding our need to both be seen and not seen. At the end of the day, each of us was more aware of the space we are moving in and the many ways we can use that space.
Henrik Ibsen – A Doll’s House
This month we read a play written by the Norwegian playwright Henrik Ibsen, A Doll’s House, that deals with the fate of a married woman, who, at that time in Norway, lacked reasonable opportunities for self-fulfillment in a male-dominated world. Despite the fact that Ibsen denied it was his intent to write a feminist play, it was a great sensation at the time and caused a “storm of outraged controversy” that went beyond the theater to the world of newspapers and society.
Ibsen had completely rewritten the rules of drama with a realism which was to be adopted by Chekhov and others, and which we see in the theater to this day. He is the most frequently performed dramatist in the world after Shakespeare, and A Doll’s House was the world’s most performed play in 2006.
Exploring Vulnerability On Stage
This workshop gave each of us an amazing opportunity to become a little more aware of the social face (or “mask”) that each of us have unconsciously chosen to present to the outside world. Bogdan Tabacaru, an experienced and talented director, used Sanford Meisner’s teaching on text and improvised scenes to help each of us begin to set aside our mask just a little bit so that we could authentically step into the shoes of vulnerable characters on stage. Each of us left the workshop with a sense of having gained a bit of insight into living more truthfully in our real lives.
David Lindsay-Abaire, Rabbit Hole
This extraordinarily well written play involving family members dealing with deep loss in their individual ways – and in ways that we all can recognize in ourselves and in our own families. The play was adapted to make a successful movie starring Nicole Kidman in 2010.
Where Actor Meets Director
Where does the actor meet the director in the process of creating a memorable dramatic performance? How do I, as an actor, blend my preparation and emotional passion for my character with the the vision of the director so that we can truly be partners in this creative endeavor? This recent, memorable workshop on exploring the expressivity of our emotions and bringing that to the stage offered some inspiring insights.
Emotions: My Connection To Stage And Life
Learning to become a more authentic actor requires opening up more fully to the full range of my emotional being. It’s perhaps safer when playing a character on the stage, but it’s still not easy. The reward is that I am at the same time learning to connect more fully with everyone around me in my real life. I’ll never be finished with this exploration as long as I’m alive, but it is an extraordinary and exciting journey for sure.
Pinter and Protest
Harold Pinter was considered to be one of the most influential of modern British dramatists with a career spanning more than 50 years as a playwright, screenwriter, director and actor. He was awarded the Nobel Prize for Literature in 2005. He wrote plays that emphasized that unflinching, unswerving, fierce intellectual determination to define the real truth of our lives and our societies is a crucial obligation which devolves upon us all. Coming to understand what this means for me personally has been a long journey.
It’s About The Beat
Whenever I watch a performance of Mahler’s second symphony, The Resurrection, I am spellbound by the intense emotional connection to the arc of my own life. John Williams Jaws is inseparable from Steven Spielberg’s story – so much so that the first couple of notes is all that is needed for me to see again that shark attack. What makes music so powerful and how can I learn how to use that power in my own creative life?
On The Road From Me to We
Stephen Colbert once observed that “Life is an improvisation. You have no idea what’s going to happen next and you are mostly just making things up as you go along.” But what is the focus of the things I make up? Is it mostly about me – my ideas, my money and my goals? Or is it mostly about us – a better and more satisfying life together than any of us could create by ourselves? Trying to become a better Improv actor has helped me to discover the importance of this choice in my real life.
Learning to Live Truthfully Through Acting
I recently got around to watching the 2009 movie “The Blind side”, staring Sandra Bullock in an Oscar winning role as a born-again Christian mother who adopts and cares for a Black athlete from a poor part of Memphis. Bullock was one of the students of Sanford Meisner and she said that her success as an actor stemmed very much from Meisner’s emphasis that “the foundation of acting is the reality of doing.” For me it is increasingly clear that working to become a better actor means working on the skills that will also enable me to live my life more fully.
Why Choices Matter
If we are to accept the Quantum Mechanics notion of multiple parallel universes, then every possible lifetime that I might create with my choices must be happening in one of those universes. Does that mean I can do “whatever I want” and have no responsibility for the consequences of my choices? This post explores the insights into this question offered by a few movies and theater plays.
