The work of a fine actor is captivating. But everyone is capable of brilliance! Whether you want to improve your performances, nail a presentation, or just get more in touch with your creative side, voice and acting instruction can be transformative. Actor and director Lynn Singer has taught voice, speech and acting for 25 years to celebrities, Tony- and Emmy-winning actors, and Fortune 500 executives. You’ll learn cutting-edge techniques that will help you connect your full emotional life to your work, and exercises that will wake up your body and help you take risks.
Creativity and transformation is my work. Today we are going to talk about the transformation of actors and acting and how acting can transform you. Art is very powerful now. Acting. Why? Actors are charismatic, they’re courageous, they’re bigger than life, some of them have bigger than life lives, and that is very interesting. But, what is it that really attracts us about acting? To act is to do. Most people aren’t too happy with what they’re doing. They don’t feel the courage to jump in and truly do what they want to do. Acting puts you in the moment. You must have a lot of courage to stay and be in the moment. What else? What do you feel about being an actor? What would that make you do? What would it make you feel about yourself in the world? How do we come to acting? What do we have to do, what do we have to know that is different to walking and talking? Well, acting is very heightened. Our sense of the world gets very heightened when we act. We are moving almost into, sometimes, a dream state. Things are clearer. Things are more beautiful, are more powerful. They’re stronger. We move from one thing to the next without as much shlepping around as we would do in a normal day to day life. There is no time for that. We’re in action. Even if the action is internal, we are in very deep action. How do we do that? How do we heighten what we know? One way is to work on our senses. We call it sensory education. It helps put you into the ‘in-ness’ of life. To be right here with yourself in this moment. Not forward and not behind, but right here. All five senses need to be opened. Juiced.
So, right now, wherever you are what do you hear? How can you heighten your listening? Where are you? Is there anything happening in your world, right now? Is your cat moving? Is your dog moving? Are you hearing outside? Things you don’t usually hear? Are you hearing a car? Are you hearing a bird? What kind of a bird? What does that bird sound like? What is different when you really concentrate? Concentrate on that; listening and hearing. What are you seeing? Look around you. Look at a piece of furniture and really look at it. What color is it? Well, it’s sort of blue. It’s sort of brown. No. What color is it? What style is it? How big is it? What is the fabric like? Look at things as if you’ve never seen them before, that is a part of acting. It’s got to be happening now. Because if it happens before or after, you’re not in the moment. That’s what gets the audience bored. They want to see you alive in the moment! Feeling. Touch. What does this fabric feel like? What are you wearing? Put your hand on your arm. What do you feel? Feel it like you’ve never felt it before. It’s exciting isn’t it. Now, I want you to think about this. I want you to make a great meal or I want you to go to a beautiful restaurant and have a great meal. I want you to taste and smell everything, everything, as if you’ve never tasted or smelled before. Start right now. Are there any flowers? Do you have any flowers near you? Is there a rose? Is there hand lotion? Is there a lemon? Get something right now and smell it. There is an under-smell to every smell. There is a top smell and then there is a bottom smell. Notice when you really allow yourself to be in the moment, time stands still. Your energy changes. Can you sense that? Your energy gets very strong, concentrated. What are you noticing?
Heightening your sensory perceptions is very, very important. I have actors and I have worked with actors and they just touch, smell, taste, grab a hold of anything that they can find in order to awaken themselves. That’s a very beginning exercise and there are lots of beginning kind of exercises. There are theatre games, there are all kinds of improvisational kinds of techniques that can be done to heighten your courage.
