The Science Of Acting

What is good acting? How does one create believable characters?. In The Science of Acting, Sam Kogan applies his theories and teaching to answering these questions. It represents a comprehensive and complete technique applying neuroscience and psychology to the role of acting. At its heart lies a unique and groundbreaking understanding of the subconscious, as well as an unparalleled insight into, and expansion of, Stanislavski's original Russian teaching. The book includes chapters on Awareness, Purposes, Events, Actions, Imagination, Free Body, Tempo-Rhythm, and Laws of Thinking, culminating.

What is good acting? How does one create believable characters? How can an actor understand a character if they do not understand themselves? In The Science of Acting, Sam Kogan uses his theories on the relationship between neuroscience, psychology and acting to answer these questions. Practical exercises provide a step-by-step guide to developing an actor's ability, culminating in Ten Steps to Creating a Character. He presents the reader with a groundbreaking understanding of the subconscious and how it can be applied to their acting. The author’s highly original perspective on Stanislavski's teaching gives readers a unique insight into their character’s minds. Sam Kogan studied at the Moscow Institute of Theatre Arts (now the Russian Academy of Theatre Arts) under the tutelage of Professor Maria Knebel. He established The Science of Acting, a complete stand-alone technique. Helen Kogan is the chair and former principal of The Academy of Science of Acting and Directing, has helped to shape her father's words and work for the publication of this book.

Explores the historical and cultural evolution of the theoretical language of the stage

The Science and Art of Acting for the Camera provides a precise yet practical approach to help unlock the mysteries of acting for film and television. Written by veteran actor, producer, and director John Howard Swain, the book offers a clear-cut, no-nonsense technique that equips aspiring or working actors with the necessary skills to succeed on camera. The technique teaches you how to build multi-dimensional characters; construct truthful and exciting relationships; ignite stimulating emotions; craft a series of discoveries guaranteed to energize your work; and much, much more. The book also provides instruction for actors working in commercials—from slating, to the dreaded "tell us about yourself" interview, to nailing "the tag" and embracing the cliché—and supplies sample commercial copy for students to practice.

Providing new insight into the well-known tradition of acting, Science and the Stanislavsky Tradition of Acting is the first book to contextualise the Stanislavsky tradition with reference to parallel developments in science. Rooted in practice, it presents an alternative perspective based on philosophy, physics, romantic science and theories of industrial management. Working from historical and archive material, as well as practical sources, Jonathan Pitches traces an evolutionary journey of actor training from the roots of the Russian tradition, Konstantin Stanislavsky, to the contemporary Muscovite director, Anatoly Vasiliev. The book explores two key developments that emerge from Stanislavsky’s system – one linear, rational and empirical, while the other is fluid,organic and intuitive. The otherwise highly contrasting acting theories of Vsevolod Meyerhold (biomechanics) and Lee Strasberg (the Method) are dealt with under the banner of the rational or Newtonian paradigm; Michael Chekov’s acting technique and the little known ideas of Anatoly Vasiliev form the centrepiece of the other Romantic, organic strain of practice. Science and the Stanislavsky Tradition of Acting opens up the theatre laboratories of five major practitioners in the twentieth and twenty-first centuries and scrutinises their acting methodologies from a scientific perspective.

A pragmatic intervention in the study of how recent discoveries within cognitive science can and should be applied to performance. Drawing on his experience the author interrogates the key cognitive activities involved in performance inc non-verbal communication; thought, speech, and gesture relationships; empathy, imagination, and emotion.

The Actor, Image and Action is a 'new generation' approach to the craft of acting; the first full-length study of actor training using the insights of cognitive neuroscience. In a brilliant reassessment of both the practice and theory of acting, Rhonda Blair examines the physiological relationship between bodily action and emotional experience. In doing so she provides the latest step in Stanislavsky's attempts to help the actor 'reach the unconscious by conscious means'. Recent developments in scientific thinking about the connections between biology and cognition require new ways of understanding many elements of human activity, including: imagination emotion memory physicality reason. The Actor, Image and Action looks at how these are in fact inseparable in the brain's structure and function, and their crucial importance to an actor’s engagement with a role. The book vastly improves our understanding of the actor's process and is a must for any actor or student of acting.

“A refreshing and enlightening new perspective on what it means to be powerful.”—Susan Cain, bestselling author of Quiet We all know what it looks like to use power badly. But how much do we really know about how to use power well? There is so much we get wrong about power: who has it, what it looks like, and the role it plays in our lives. Grounded in over two decades’ worth of scientific research and inspired by the popular class of the same name at Stanford’s Graduate School of Business, Acting with Power offers a new and eye-opening paradigm that overturns everything we thought we knew about the nature of power. Although we all feel powerless sometimes, we have more power than we tend to believe. Power exists in every relationship, not just at the top of big institutions. It isn’t merely a function of status or hierarchy, either. It’s about how much we are needed and how well we take care of other people. We often assume that power flows to those with the loudest voice or the most commanding presence. But, in fact, true power is often much quieter and more deferential than we realize. Moreover, it’s not just how much power we have but how we use it that determines how powerful we actually are. Actors aren’t the only ones who play roles for a living. We all make choices about how to use the power that comes with our given circumstances. We aren’t always cast in the roles we desire—or the ones we feel prepared to play. Some of us struggle to step up and be taken more seriously, while others have trouble standing back and ceding the spotlight. In Acting with Power, Deborah Gruenfeld shows how we can get more comfortable with power by adopting an actor’s mindset. Because power isn’t a personal attribute. It’s a part we play in someone else’s story.