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Progression Methodology
MFA Acting Program Progression
The acting course of the MFA program is divided into two sections for the first three semesters, and in the fourth semester they come together for a classical project. The third year is devoted to the creation of a three-play repertoire (see The Repertory Experience) that culminates in public performance and tour, and a final advanced acting project that would concentrate on individual needs. This course is unified with the progression and the goals of the voice and movement work.
One section of the acting course is a classic scene study class, a practical teaching form to help students learn how to use the basic principles of playing in order to connect themselves, their thoughts and feelings, intentions and desire, to the material. Learning to play objectives with the desire to effect change helps the student understand the importance of making active and intelligent choices with language.
First semester: students work with scenes from modern and contemporary American texts (late 1950’s through to the present).
Second semester: students work with scenes from Chekhov, Strindberg, Ibsen, Shaw, Synge (the early modernists) culminating in a black box presentation.
Third semester: students work with scenes from the plays of Shakespeare.
The other section of the acting course is more of a workshop that investigates various physical approaches to acting that have been developed over the last 50 years. The goal of this class is for the student to reclaim her or his primary acting “instrument”, the body and its wisdom and experience, and to unify it with the mind and the emotions into a harmonious working unit in order to access the creative imagination.
First semester: students are introduced to exercises like Jerzy Grotowoski’s “Cat” and those that explore impulse, motion and space while working with contemporary texts.
Second semester: students work with non-dramatic material (short fiction, fairy tales, myths), culminating in a black box presentation.
Third semester: students work with a longer text like GILGAMESH, BEOWULF or THE ODYSSEY, culminating in a black box presentation.
With the training and complementary support of these two approaches to acting technique, the group moves ahead to the second part of the program.
Fourth semester: a classical project (a Shakespeare or Restoration play) culminating in a black box presentation.
Fifth semester: creation of a three-play rep. Each play would represent a different period and style, and each student would have leading and supporting roles.
Sixth semester: we assess the previous training and address the individual acting needs and goals of each student; offer the opportunity to work in an off-beat, modern genre and on material that had not been previously covered in the program.
Movement Progression
The MFA course in movement aims to inspire the imagination in the service of communication and truthfulness. The work is based on the premise that the physical life of the actor is the portal to her/his emotional, psychological and creative life. The physical imagination provides access to the given circumstances of a play, the psychological state of the character, and the physical dynamic of the scene.
All movement work, unified with the voice and acting course progressions, must support the actor in the embodiment of the theatrical text.
First Year
Principles of movement and the articulation of the body. The work focuses on impulse work and an introduction to the mask. Without articulation, we cannot achieve our full potential. The articulate body, for the actor, develops and releases the imaginative muscle, and this muscle holds many secrets about our emotions.
The use of the neutral mask, essential to the embodiment of abstract forms, is employed as a powerful teaching tool in various exercises and projects.
Second Year
Mask work is advanced through characters and archetypes contained within the body. Deep in the imagination reside archetypes and inspirations that we can make accessible through movement. These archetypes can be located in myth, religion and the great drama, and they are among our most powerful resources. The actor is encouraged as creator of her/his own material.
Application of the body to various theatrical territories. LeCoq’s “territories of theatre” (Greek tragedy and comedy, Noh theatre, Elizabethan tragicomedy, the Bouffon) offer us parameters within which we can focus our imagination. Students work on texts drawn from these territories.
Third Year
Comedy: physical exercises, established theatrical texts, improvisation. In the first semester, the work focuses on Clown and Commedia dell’arte projects. Introduction and development of clown techniques: the terror of the everyday, creativity in the void. Texts range from Shakespeare to Beckett and Ionesco. The Commedia world of desperation, the masks, improvisation; the imagination as friend and the imagination as enemy. Texts will be drawn from classical Commedia scenarios, Goldone, Moliere and contemporary writers like Dario Fo.
In the second semester, the course changes focus to movement as related to theatrical realism/naturalism, using texts from Ibsen, Chekhov, O’Neill, Arthur Miller; and the poetic realism of Tennessee Williams, Caryl Churchill, Sam Shepard, David Mamet, Tony Kushner.
Voice, Speech and Diction Progression
The goal of the MFA voice, speech and diction program is to integrate the mind, body and emotions of the actor to recover her or his true voice and to help the actor to find a clear and honest expression of that voice. It is a dynamic process that balances destructuring and restructuring. By easing out the habitual tension and obstacles that inhibit free expression and that impede us in our work, we are able to rebuild (and reclaim) our functional potential and creative relationship with the imagination.
First Year: Discovering and exposing the self – looking inward.
Destructuring and freeing the impulse to communicate. Through work connecting the spine/breath/energy/voice, the student breaks down basic vocal physiology/anatomy and begins to experience “effortless effort” in the expression of uninhibited impulse.
Restructuring the form of the communication. Focusing on the connection of breath, energy and thought to the voice, the student experiences the strength of inner energy while maintaining the lightness of outer form. Laban and Alexander techniques are incorporated into the work.
Second Year: Expanding the self and discovering the “selves” – looking outward.
Continuing the work of balancing destructuring and restructuring, the student unifies inner and outer techniques. Students begin to lead warm-ups, explore archetypes and sub-personalities, and work with poetic drama and scansion. Alexander work continues. Students explore Shakespeare and contemporary heightened language.
Speech and Diction Class: Students are introduced to the fundamentals of speech and diction for actors, and to basic dialects that are used most commonly in contemporary dramatic texts. The course emphasizes the embodiment of a spontaneous relationship to the creative imagination that informs spoken communication, and the clear expression of the text supported by the thoughts and feelings of the actor.
Language is a form of music using sound qualities – rhythm, tempo, pitch, intensity – to create visceral sensations in the recipient. These sensual associations, combined with the logical meaning of the word, have a profound impact on communication. This unity of spoken communication is vital to the actor.
Third Year: Expanded self in performance circumstances and the world.
Applying the imagination and the craft in unison is vital to meet the shifting demands and practical necessities of professional performance. Each student receives individual work and coaching on specific vocal issues as well as support and coaching for the MFA repertory performances. As well as teaching warm-ups, students assist with the coaching in undergraduate productions. Students explore the voice/body/mind in relation to space (from film close-up to outdoor performance). Each student is personally challenged with work on specific material and performing a short piece in a foreign language.
Professional applications of the voice are explored in workshops and class: narration and radio, voiceover, looping, animation and commercials. Non-Western and non-traditional voice/movement techniques are explored in class and on field trips.
The Repertory Experience
One of the goals of the MFA Program is to help the student become aware of what it means to be a member of an ensemble. After two years of working as a cohort in classes, workshops and various performance situations, the third-year students spend the Fall semester of the third year creating a three-play repertoire that they perform on the USC campus over a two-week period. If possible, a residency at a local professional theatre and/or a short tour is arranged.
Until relatively recently, actors coming out of drama school could hope to find an apprenticeship with one of a number of resident repertory theatres throughout the country. In this intense and very practical working situation where the actors in a company would rehearse one play during the day and perform another (often one of several plays in the repertory) at night, the “apprentice” found the ideal situation where he or she could put the recent drama school training to the test. There is no more effective way to learn how to work on a character than when the actor is working on two or more at the same time and having to put them all in front of an audience. It requires stamina, imagination and every bit of technique and resource the actor possesses.
Unfortunately, resident theatre companies have dwindled down to a precious few. The vast majority of students coming out of drama school are immediately thrown into a “free-lance” situation where the work comes sporadically with great spaces in between. The formative practical experience that professional repertory companies used to provide has now, to a large extent, been taken on my the MFA actor-training programs. If we don’t consciously take on this responsibility, we are denying our students an invaluable opportunity to practice their hard-earned craft as well as an experience that they may not be able to find in the professional world.
Not only does the student gain an opportunity to play different characters in a rep situation, they get to play characters that the world of commercial theatre and film would rarely hire them for. Repertory theatre is the triumph of miscasting, as Dean Puzo likes to say, and nothing stretches an actor more than to struggle with a character that’s 180 degrees removed from her or his “type”. And it’s in this kind of “miscasting” that some of the most revelatory performances are created.
It’s what the actor learns from being a working member of the ensemble that’s every bit as important as what he or she learns in terms of character-building technique. To be a true ensemble player, one must not only listen and attend to the other actors, one has a responsibility to take care (not “caretake”) of her or his brother and sister actors. This is not to say, of course, that originality, individuality, and uniqueness that identifies us all, are prohibited – on the contrary, it’s the melding of individual talents into a coherent and responsive ensemble that creates the potential for extraordinary theatre.
The repertoire would consist of a classical play (Shakespeare, Moliere, Restoration), a modern classic (anything from Shaw and Chekhov to Beckett and Miller), and a modern play. Ideally, each actor is given a role in each play; a leading role, a supporting role, and a small role.
The Professional Seminar
This course is an introduction to the world of the professional actor. In the last semester, it is vital that the student be introduced to the elements and procedures of how one goes about looking for employment in the worlds of theatre, film and television. The show business cliché, “being in the right place at the right time”, is not solely based on pure chance or luck, but involves careful and intelligent preparation.
A key part of one’s technical training as an actor must include the skills that enable one to forge a successful career in a highly competitive and crowded field. To a certain extent, fashioning a career as a professional actor is like creating a character; one must work specifically step by step to realize imaginative goals. Along the way, flexibility and improvisation are necessary, but without intentionality and goal-orientation, building a career becomes immeasurably more difficult. In the working world, certain expectations exist for the professional actor. One can challenge these expectations, even deny them, and still find success, but it is necessary for the actor to understand what these expectations are.
In this course, the student will not only investigate the audition process, but discern between the various forms of audition (theatre, film, television commercials). What is the dynamic when you walk onto a theatre stage or into a rehearsal room to read for a play? What is the difference when you walk into an office to meet for a film or TV role? Of what value are pictures, resumes, show reels or DVDs? Depending on the situation, what is expected of the actor who goes on a job audition? How does one comport oneself to maximum advantage? How does one deal with the video camera, an integral part of the auditioning process?
Classes, workshops and seminars will be conducted by working specialists. Directors, casting people, agents and managers will be invited throughout the semester
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