Latinx Actor Training

Latinx Actor Training presents essays and pioneering research from leading Latinx practitioners and scholars in the United States to examine the history and future of Latino/a/x/e actor training practices and approaches. Born out of the urgent need to address the inequities in academia and the industry as Latinx representation on stage and screen remains disproportionately low despite population growth; this book seeks to reimagine and restructure the practice of actor training by inviting deep investigation into heritage and identity practices. Latinx Actor Training features contributions covering current and historical acting methodologies, principles, and training, explorations of linguistic identity, casting considerations, and culturally inclusive practices that aim to empower a new generation of Latinx actors and to assist the educators who are entrusted with their training. This book is dedicated to creating career success and championing positive narratives to combat pervasive and damaging stereotypes. Latinx Actor Training offers culturally inclusive pedagogies that will be invaluable for students, practitioners, and scholars interested in the intersections of Latinx herencia (heritage), identity, and actor training.

Fifty Key Figures in Latinx and Latin American Theatre is a critical introduction to the most influential and innovative theatre practitioners in the Americas, all of whom have been pioneers in changing the field. The chosen artists work through political, racial, gender, class, and geographical divides to expand our understanding of Latin American and Latinx theatre while at the same time offering a space to discuss contested nationalities and histories. Each entry considers the artist’s or collective’s body of work in its historical, cultural, and political context and provides a brief biography and suggestions for further reading. The volume covers artists from the present day to the 1960s—the emergence of a modern theatre that was concerned with Latinx and Latin American themes distancing themselves from an European approach. A deep and enriching resource for the classroom and individual study, this is the first book that any student of Latinx and Latin American theatre should read.

Acting: The Basics 3rd Edition is a dynamic response to recent societal and entertainment industry changes, focusing on inclusion, diversity and equity, and the actor's trajectory from training to rehearsal to performance on stage and screen, with hands-on tools and global perspectives. The book offers vital ways of building a practical acting toolkit, through breath, body, voice, emotions, imagination and spirit. We begin with a socio-cultural look at actor as magician, storyteller, healer and social changer. Throughout, there are insights from Black, Indigenous, First Nations, South/East Asian, intercultural and feminist practitioners, together with methods focusing on disability and accessibility, intimacy directives, mindfulness and intersectionality. Key 'canonical' figures still feature (e.g., Stanislavsky, Meisner, Brecht and Suzuki) with re-visioned perspective. Scattered throughout are post-COVID insights, plus expanded sections on screen acting (including self-tapes) and Shakespeare. This book is useful for beginner or expert, as it's always helpful getting back to basics. Because the author is both an actor and an actor trainer, the tools are steeped in user-friendly application. At the same time, transferable skills (e.g., dynamic listening and empathy) are shown as relevant to everyone. With a glossary of terms and useful online suggestions (including blogs, videos and podcasts), this is ideal for anyone learn anew about the practice and history of acting, or to take their acting and teaching into new terrain.

Stages of Reckoning is a crucial conversation about how racialized bodies and power intersect within actor training spaces. This book provokes embodied and intellectual discomfort for the reader to take risks with their ideologies, identities, and practices and to make new pedagogical choices for students with racialized identities. Centering the voices of actor trainers of color to acknowledge their personal experience and professional pedagogy as theory, this volume illuminates actionable ideas for text work, casting, voice, consent practices, and movement while offering decolonial approaches to current Eurocentric methods. These offerings invite the reader to create spaces where students can bring more of themselves, their communities, and their stories into their training and as fodder for performance making that will lead to a more just world. This book is for people in high/secondary schools, higher education, and private training studios who wish to teach and direct actors of color in ways that more fully honor their multiple identities.

Critical Acting Pedagogy: Intersectional Approaches invites readers to think about pedagogy in actor training as a research field in its own right: to sit with the complex challenges, risks, and rewards of the acting studio; to recognise the shared vulnerability, courage, and love that defines our field and underpins our practices. This collection of chapters, from a diverse group of acting teachers at different points in their careers, working in conservatoires and universities, illuminates current developments in decolonising studios to foreground multiple and intersecting identities in the pedagogic exchange. In acknowledging how their positionality affects their practices and materials, 20 acting teachers from the United Kingdom, the United States, Europe, and Oceania offer practical tools for the social justice acting classroom, with rich insights for developing critical acting pedagogies. Authors test and develop research approaches, drawn from social sciences, to tackle dominant ideologies in organisation, curriculum, and methodologies of actor training. This collection frames current efforts to promote equality, diversity, and inclusivity in the studio. It contributes to the collective movement to improve current educational practice in acting, prioritising well-being, and centering the student experience.

Latinx peoples and culture have permeated Shakespearean performance in the United States for over 75 years—a phenomenon that, until now, has been largely overlooked as Shakespeare studies has taken a global turn in recent years. Author Carla Della Gatta argues that theater-makers and historians must acknowledge this presence and influence in order to truly engage the complexity of American Shakespeares. Latinx Shakespeares investigates the history, dramaturgy, and language of the more than 140 Latinx-themed Shakespearean productions in the United States since the 1960s—the era of West Side Story. This first-ever book of Latinx representation in the most-performed playwright’s canon offers a new methodology for reading ethnic theater looks beyond the visual to prioritize aural signifiers such as music, accents, and the Spanish language. The book’s focus is on textual adaptations or performances in which Shakespearean plays, stories, or characters are made Latinx through stage techniques, aesthetics, processes for art-making (including casting), and modes of storytelling. The case studies range from performances at large repertory theaters to small community theaters and from established directors to emerging playwrights. To analyze these productions, the book draws on interviews with practitioners, script analysis, first-hand practitioner insight, and interdisciplinary theoretical lenses, largely by scholars of color. Latinx Shakespeares moves toward healing by reclaiming Shakespeare as a borrower, adapter, and creator of language whose oeuvre has too often been mobilized in the service of a culturally specific English-language whiteness that cannot extricate itself from its origins within the establishment of European/British colonialism/imperialism.

Actor Training in Anglophone Countries offers a firsthand account of the most significant acting programs in English-speaking countries throughout the world. The culmination of archival research and fieldwork spanning six years, it is the only work of its kind that studies the history of actor training from an international perspective. It presents the current moment as crucial for student actors and those who teach them. As the profession continues to change, new and progressive approaches to training have become as urgent as they are necessary. Using drama schools and universities as its subjects of inquiry, this book investigates acting programs in the UK, Ireland, the US, Canada, Australia, and New Zealand. Among the case studies are the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art, National Theatre School of Canada, Western Australian Academy of Performing Arts, and Carnegie Mellon University. All recognized for their distinguished reputations by industry professionals and acting teachers alike, the book examines each program’s pedagogical approach, administrative structure, funding apparatus, and alumni success. In doing so, it identifies the challenges facing acting schools today and offers a new direction for training in the twenty-first century. Actor Training in Anglophone Countries will be of interest to theatre and performance scholars, artists, students, and teachers.

The Voice Coach's Toolkit identifies the primary professional vocal coaching opportunities and the avenues by which a student or early career coach can navigate the vocation. For purposes of this book, the Voice Coach is defined as someone who coaches the spoken voice in three precise areas: the teaching artist, the professional film/TV/theatre coach, and the professional voice-user coach. These three coaching worlds are broadly defined and each area includes in-depth interviews and practical advice from top coaches along with the author’s personal expertise. The book can be read in sections or as a whole, making it as useful for early career coaches as it is for those looking to expand their vocal coaching career or vocal pedagogy students who need a broad survey of all three areas.