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"To Illuminate The Life Of The Human Spirit"
PURPOSE Although the Workshop has been discontinued, TheatrGROUP will remain visible on the Internet as an educational resource for actors and theatre enthusiasts everywhere. The information offered here covers everything from Getting Started As An Actor to Method Acting Procedures, as well as including links to other valuable acting and theatre related websites. RELAXATION Tension is the actor's greatest enemy. Strasberg devised an exercise
which helps the actor identify unwanted tension in the body, including mental
tension, then release that tension through an act of will. Until an actor
is properly relaxed onstage, he cannot express in purest form the thoughts and
emotions which propel his character through the events of the play. The
importance of relaxation is proven repeatedly in the workshop.
The actor must learn to make his senses respond onstage as they do in real life. Strasberg's Sense Memory exercises were developed to help the actor strengthen his awareness of how the senses affect him in life. Only when the actor believes that what he is doing on the stage is real, will the audience also believe that what he is doing on the stage is real. Sensory exercises help the actor learn to concentrate on specific "objects of attention" (determined from the logic of the play) and to overcome "moments of difficulty" in his life onstage. |
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Although executing a simple Sense Memory exercise, the actor pictured at left might
appear as though he had suddenly discovered his entire family brutally murdered. |
Philip Watt executing a "cold shower" sensory
exercise. |
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 The Actors Studio
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