Why take theater classes when all you want to do is act in movies ?
by Sarah Eigerman, Artistic Director.
Why take theater classes when all you want to do is act in movies ?
Because: the actor's craft,-the capacity to transform one's reality an experience spontaneously an imaginary story,-is acquired in the theater.
In the theater, it is ultimately the actor who is responsible for what happens in performance. (As a director, I've once or twice longed to jump onstage and explain to the public that the catastrophe unfolding before them isn't my fault; the actors aren't following any of my directions!...)
A stage play is live; it happens in real time. The actor manages his or her energy the way an athlete does during a game. This experience develops endurance, focus, a sense of dramatic structure and emotional logic; the actor learns to know himself/herself as an instrument, and will be more able to cope with the fragmentation of filming, in which the shooting schedule almost never follows the storyline, and scenes of major importance may last mere seconds.
The actor's creative process flourishes in the theatrical context, whose very structure is based on that process. Working on a play encourages the actor to explore, prepare, evolve in the imaginary life of the character and the universe of the playwright.
To sum up: the actor acquires the bases of his or her craft within the theatrical context, and then adapts them to the technical challenges of other media. Many if not most American film actors admired by European artists,-such as Marlon Brando, Al Pacino, Meryl Streep, Robert De Niro, Angelina Jolie, Dustin Hoffman,-all trained in theater classes.
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