The Actor Uncovered
The Actor Uncovered is certainly not a set of rigid rules advocating one "method" or one singular "truth." Departing from the common guidebook format, Michael Howard uses a unique approach to teaching acting, reflecting on his own history and sharing his own experiences as an actor, director, and teacher. How he writes about the process and craft of acting is at once intensely personal and relatable by others.

Readers are invited to participate as though present in this master teacher's classes. Each human being, and thus each actor, is unique. Howard encourages actors to uncover their own ways of working, using their particular abilities and personality traits. Going beyond the craft and into human psychology and the importance of acting as a life force, readers will see new and deeper ways to study and practice, to be introspective, and to arrive at places of revelation about their craft.The Actor Uncovered will have much to say to beginners, to those who are advanced, and to professional and working actors. Howard discusses such topics as:
 
  • Techniques, styles, and methods in a changing society
  • Relaxation, concentration, and the breath
  • The relationships among actor, director, and writer
  • Memory
  • On camera versus on stage
  • Obstacles

After more than seventy years as a professional actor, director, and teacher, Howard shows how living creatively and invoking one's own personality can lead to a successful career as an actor.
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The Actor Uncovered
The Actor Uncovered is certainly not a set of rigid rules advocating one "method" or one singular "truth." Departing from the common guidebook format, Michael Howard uses a unique approach to teaching acting, reflecting on his own history and sharing his own experiences as an actor, director, and teacher. How he writes about the process and craft of acting is at once intensely personal and relatable by others.

Readers are invited to participate as though present in this master teacher's classes. Each human being, and thus each actor, is unique. Howard encourages actors to uncover their own ways of working, using their particular abilities and personality traits. Going beyond the craft and into human psychology and the importance of acting as a life force, readers will see new and deeper ways to study and practice, to be introspective, and to arrive at places of revelation about their craft.The Actor Uncovered will have much to say to beginners, to those who are advanced, and to professional and working actors. Howard discusses such topics as:
 
  • Techniques, styles, and methods in a changing society
  • Relaxation, concentration, and the breath
  • The relationships among actor, director, and writer
  • Memory
  • On camera versus on stage
  • Obstacles

After more than seventy years as a professional actor, director, and teacher, Howard shows how living creatively and invoking one's own personality can lead to a successful career as an actor.
19.99 In Stock
The Actor Uncovered

The Actor Uncovered

by Michael Howard
The Actor Uncovered

The Actor Uncovered

by Michael Howard

Paperback(Reprint)

$19.99 
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Overview

The Actor Uncovered is certainly not a set of rigid rules advocating one "method" or one singular "truth." Departing from the common guidebook format, Michael Howard uses a unique approach to teaching acting, reflecting on his own history and sharing his own experiences as an actor, director, and teacher. How he writes about the process and craft of acting is at once intensely personal and relatable by others.

Readers are invited to participate as though present in this master teacher's classes. Each human being, and thus each actor, is unique. Howard encourages actors to uncover their own ways of working, using their particular abilities and personality traits. Going beyond the craft and into human psychology and the importance of acting as a life force, readers will see new and deeper ways to study and practice, to be introspective, and to arrive at places of revelation about their craft.The Actor Uncovered will have much to say to beginners, to those who are advanced, and to professional and working actors. Howard discusses such topics as:
 
  • Techniques, styles, and methods in a changing society
  • Relaxation, concentration, and the breath
  • The relationships among actor, director, and writer
  • Memory
  • On camera versus on stage
  • Obstacles

After more than seventy years as a professional actor, director, and teacher, Howard shows how living creatively and invoking one's own personality can lead to a successful career as an actor.

Product Details

ISBN-13: 9781621536369
Publisher: Allworth
Publication date: 03/06/2018
Edition description: Reprint
Pages: 240
Product dimensions: 6.00(w) x 9.00(h) x (d)
Age Range: 18 Years

About the Author

Michael Howard has been a major force in American theater for more than seven decades. After studying with Sanford Meisner in the 1940s and Lee Strasberg in his private classes and in the Actors Studio in the 1950s, Howard enjoyed an acting career that led him to work with such American luminaries as Clifford Odets and Uta Hagen before moving on to direct and teach. He served as the first artistic director of Atlanta's Alliance Theater and later on the faculties of Julliard and Yale University. A teacher for more than fifty years in the studio he founded, Michael Howard Studios, he has been and continues to be a trainer of actors who have achieved international recognition.

Table of Contents

Introduction Michael Kahn ix

A Note from the Author xv

Prologue xvii

Beginnings xix

I The Actor in the World

Chapter 1 The Actor in the World 3

Performers and Actors 5

The Actor-Artist 6

The Lie of the Theater 10

The Specific versus the General 11

Real versus Natural 11

Truth 12

Aim 13

The Real World 15

Chapter 2 Techniques, Styles, and Methods in a Changing

Society 17

And Then Came Technology 20

And Television? 22

Chapter 3 The Loneliness of the Long-Distance Actor and the Need for Community 27

The Family 28

Success 32

The Elegant Solution 33

Superstition 34

Traditions 35

Chapter 4 Relaxation, Concentration, and the Breath 37

Relaxation 37

Tension in Life 38

Relaxation for the Actor 39

Concentration: To Focus the Attention, Stay Focused, and Shift the Focus 41

The Breath 42

Chapter 5 The Audition 45

II In Rehearsal

Chapter 6 Confronting the Character 53

The First Days 54

Hamlet's Hat 54

Tools of Discovery 56

The Elusive Character 60

Everything That Happens to the Actor Is Happening to the Character 61

Chapter 7 The Partner 64

Chapter 8 The Relationship between Actor and Director … and Writer 69

Stanislavski and the Creative Community 70

The Actor as Event Detective 72

Today's Hurry-Up World 74

The Worst-Case Scenario 76

Chapter 9 Action, Obstacle, Immediacy 80

The Doable Action 80

The Desired Obstacle 83

Now, Immediacy 83

Chapter 10 Memory 85

Literature's Most Famous Cookie 88

Mammalian Memory 89

Chapter 11 Listening to the Body 90

The Body-Brain 91

III In Performance

Chapter 12 Preparation: Internal and External 99

First, Getting to Neutral 99

Internal and External Preparation 101

Film Preparation 103

Preparation for Different Kinds of Actors 105

The Mask, the Unmasked, and the Mask That Reveals 106

Chapter 13 In Performance 108

The Theatrical Triangle 111

Craft, Experience, and Art 111

The Actor and the Audience 115

The Pause 117

Chekhov, The Cherry Orchard, and the Pause 119

The Audience and the Seriousness of What's Funny 121

Staying within Oneself: The Comedic and the Non-comedic 124

Technique: What Does It Encompass? 128

Technique and Tricks 129

Orientation 133

Entrances and Exits 135

How Much Should One Performance Be Like the Last One? 138

Repeating the Inspired or Required Moment 141

Mysteries and Puzzles 143

Stage Fright 144

Chapter 14 On Camera versus Onstage 146

Chapter 15 The Always-Present Internal Improvisation 151

IV The Continuing Profession

Chapter 16 Why an Actor's Laboratory? 157

The First Day 161

After the First Day … 163

Group Work, Exercise Work 164

Scence Work 164

Private in Public and the Class Community 166

Chapter 17 What Makes a Good Teacher? 168

Chapter 18 Out on a Limb 170

Chapter 19 Obstacles 175

The Deadening Effect of Categorizing 176

An Even Greater Obstacle 178

Solutions 179

Epilogue 182

Memoirs: Hits, Misses, and Small Catastrophes 183

The Gift 194

Acknowledgments 197

Index 200

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