Monday, November 7, 2011

Two Year Acting Conservatory - A Safe Place to be Vulnerable

By Maggie Flanigan


Two year acting programs are commonly known as the conservatory approach. These two year programs are targeted towards professional actors who recognize their need for continual study and improvement. The tradition of a master training an apprentice has been in practice for centuries. Aspiring as well as professional actors seek out this type of program to improve their skills and set themselves apart from the competition.

Learning never ends for true actors. When an actor appears to act without trying, it is a sure bet that they have spent years training. Separating yourself from the distractions in life and dedicating your time solely to study requires dedication and strength. However, when it comes to being an actor in New York, taking the time to study is what will make the difference between hobby and career.

Two year acting programs are a wonderful opportunity to learn the Meisner method. This method is a sequential one, meaning that the students first learn basics and then build their skill sets from there. Meisner training is very rigorous and can feel almost military in intensity. An essential part of the training is the breaking down and analysis of each student's personality and identity.

The goal of military training is to repurpose the soldier's identity around the military. Long-term programs in New York that teach Meisner require student actors to learn more about themselves. This allows actors to become one with their characters instead of allowing their own emotions to hinder their performance.

There is no such thing as a person who is not at least partly controlled by compulsions, emotions, and desires. When it comes to theater, these qualities may not necessarily be an advantage. In order to allow the character to shine through, it is absolutely necessary for actors to be aware of and know how to control these traits.

It is all too common for actors to develop poor habits. Shorter classes may help to remedy these habits in part. In contrast, two year programs give actors the time and opportunity to completely address these issues and form better habits. Correcting bad habits and forming new ones is not an easy chore and doing so requires that the actors make themselves vulnerable and truly bare their souls and true personalities. A two year acting program challenges students to bare their vulnerabilities and put themselves under the microscope all in an effort to make them more capable of creating lifelike characters for the audience. Two year programs allow students to correct bad habits and build more effective ones so that they can work well with fellow actors and create believable characters.




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