As a freshman undergraduate student in 1967, a true tree hugger, I began my training as an actor with how I felt, what inner motivations I experienced and what psychological perspectives I could garner from studying the character I was attempting to portray. Although I enrolled and completed one course in ballet, one course in fencing and one course in voice and articulation, these courses did not appear to be a unified training approach. It was not until 1981 while studying at the University of Illinois and the Directing Colloquium for the Theatre Today, that I began to observe some of the disadvantages and abuses of only teaching the internationalization technique to American actors. After that profound experience of studying under Vinette Carroll, Ed Sherin, Clifford Williams and Gerald Freeman, I began to experience multiple changes in my methods of mentoring young actors with internalization approaches mixed with a consistently physical approach to the voice and the body. In 1985 I studied at the University of Connecticut under three instructors from the London Academy of Music and Dramatic Arts and in this summer training I experienced a re-awakening of the love of dramatic literture and the legitimacy of its importance to an actor.
A lifelong journey of working alongside young actors has led me to believe a unified training should include internal awareness, physical technique in body and voice and a rich devotion to dramatic literature. From my perspective, 18 to 21 year old actors tend to come into their professional training similar to belly buttons: either they are an "innie", one who first ponders how a character feels or an "outie", one who gets the walk and gestures first. The third observation young actors tend to bring into their initial years of training is one who is either deeply devoted to reading dramatic literature and possesses a rich and vivid intrinsic imagination or one who avoids reading. What appears to be evolving is an attempt to integrate these three important and vital aspects of an actor's training while at the same time realizing young actors come into training with unique learning challenges each year.
End of Part 1
A lifelong journey of working alongside young actors has led me to believe a unified training should include internal awareness, physical technique in body and voice and a rich devotion to dramatic literature. From my perspective, 18 to 21 year old actors tend to come into their professional training similar to belly buttons: either they are an "innie", one who first ponders how a character feels or an "outie", one who gets the walk and gestures first. The third observation young actors tend to bring into their initial years of training is one who is either deeply devoted to reading dramatic literature and possesses a rich and vivid intrinsic imagination or one who avoids reading. What appears to be evolving is an attempt to integrate these three important and vital aspects of an actor's training while at the same time realizing young actors come into training with unique learning challenges each year.
End of Part 1
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