Becoming an Actor

Thomasina Unsworth

• Publisher: Nick Hern Books
• Year: 2014
• ISBN:
  9781780011929
• Topic: Media & Performing Arts
• Subtopic: Acting & Auditioning

A practical guide to training as an actor, helping you get the most out of drama school - and survive in the world beyond.

Are you thinking of applying to drama school?
Do you have a place already and want to get the most out of your training? Are you seeking to make the best possible start in the world beyond drama school?

Becoming an Actor takes you, step by step, technique by technique, through everything you can expect to encounter at drama school, and in your first year as a professional actor. Stuffed with exercises and full of practical advice, it is the ideal handbook to accompany your training.

Thomasina Unsworth teaches at Rose Bruford College, one of the UK's leading drama schools. Here she shows what acting classes at an accredited drama school are actually like, and offers guidance and support through what is a critical time in any actor's career.

With many different exercises to help actors explore the techniques they need to master, Becoming an Actor is also an invaluable resource for those teaching acting, and for those seeking to refresh their training.

'Clear, bright, accessible and above all useful... offers young actors a valuable insight into the demands and rewards of professional training, while providing a sequence of practical exercises which can be used by performers, students and teachers across a much broader range of contexts.' - Stanislavski Studies

'Entertaining and informative... students and potential students will find Unsworth's readable book invaluable.' - ReviewsGate.com

'Ideal for anyone interested in vocational training... includes lots of classroom exercises to show the reader exactly the sort of thing that they can expect to be doing [in drama school]' - Teaching Drama Magazine

You Are Enough

When you first arrive at drama school you may well feel the need to establish yourself within the group. It is natural that you will want to justify your place on the course to the other students and the teachers. You may feel competitive and want to demonstrate that you are the best actor that ever walked through the door. Or you may be ambushed by self-doubt and seek to compensate for this by proving that you are actually really really good. You might even feel paralysed by the whole experience.

Early classes are designed with all this in mind. The desire to impress or the onslaught of fear will only succeed in blocking you as an actor. They are barriers that prevent you from being ‘open’. If you are not open then how can you respond honestly to another human being or to a piece of text? How can you communicate a story so that it reaches an audience and affects them? No matter how skilled you are, you will always get in the way. The purpose of the following section is not to teach you to act; I would argue that no one can really do that. Instead, these exercises should work on the things that block you, they should chip away at whatever it is that prevents you from being the best actor that you are capable of being.

Aims

• To introduce you to key questions, such as what is theatre? What is acting? What is performance?

• To encourage you to think about your own behaviour and that of those you are watching.

• To introduce you to some useful vocabulary.

• To introduce you to the concept of being ‘private’ in public.

• To begin to tackle the issue of self-consciousness for you as an actor.

• To encourage you to think about what you are doing rather than how you are doing it.

• To encourage you to watch other people work closely, and to analyse what you see in relation to your own practice.

You Are Enough

Divide the space into two sections, marking them out clearly with a line.

Stand with the rest of the actors on one side of this line. This then becomes the ‘offstage space’. Across the divide is the ‘onstage space’.

You will be called one by one to enter the onstage space. Those remaining behind the line keep observing.

There is only one rule that you must remember when you cross the line and that is: if you think of something interesting to do, don’t do it! In other words, don’t plan what you are going to do in the space. Don’t think of funny or engaging ways to entertain the audience. Resist the temptation to perform, just allow things to happen in that moment. For example, if you feel like lying down, lie down, if you want to look at the wall, look at it, if your head is itching, scratch it. There is no need to make any eye contact with those watching, or to acknowledge them at all.

This is a non-verbal exercise. If relationships occur between those in the onstage space, then these must not be expressed through words. For example, you may want to touch someone, or sit with them, or even walk away from them. Respond to each other in any way that feels appropriate, but not through speech.

After some time, objects will be handed to the actors in the onstage space. For example, you might be given a tape measure, a pack of cards or a bouncy ball. Do what you want with these objects but remember the rule: if you think of something interesting to do, don’t do it! In other words, use the object in any way that you want to, but do so without considering the effect that your actions will have on the audience.

Eventually, everyone will be in the onstage space, except one person who is still observing. When you are given the instruction, those being observed will turn to watch this remaining individual. So the observer becomes the observed, and vice versa.

This work comes from classes developed by theatre practitioner Julian Jones. It encourages you to look at what it is to be in the audience and what it is to be in front of the audience. Traditionally, this is how theatre works: one group of people watches another. The instruction – ‘if you think of something interesting to do, don’t do it!’ – goes to the heart of the exercise. As soon as you stop being the observer and cross the line into the territory of the observed, something will change in you. Almost certainly you will become self-conscious, no longer relaxed but now acutely aware of being watched. As a result, you may well begin to project an image of yourself onto the audience. You may want to appear at ease, to be entertaining. How does the actor eradicate feelings of self-consciousness, and the accompanying compulsions to cover them by performing in some way? This exercise offers you a starting point from which to address this question – you can build from it.

Remember, what is interesting about you is what is unique about you, your breath, your heartbeat, your complexities. It is far less compelling to watch you doing an impression of yourself, or anyone else for that matter. Mimicry gets quite dull after a while. In essence, you are enough, and when you engage with this idea and let go of the desire to perform, something really exciting can happen.

When you are given the object, use it if you want to, don’t pretend to do so. Don’t fake playing cards or measure the room in a comedic manner. When you come into contact with a fellow human being, don’t try to make an interesting picture together, see what actually happens between you without you trying to force anything.

Building Blocks

a. The group is split into two: half of you go outside and wait while the other half stays in the room.

Those in the room hide a set of keys.

When the hiding place has been established, those of you waiting outside will enter the room, one by one, and look for the keys. Those inside observe the searchers.

When everyone has had a turn the two groups swap over and the observed become the observers.

At the end of the exercise you should talk both about what it felt like and also what you noticed from watching the others search for the keys.

b. Repeat this exercise in the same way, with half the group watching and half the group doing. This time, those going out of the room are shown where the keys will be hidden.

One by one, re-enter the room to look for the keys as you did in the previous exercise.

After everyone has had a turn, compare the two experiences – one when you didn’t know where the keys were, and the second one when you did. Think about it both in terms of your experience doing the exercises yourself, and then watching others do them.

c. The group is divided into two as before. Half leave the room, the other half find a hiding place for the keys.

Some of those waiting outside, but not all, are told where the keys have been hidden.

One by one, enter the room and search for the keys. Those watching have to decide who is genuinely looking for the keys and who is pretending to do so.

You might be provided with extra information as you search. For example, you might be told that you are looking for the keys to a cupboard, which a small child has locked himself into. The stakes might be raised even higher: for instance, you might then be told that this child, who is now becoming frightened, suffers from severe asthma triggered by stress!

When everyone has had a chance to look for the keys, the groups then swap over, so that the observers become the observed, and vice versa. After you have all had a turn in both roles you should then discuss with each other who you think knew the whereabouts of the keys and who didn’t. Make it clear why you arrive at your conclusions.

You can see that these exercises slowly build on each other. Previously, you were asked to be in a space in front of other people and to observe what happened. Here you were asked to be in a space in front of other people, but you were also asked to find some keys that had been hidden. You were given a reason for entering the space. You probably found it much easier to be watched when you had a purpose to focus on. Having a purpose gives you something to hold on to, it gives you a direction to follow. You need a reason to enter the onstage space.

That was easy enough, but perhaps you found that it got difficult again when you had to pretend that you didn’t know where the keys were. Often people work very hard to indicate that they are not, in fact, pretending. I have seen actors spend a disproportionate length of time jumping up to try and reach a ledge that is so far out of anybody’s reach that the keys could not be hidden there. I have seen others empty bags with grand flourishes, pulling items out in a great rush without noticing what they are discarding. The keys might very well be there, but they have no real interest in finding them. Their focus is instead on showing the audience that they don’t know the hiding place, rather than on seeing whether the keys are in the bag. I have even seen someone put their hand on the keys and then pull it hurriedly away and walk off, assuming that this would fool the audience into thinking that they didn’t know that they were there! These actors are very busy showing us that they are looking for the keys, and so they reveal that their purpose is to deceive the audience. They have disconnected from the actual purpose that would make an audience believe them, and that is to find the keys.

The people who are genuinely ignorant of the hiding place tend to really look for the keys! Their focus is on this objective because they have nothing else to worry about. When they look through a bag, they really look. When this sense of purpose is intensified with extra information, then the actor’s focus becomes sharpened further. If you engage your imagination and think why you need that key, what it unlocks, what would happen if you failed to find it, etc., then once again you will be thinking of the task itself and not of how you are coming across to the people watching you. A sense of purpose and an imaginative connection to the situation will really help you here.

I Want You to Believe Me

In groups of three, exchange stories about your lives that are significant to you. These should not be too lengthy and they should have a clear narrative structure. In other words: a beginning, a middle, and an end.

Here is an example to give you an idea of what I mean – your story will come from your own life but it will follow a similar narrative structure: I might choose to tell the story of when I was ten years old and stole a bar of chocolate from my local newsagent’s. I begin by detailing how I felt before I entered the shop. How it took a while for me to pluck up the courage to open the door. My middle section deals with the theft itself. I describe how the shop looked inside. How I loitered by the shelf with all the chocolates on it. How I watched the shopkeeper before grabbing the bar and stuffing it into my pocket. How I tried to look nonchalant and stroll out of the shop even when I wa...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Title page
• Contents
• Dedication
• Acknowledgements
• Introduction
• Auditioning
• Part One, First Year
• Part Two, the Second Year: Beyond the Self
• Part Three, from Second to Third Year: Professional Preparation
• Part Four: Life After Drama School
• Appendices
• Further Reading
• Bibliography of Plays
• Endnotes
• About the Author
• Copyright Information