Theatre People Anonymous

Resident Theatre Maker, ex Theatre Kid, and Theatre Student. I've been them all. I want to build a resource and a community for all theatre makers on tumblr. Actors, SMs, Designers, Makers, Dramaturgs, and just Nerds. Everyone welcome. I will post little memes about the Struggles and articles and essays about things I find important. Feel free to request and submit and Vent.

[dragonhoardingwips-deactivated2]

I NEED YOUR HELP TO SPREAD THIS

This blog in the photo accompaninstuo91 does not have a proper blog. When you click on their blog, an image pops up asking you if you're 18 and if you say yes or no, it directs you to a virus/porn site that isnt on tumblr

The bots are evolving to actively redirect you/ give viruses to you

Please reblog this so you dont fall victim. Do not click follow or try to go onto their blog, instead the only way to report them is to click the little three dots and click report

@staff please stop shit like this

[parakeet]

[firesigh-deactivated20181118]

this has the aura of being funny but i genuinely have no idea what the fuck any of them are saying

[remakesihavetoremake-deactivate]

bööls of wa’ah

[dangerhamster]

this is what Scottish Twitter is supposed to sound like

[theatrepeopleanonymous]

Shockingly, there are huge differneces how each country trains their directors. Many schools in the UK will beat your ego out of you by force (special shoutout to the Royal Conservatoire of Scotland), whereas there are still countries in Europe that apparently spend all three years telling their directing students "Yes, you are a Very Special Boy. Congratulations. They all live to fulfill your fantasies. You deserve it because you are so Special"

[theatrepeopleanonymous]

"Here, let me show you three different ways you can fall. I learned it during my stage combat course. Have I mentioned it before? Yeah, we learned for to fence with four different swords. Come here, this is how you throw a fake punch."

[theatrepeopleanonymous]

Naturalism is a gorgeous thing and I have all the respect for its American bastard child, Method, but actors need to be teamplayers. In my opinion, that's even more crucial than being their character.

[theatrepeopleanonymous]

Directors need more practical knowledge! It's not just enough to know about fancy acting techniques. They need to understand the amount of consequences even the tiniest decisions have. Consequences for people they will likely never even have met!

I think the whole debate on directors' visions and whether they're needed is important in on itself, but if you're gonna come in with a clear idea how you want everything, hold yourself to a rigid standard and make it work even if you don't like it anymore.

[theatrepeopleanonymous]

"Yeah sorry, it's gone. But you're still in that other scene so it's okay, right?"

[theatrepeopleanonymous]

Actions: Active Acting

This page's debut post is about a fairly common concept, but I thought I'd discuss it anyway: Actioning. I feel like used in a proper way, it can be one of the most powerful tools an actor can master.

At its most basic, you assign a transitive verb (so an action you are doing to someone) to each line, instead of an emotion.

So, for example:

"I love you" (lovingly) could be "I love you" (I confess to you, I beg you, I accuse you, etc), which makes the line much more interesting and helps the actor find a great deal of security. Instead of understanding a character as a bunch of emotions they have in reaction to things, they understand their character in terms of what they actively try to do, meaning they will not have to summon any emotion. The actor knows that the next line is meant to be a confession, and that knowledge gives them the freedom to allow whatever emotion this inspires to come into their performance.

I have this very hand handout, but to my shame do not know who made it. It contains a more thorough explanantion of actioning, and a bunch of helpfully ordered transitive verbs.

ActorsThesaurusHandout.pdf

Now let's dig a bit deeper though: I've found that brainstorming possible actions for each line, then trying them out or leaping for the most interesting option can be fun and create amazing things BUT it takes very long, and it can make a scene lose its shape. Not to mention that it may not allign at all with what the other character may be working on. That is why I would always recommend working out beats, objectives and intentions before starting with the actions. If you do not have that kind of time, at least try to think what overall goal the character may be trying to achieve in this scene and then let your actions allign with that somewhat.

Next time, I will talk more in depth about beats, objectives and intentions and how they can help