A few weeks ago I spent an evening at an acting class with the London Actors' Hub, a company set up by fellow "Something There's That's Missing" actress Siu-see Hung and actress Evie Lockley.
As well as the acting classes, the London Actors' Hub provides a one-stop hub for actors looking for advice and training in the industry. There is a free eBook, The Actors' Survival Guide, available to download from their website, as well as a blog providing interesting and helpful information on a variety of subjects such as the Meisner Technique, knowing your casting and how to use digital tools for networking and building relationships.
I attended a four-hour evening workshop that was an intensive tour through Meisner and the four principles an actor can use in approaching text. The first half of the class was spent on the repetition exercise used in Meisner, an exercise that pushes an actor towards really focusing on their partner. The aim is, by focusing on your partner, to get out of your head and become fully present and in the moment so that reactions are real and truthful. We then progressed to using the Meisner technique with four principles. The first principle is an actor's preparation (that is, what has just happened to your character), the second is the objective (what you want from your partner), the third is the stakes (attached to the objective) and the fourth is known as the 'as if' principle (so that you respond to your partner as if they are a particular person). The workshop ended with work on monologues, which showed how the principles were an especially helpful way to add life, truthfulness and variety to a monologue.
We got through a lot in the evening, and the workshop was a perfect introduction to the Meisner technique and its application. The Meisner technique is not a technique easily and quickly learned, however, since it requires patience and literally repetition over long periods of time, so The London Actors' Hub now provides an eight-hour workshop (a better length of time in which to gain the full benefits of the class) as well as drop-in classes in which to keep flexing those Meisner muscles. Siu-see and Evie are both fun and extremely knowledgeable practitioners to work with, and you also feel you're in good hands since the acting classes have been designed by Aileen Gonsalves (the Head of Acting at Arts Ed, as well as the the director of the Youth Ensemble at the RSC, and founder of her own theatre company Butterfly Theatre Company). I also personally felt at home due to the company's links with Arts Ed drama school, a school that I would have loved to train at before I decided that a two-year course was a better option for me.
At the moment I'm currently training away at Drama Studio London, but I'm hoping to drop into a few of these classes in due course. I feel that they would be a perfect compliment to my own training, as well as quite a fun way to spend an evening.
You can visit the London Actors' Hub website here, as well as follow them on Facebook here.
As well as the acting classes, the London Actors' Hub provides a one-stop hub for actors looking for advice and training in the industry. There is a free eBook, The Actors' Survival Guide, available to download from their website, as well as a blog providing interesting and helpful information on a variety of subjects such as the Meisner Technique, knowing your casting and how to use digital tools for networking and building relationships.
I attended a four-hour evening workshop that was an intensive tour through Meisner and the four principles an actor can use in approaching text. The first half of the class was spent on the repetition exercise used in Meisner, an exercise that pushes an actor towards really focusing on their partner. The aim is, by focusing on your partner, to get out of your head and become fully present and in the moment so that reactions are real and truthful. We then progressed to using the Meisner technique with four principles. The first principle is an actor's preparation (that is, what has just happened to your character), the second is the objective (what you want from your partner), the third is the stakes (attached to the objective) and the fourth is known as the 'as if' principle (so that you respond to your partner as if they are a particular person). The workshop ended with work on monologues, which showed how the principles were an especially helpful way to add life, truthfulness and variety to a monologue.
We got through a lot in the evening, and the workshop was a perfect introduction to the Meisner technique and its application. The Meisner technique is not a technique easily and quickly learned, however, since it requires patience and literally repetition over long periods of time, so The London Actors' Hub now provides an eight-hour workshop (a better length of time in which to gain the full benefits of the class) as well as drop-in classes in which to keep flexing those Meisner muscles. Siu-see and Evie are both fun and extremely knowledgeable practitioners to work with, and you also feel you're in good hands since the acting classes have been designed by Aileen Gonsalves (the Head of Acting at Arts Ed, as well as the the director of the Youth Ensemble at the RSC, and founder of her own theatre company Butterfly Theatre Company). I also personally felt at home due to the company's links with Arts Ed drama school, a school that I would have loved to train at before I decided that a two-year course was a better option for me.
At the moment I'm currently training away at Drama Studio London, but I'm hoping to drop into a few of these classes in due course. I feel that they would be a perfect compliment to my own training, as well as quite a fun way to spend an evening.
You can visit the London Actors' Hub website here, as well as follow them on Facebook here.
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