Six weeks Meisner-Technique Summerworkshop
with Jaqueline McClintock!
20.06.-29.07.2005, 30 days, 180 h, 20 participants, 1590 €uro
In two sessions every day the students will learn very intensively the acting technique, Sanford Meisner developped.
Sanford Meisner advocated a “method” approach to acting. But as film director Sydney Pollack once wrote, his method is perhaps the “simplest, most direct, least pretentious and most effective” of them all. Meisners former students include Gregory Peck, Diane Keaton, Steve McQueen, Joanne Woodward, Jon Voight and Robert Duvall. For purposes of a brief introduction, the teachings can be outlined with reference to: the repetition game; knocks and activities; emotional preparation; and advanced Meisner. In this introductory class Jaqueline McClintock will take the students through the first three stages.
REPETITION
Meisner is perhaps best known for creating “the repetition game,” an exercise designed to get actors in touch with their instinctual, spontaneous impulses, with a fluid, highly improvisational quality that makes it entertaining to watch and (for most actors) stimulating to do. It also prepares actors for the next Meisner exercise: knocks and activities.
KNOCKS and ACTIVITIES
Knocks and activities are done in conjunction. One actor is the “knocker,” the person entering the room. The other actor is the person doing the “independent activity,” ie. he or she is busy doing something when their partner comes into the room. It sounds straightforward, but the degree of difficulty varies according to what the actors put into preparing for these exercises. Successful knock and activity exercises have scene-like qualities and strengthen actors concentration. They also allow them to work off each other as feelings come up, which lays the groundwork for emotional preparation. EMOTIONAL PREPARATION
“Emotional preparation” is the name given to a set of exercises for advanced Meisner students in which they are required to enter a room in a state of heightened emotion. “Emotional preparation” is built atop the structure that students get from knocks and activities. Once again, one actor is asked to enter a room, where he or she finds another doing an independent activity. But this time, the actor entering must do so with his or her “engine going.”Meisner coaches try and teach actors how to govern themselves once they get those strong emotions going (beginning by reminding them to keep working off their partner through repetition). But ultimately, preparation is intensely personal work where actors set out to discover what moves them- which helps them when they go onto advanced Meisner.