Have you ever heard of the Christopher Durang play The Actors Nightmare? In this play, an accountant named George is mistaken for an actor's understudy and is thrown into a performance, without any knowledge of the play. The play is very funny, but it is also a real common nightmare for many actors - young and old alike! Both professional and student actors will often have nightmares in which they forget their lines, mess up, get stage fright, or bomb an audition. Why? Well, their brains are reacting to stress, and embodying all of the common "actor fears". While our Acting Academy students are certainly brave, they all have their own "actor fears" to contend with! That's because we all have our own strengths and weaknesses! Some of our students really thrive in an improvisation. They love to discover their characters and scenes without a script, and make everything up as they go along. However, some of our students prefer the comfort of a playwright's script and structure. While some of our students love to be silly and make ridiculously big character choices, many of them struggle with "letting go" and "embracing the crazy". Then there's the ever-so-fun situation when an actor has to be in an uncomfortable character relationship - which many of our students (and professional actors!) struggle with immensely! So, recognizing these common fears, and knowing that we wanted to #INSPIRE our teens this year - we decide to focus on a specific actor fear each week in class! Sound a little scary? Actually, it's not! Our goal is to face these fears head-on, and give our students the tools and skills they need to turn any of these potentially uncomfortable situations into something FUN. "Having fun" is our golden rule, after all! Plus, we've always challenged our Acting Academy students to break out of their comfort zones in our classroom. Performing for a class full of your peers is NOT an easy task. However, the difference in this year is that we are specifically taking the time to discuss WHY certain situations make actor's feel uncomfortable, and to assure them it's completely normal! (But certainly something that's possible to overcome!) Hopefully they can put the techniques they learn in class into good use - both onstage and off. So, what are some of the actor fears we will be facing? Well, to name a few...
Some of our teens "letting go" and just embracing the silliness...
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