The Acting Blog

King Lear

I don’t know if you’re aware but the first recorded performance of William Shakespeare’s King Lear was held on 26th December 1606.

Tags: King Lear, Shakespeare

The Death of a Playwright

Personally gutted that the finest British playwright Harold Pinter died on Christmas Eve. His contribution to World Drama is undeniable. He stopped writing for the theatre a few years ago, but he changed the way that writers think about using language, pauses and silences. Very sad. It’s very sad.

Tags: Harold Pinter

5 Reasons Why I’m an Acting Coach and NOT an Acting Teacher

Acting is a craft, like all roles in the theatre; it requires a period of apprenticeship to learn it. Whether this is learned in the classroom, or through the practice of theatre making, it is learned entirely through doing. There is no theory of acting, only practice.

ONE: ACTING IS BEST LEARNED LIKE A SPORT

The later great improvisation expert Viola Spolin used to teach through side coaching, an especially important skill for those attempting to assist actors to learn to improvise. Just like in sports, if the acting coach needs to stop the actors every time they need to suggest something, then the scene will never happen. It’s like the sports coach who needs to stop the entire game in order to give their team instructions.

TWO: ACTING TEACHERS ARE CHARLATANS

I don’t believe in acting teachers and their acting classes, most are fraudulent and the greatest problem is that they don’t even realise it. Very few have a practicable technique of acting to teach in their acting classes, and so they essentially con their students with lots of what I call ‘fake work’. These are fun, creative exercises and games that deeply engage but leave the acting student wondering how they could ever apply that work to the process of acting.

Poor acting teachers cannot articulate their technique and when they do, they use impractical language and intangible techniques that bamboozle and frustrate the student. A coach offers solid practicable advice on which the acting student can make an immediate step towards progress and advancement in their craft.

THREE: ACTING IS ABOUT DOING

Acting is something that can be learned, but I’m not sure it can be taught. I believe as Sanford Meisner did that ‘acting is living truthfully under the imaginary circumstances of the play’. If so, acting is natural for everyone, we’re all doing it daily. The only part that needs coaching is the connection to the imaginary circumstances of the play, and that’s simply a matter of being coached in an approach that effectively connects you to the play.

FOUR: ACTING CLASSES

When people are learning to act, they need to be coached whilst they are working. If you need to stop them every time you want to make a suggestion, they’ll have to work hard to get back to where they were before they can implement the suggestion. By that time, the moment is lost. The acting classes that I coach generally use this form of coaching, but people find it very difficult to give up on their desire to stop and listen to ‘teacher’ every time I need to make a brief suggestion.

FIVE: BACK TO SPORT

Coaches mainly deal with the practicalities of physical sports. This is my view of acting and acting classes. An acting coach should deal with the training of an actor like they deal with the training of an athlete. The actor is an aesthetic athlete. Acting classes should be highly practical, very physical sessions; acting is a physical craft, the craft of physical action.

If you’d like to attend acting classes in Glasgow or find out more about getting an acting coach, why not speak Mark. › Continue reading

Tags: Acting Coach, Acting Teacher, Sanford Meisner, Viola Spolin

Mark Westbrook on Finding a Good Monologue

Tags: choosing a monologue, Good Audition Monologue

10 Things Actors Should Know…

If my experience of being an acting coach for many years has taught me anything, it’s these ten things:

1.    The Business isn’t Fair

Most of you don’t need to be told this, but we all need to learn it.  Things happen in the acting profession that aren’t fair.  Dumb, talentless people get cast all the time.  The director that loved your audition doesn’t call.  You’re not what they’re looking for.  The critics hated you.  You didn’t get into the Drama School you believe you were destined for.  The project fell through, your scene ended up on the cutting room floor.  Swallow it and move on.

2.    There’s Always Someone Better Than You (Even You)

Even at the height of your fame in the acting business, there’s someone out there who is better than you.  You will meet actors that are far more talented, better looking and luckier than you.  You can’t do anything about that, so leave it behind and stop whining.  But you will also find actors that are harder working, better trained and better prepared. That was a choice they made.  You can make that choice too.

3.    The Director is usually an Idiot

This is hard for me to say, I’m a trained and practicing director too.  But most directors are idiots.  Not even most, I’ve used the word usually.  But I’ll tell you why.  I think they don’t understand acting, not one bit, I think actors don’t understand acting either, but that’s not the topic here.  Directors generally don’t know how to prepare a script for directing, they have an intellectual understanding of the play, or they have a highly complex view of the play, but they have no idea how to communicate that to an actor.  You will spend your career interpreting what they say into something  useful that you can do.  The good ones, the non-idiots, will help you with this.  The bad ones, well… you’re on your own.

4.    The Playwright’s Words are Law

The writer writes the the script, you learn it and perform it.  That’s your job.  You think you could write a better script? Maybe you could! But that’s not your job right now.  Instead, perform the playwright’s script, as it is written and then go home and write your better one.  And then look across the table or the rehearsal room at the actors who know they can do it better than you, and become a better actor for it.  I don’t care how bad you think the play is, you have to make it work, it’s your job.  Construction workers may hate the architect’s plans, but they don’t start trying to adjust the structure as they build it.

5.    Be Prepared

There are 1000 reasons why you didn’t prepare properly for the audition, didn’t arrive on time, didn’t learn your lines yet. The casting director, the agent and the director couldn’t care less for any of them.  Prepare, prepare thoroughly, and if you can’t, if you like to wing it, give up now, you’re no use to yourself as an actor or the acting profession.

6.    Those that Give Up Never Make It

People give up acting as a career because it’s hard.  These are the people that never make it.  They talk of having stability and money and all the stuff they later come to loathe, because they wanted to act.   It’s simple.  Don’t give up and you’ll become the actor that you want to be, give up and you never will.

7.    There is No Perfect Audition Monologue

You will search, but you will not find it until you’re already performing the monologue and grow to love it.  Pick something your age and gender and something from the last 30 years.  The rest is just hard graft.  Listen to me talk about Finding a Good Monologue.

8.    Actors Don’t Articulate Well About Acting

I confess I love reading the biographies of actors. I love to hear their stories, but I also love to read them struggle to articulate about acting.  I’m not being cruel, I’m just fascinated that the very best actors have such a level of unconscious competence and they are so incredibly competent that they have no idea how they’re doing it.

9.    90% of Actor Training is Nonsense

I’m not saying this to be controversial, but I have the belief that most actor training is useless, it creates ‘fake work’, something that feels like creative work but wouldn’t help you act the scene in a million years.  So, pay attention to the 10%.

10.     You Need to Get Out of your own Way

You are your own worst enemy as an actor most of the time.  From the voice in your head, to your laziness, your failure to properly prepare and many many other examples of getting in your own way, particular on stage. Make it simple, make it truthful, take a breath, and from now on, get out of your own way.

Mark Westbrook is a professional acting coach based in Glasgow, Scotland.  To read more about his approach to acting, visit his acting website.

Tags: Acting Technique, Mark Westbrook, Tips on Acting

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Welcome to Acting Blog – The Blog of Acting Coach Mark Westbrook!

Tags: Acting Coach Scotland, Mark Westbrook