Time Schedule:
Joseph L Lavy
BISIA 213
Bothell Campus
Develops intermediate skills and applications in one or more studio arts in order to enhance students' abilities as performers, arts creators, or educators. Recommended: B CUSP 197 or prior experience.
Class description
Intermediate Acting: To develop the student actor’s study of the fundamental principles of performance, including spontaneity/precision, invention, mutuality, and presence.
Our class will engage in rigorous physical, vocal and imaginative exercises aimed at engaging the actor’s body and mind in a complex and unified way. Students will develop individual and ensemble acting scores, utilizing a Method of Physical Action.
Emphasis will be on creating the Role through detailed physicality and the elaboration of a psychophysical score of action.
Student learning goals
1. Confront the challenge of unifying the body, imagination and intellect into a creative act
2. Develop a foundation for exploring relationships with time, weight, space, objects, people, and the imagination
3. Demonstrate understanding of Given Circumstances, the “Magic If,” and the 5 classifications of scenic behavior
4. Analyze a script for the Given Circumstances, Intentions, and Actions
5. Develop a detailed, character-based performance score according to the internal & external actions and behaviors of a scene
6. Implement the actor’s 7 fundamental questions in developing a performance scene
General method of instruction
There will be 2 phases of work: Lab & Studio.
Lab Work: Exercises and activities dedicated to awakening and dis-inhibiting the performer’s physical and vocal expressiveness, while investigating pragmatic elements of the actor’s craft: attention, imagination, composition/improvisation, partnership, repetition.
Studio Work: Etudes and projects aimed at stimulating the actor’s internal processes and channeling them through the body by means of the Method of Physical Action into an Acting Score.
Recommended preparation
Class assignments and grading
This course is a practicum, therefore participation is mandatory. Acting is a behavioral art which demands physical as well as intellectual effort. Class time will be spent in lecture and discussion but primarily in active development of performance material, under the guidance of the instructor. In this way, the classroom becomes a laboratory or workshop. Each day’s work will be considered for grading purposes. You are not expected to achieve a standardized result, however you will be expected to arrive prepared, ready to work and to challenge your limitations.
Your attitude, curiosity, comprehension and collaboration are integral to your success in the class.
