Built on the foundation of the work of Sanford Meisner, the master acting coach, Meisner acting classes are designed as a progression of exercises that build more complex acting skills as you move forward. Meisner acting classes help students develop a life-long love of learning about the art of acting. Improvisation, personal response and emotional memory exercises are just a few of the tools used to help students learn and prepare for increasingly sophisticated skills and acting roles.
Students just beginning to study the technique in Meisner acting classes often finds the work "easy" and somewhat simplistic, because the first exercises are meant to strip away the crutches of dialogue and story. This is so the student will tune into the subtle changes in the meaning of simple repetitive phrases as they are said back and forth between them and an acting partner, which changes the meaning of the phrase and helps them recognize the emotional shifts. Over time, if they remain open to the process, students in Meisner acting classes learn to rely on the emotional cues they get from other players in a scene or exercise and use them to create and live in a new reality they are creating in the moment.
Fond of asking pointed questions of students to help them recognize what how they might be falling short, Meisner continually challenged students to commit and have a purpose for to every action and emotional response. With the Meisner technique even sleeping or being still is considered an "action" that requires purpose. Known to be a brilliant, yet tough task master, Meisner believed that "acting is doing," even if the moment in a piece calls for silence. If one had to sum up his theory about acting, it would be his other well known quote "an ounce of behavior is worth a pound of words." Dialogue is all important as it tells the story and shows the characters, but unless spoken by an actor working truthfully and authentically, the words won't matter.
The student who excels is one who recognizes this and discovers an ability to create a new reality every time they act, even if for a simple acting class exercise. Many acting classes nyc will train the actor to use sound, feeling, emotion, physical space, and the sounds, emotions and physical expression of the other players to create an edgy exciting performance full of spontaneity. Learning this skill is the best way to change bad acting habits, especially the all pervasive myth that acting is "pretending." Moving beyond the bad habit of "pretending," Meisner acting classes help the student actually "become" someone else, at will. Being mindful, with zero self awareness, of the new reality being created in a piece and being present in it fully as a character, is the greatest experience an actor can have. If this sounds difficult, then this training might be for you. If you are still convinced that acting is merely delivering lines as given, pretending to be a character than perhaps this kind of training is for you. The Meisner acting technique will force you to work far more deeply than that. First, you become a different person, aware of your habits and pre-programmed emotional responses, and then you learn to do it all over again as a character. As the work progresses, the challenge is ever present and exciting, calling upon the actor to become someone real, someone new all the time.
By creating an imagined set of circumstances, including a character's history of needs and wants, failures etc, and living them out, the student of Meisner learns to allow the character emerge and change as the project story plays out. There are some elements of behavioral science including in the discipline which were also part of what's known as "method acting" a precursor to Meisner. However, Meisner put his unique stamp on this discipline and ended up training some of the most legendary actors in theatre and in film.
Committing to emotional responses and physical actions and focusing only on what the other actors are doing is the way to propel a story forward with energy and excitement is the foundation of Meisner acting. Self forgetfulness, and allowing the impulses of other actors to guide you, is the way to create a whole new reality, that reveals itself moment by moment. Performances will have an edge, a sense of spontaneity which completely draws an audience into the story. In the end this is also what real life is like. We have no idea what will happen moment to moment, but we continue on, talking, sitting, meditating, eating a bite, having a thought, all with the idea that we are moving toward something big or small. This ability to re-create "real life" as it unfolds, telling the story in a way that you genuinely having no idea how the story will unfold every time, is the most important thing you can learn in Meisner acting.
Students just beginning to study the technique in Meisner acting classes often finds the work "easy" and somewhat simplistic, because the first exercises are meant to strip away the crutches of dialogue and story. This is so the student will tune into the subtle changes in the meaning of simple repetitive phrases as they are said back and forth between them and an acting partner, which changes the meaning of the phrase and helps them recognize the emotional shifts. Over time, if they remain open to the process, students in Meisner acting classes learn to rely on the emotional cues they get from other players in a scene or exercise and use them to create and live in a new reality they are creating in the moment.
Fond of asking pointed questions of students to help them recognize what how they might be falling short, Meisner continually challenged students to commit and have a purpose for to every action and emotional response. With the Meisner technique even sleeping or being still is considered an "action" that requires purpose. Known to be a brilliant, yet tough task master, Meisner believed that "acting is doing," even if the moment in a piece calls for silence. If one had to sum up his theory about acting, it would be his other well known quote "an ounce of behavior is worth a pound of words." Dialogue is all important as it tells the story and shows the characters, but unless spoken by an actor working truthfully and authentically, the words won't matter.
The student who excels is one who recognizes this and discovers an ability to create a new reality every time they act, even if for a simple acting class exercise. Many acting classes nyc will train the actor to use sound, feeling, emotion, physical space, and the sounds, emotions and physical expression of the other players to create an edgy exciting performance full of spontaneity. Learning this skill is the best way to change bad acting habits, especially the all pervasive myth that acting is "pretending." Moving beyond the bad habit of "pretending," Meisner acting classes help the student actually "become" someone else, at will. Being mindful, with zero self awareness, of the new reality being created in a piece and being present in it fully as a character, is the greatest experience an actor can have. If this sounds difficult, then this training might be for you. If you are still convinced that acting is merely delivering lines as given, pretending to be a character than perhaps this kind of training is for you. The Meisner acting technique will force you to work far more deeply than that. First, you become a different person, aware of your habits and pre-programmed emotional responses, and then you learn to do it all over again as a character. As the work progresses, the challenge is ever present and exciting, calling upon the actor to become someone real, someone new all the time.
By creating an imagined set of circumstances, including a character's history of needs and wants, failures etc, and living them out, the student of Meisner learns to allow the character emerge and change as the project story plays out. There are some elements of behavioral science including in the discipline which were also part of what's known as "method acting" a precursor to Meisner. However, Meisner put his unique stamp on this discipline and ended up training some of the most legendary actors in theatre and in film.
Committing to emotional responses and physical actions and focusing only on what the other actors are doing is the way to propel a story forward with energy and excitement is the foundation of Meisner acting. Self forgetfulness, and allowing the impulses of other actors to guide you, is the way to create a whole new reality, that reveals itself moment by moment. Performances will have an edge, a sense of spontaneity which completely draws an audience into the story. In the end this is also what real life is like. We have no idea what will happen moment to moment, but we continue on, talking, sitting, meditating, eating a bite, having a thought, all with the idea that we are moving toward something big or small. This ability to re-create "real life" as it unfolds, telling the story in a way that you genuinely having no idea how the story will unfold every time, is the most important thing you can learn in Meisner acting.
About the Author:
The Maggie Flanigan Studio provides meisner acting classes in nyc for serious, committed actors. To learn more about meisner intensive you can visit the studio website.
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