WANT MORE? Become a subscriber for bonus content! https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/actingclass/subscribe As we continue making discoveries about all the dimensions that make up a character, we always want to look for what is actable or doable. For example, if your character is compulsive, the challenge is to translate that into something doable. One way to get there is by asking ourselves: what is the nature of being compulsive? And eventually we might come up with the need “to crea...
Aug 11, 2020•16 min•Season 1Ep. 25
This week, Milton talks about how building different moments in your characters past reveals new information about them, and the importance of knowing exactly what that information is. We must ask the question: What does this moment I’m building tell me about my character? Your answer will clarify a new dimension of this human being. Then, we must integrate every character-discovery, so that you have a process where each piece builds on the next, or in the words of Stephen Sondheim: “the art of ...
Aug 04, 2020•10 min•Season 1Ep. 24
As we approach a play and begin letting the facts simmer in our imagination, we can begin to ask questions, as though we are interviewing our character. There are no right or wrong questions and no two actors will ask the same ones. Your own personal exploration becomes part of your signature on the role. But here’s the rub: we cannot answer these questions based on our own limited personal experience, or from the cliches we have absorbed from film and television. We need to do research. What do...
Jul 28, 2020•15 min•Season 1Ep. 23
We often run into trouble when we try to recreate a performance. This is because the action “to do what I did yesterday” is different from the action that made you DO what you did yesterday. But there are ways to avoid falling into this trap. In this episode, Milton gives examples of adjustments you can make so that the circumstances keep feeding you and the performance stays alive.
Jul 21, 2020•12 min•Season 1Ep. 22
WANT MORE? Become a subscriber for bonus content! https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/actingclass/subscribe It can often be overwhelming if you think about the massive responsibility we have as actors and all the many pieces we must fully own before it all comes together to create an illusion that looks and sounds like the truth. We can’t master everything at once and if we try to, we’ll become paralyzed like the centipede who forgot how to walk when he realized each leg was doing some...
Jul 14, 2020•12 min•Season 1Ep. 21
This week, Milton talks about resisting the urge to play an effect, or a result. Often if we receive an “effect direction” such as: “it’s too big” or “it’s too small,” we will then overcompensate in the opposite direction. By doing so, we’re playing an effect, focused on our behavior as opposed to what creates that behavior. Part of being an intelligent actor is having the ability to translate an “effect direction” into something actable or doable. For instance: can I get more specific so that t...
Jul 09, 2020•9 min•Season 1Ep. 20
WANT MORE? Become a subscriber for bonus content! https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/actingclass/subscribe This episode is the third in our trilogy about making everything something. This week Milton gives us a strategy for this. Using his “Why I Love the Theater” exercise as an example, he discusses how to building one thing at a time by talking it out, making sure it feeds you and adding more, little by little. “We are after moments so that nothing sound pedestrian, so that every si...
Jun 30, 2020•17 min•Season 1Ep. 19
WANT MORE? Become a subscriber for bonus content! https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/actingclass/subscribe This week’s episode is a continuation of last week’s topic. Milton talks about the importance of treating every fact and every element as if it’s important. Even those facts that seem to be incidental plot points cannot be skipped over in rehearsal. If they are, the lie that is your play will not sound like the truth. They are facts that give us the opportunity to go deeper into charac...
Jun 23, 2020•16 min•Season 1Ep. 18
In this episode, Milton takes a question from Benjamin in Canada who asked him to clarify an idea from our episode The Biggest Sin: beginning your work on a play as if you know nothing. Another way to say that is: begin your work with a mindset of assuming nothing. If you assume you already know about a fact of your character or the circumstances of the play, you’ll neglect to dig deeper and end up just throwing it away, thus making your performance cliche or 2-dimensional. Nothing is inconseque...
Jun 16, 2020•13 min•Season 1Ep. 17
Last episode we talked about theme. This week, we continue that conversation but make the distinction between truly big ideas and everything else. Big ideas affect all of us, they shape civilization. As actors, our understanding of a big idea has to go beyond our own personal relationship to it in order for us to communicate the idea that the writer intended. This is what is meant by “raising ourselves up to the size of the idea,” as opposed to bringing it down to our limited human experience....
Jun 09, 2020•23 min•Season 1Ep. 16
WANT MORE? Become a subscriber for bonus content! https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/actingclass/subscribe In every play, there’s a big, universal, cosmic idea, (or theme.) It’s what the writer wants to communicate. As actors we must know what this big idea is. We won’t know what it is right away- our rehearsal process is our discovery process. But eventually, in order to play the part, we have to reach this understanding. Once we do, we must raise ourselves up to the size of the idea...
Jun 05, 2020•17 min•Season 1Ep. 15
This week’s episode is a direct response to a question from one of our listeners. Belen from Argentina wanted to know what to do when she’s in the middle of a scene and suddenly remembers none of it is real. Email your questions to: questionsformilton@gmail.com
May 26, 2020•8 min•Season 1Ep. 14
WANT MORE? Become a subscriber for bonus content! https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/actingclass/subscribe It’s true that your talent is in your choices, but that’s not all there’s to it. Your choices must serve the central idea of the play, and must be consistent with the given circumstances of your character. And yet, making a good choice is still not enough. You have to understand what the cost is of your choices and then earn them emotionally. Lastly, we must strive towards creati...
May 18, 2020•20 min•Season 1Ep. 13
Acting is not mathematical. You won’t always use the same tools, and what worked for you during one project may not work for you in another. There are so many different paths you can take when building something out of nothing, but here’s what is certain: you must dig deep into every aspect. If you just logically answer questions, thinking that if you have the answers your work is done, your performance will be a cliche. This takes a long time to get to, but eventually we come to realize that yo...
May 13, 2020•12 min•Season 1Ep. 12
If there’s one word all actors are familiar with it’s “objective.” But how often is the idea of “objective” a practical tool and how often is it an albatross around our necks? Stanislavsky wanted acting vocabulary to come out of common usage, and he wanted it to free us, not cripple us. Today we examine where the word came from, and whether the concept of “objective” was even Stanislavsky’s in the first place.
May 05, 2020•19 min•Season 1Ep. 11
We've all been there. You look at your script and see something that resembles a list. What do most actors do? They act it as a list and by doing so, sound like they're running down a dull inventory of groceries. There's no connection to what they're talking about, no specific choices made, and therefore, no real human being with a past standing before us. This is an episode about having a specific relationship to everything you talk about. You never want to miss the opportunity to build each el...
Apr 27, 2020•14 min•Season 1Ep. 10
WANT MORE? Become a subscriber for bonus content! https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/actingclass/subscribe When Milton recently asked Gustavo Dudamel, the conductor of the Los Angeles Philharmonic, what he saw when he looked at a piece of orchestral music, he said: “I see phrases.” This is a perfect metaphor for how we need to approach text as actors: not as a group of sentences but as a sequence of thoughts. As they do in life, the words need to come out of the thought, not the other...
Apr 21, 2020•9 min•Season 1Ep. 9
In the Summer of 1980 during the run of a regional production of Boys in the Band, Milton wrote a letter to Stella Adler asking for her guidance. She responded: “The actor in you is beginning to feel the birth pangs in acquiring the role and that is very normal. The work you do at home is done, and is in you…Let it go where it wants. That’s the impressive joy of just letting it happen instead of forcing it.” Milton’s book “I Don’t Need an Acting Class”, on which this podcast is based, was born o...
Apr 21, 2020•6 min•Season 1Ep. 8
Whether you’re auditioning for a pilot or in rehearsal for a Clifford Odets play, our jobs as actors is to launch, imaginatively, into the world of the piece, and open ourselves to its influence. But how do we build this world? By talking out one believable moment at a time and knowing we have to earn what we create. Have a question or comment? Email us at: questionsformilton@gmail.com
Apr 14, 2020•18 min•Season 1Ep. 7
As actors, most of us have had the experience of closely identifying with a character we’re playing. In this episode, Milton talks about the mistake so many of us make when we feel like we relate to a role. “The problem is,” he says, “somehow in the back of our minds we think that’s enough, that we don’t have to do any other work.” Tune in to find out how to avoid this common pitfall, and how we can turn our identification with a character into something actable. Have a question or comment? Emai...
Apr 06, 2020•12 min•Season 1Ep. 6
How did we end up studying acting in the first place? In this episode, Milton puts his teaching in context by giving us a brief history of modern acting technique; from 19th-century realism to Konstantin Stanislavky and the American teachers who adapted his principals and revolutionized the American acting landscape.
Mar 30, 2020•12 min•Season 1Ep. 5
WANT MORE? Become a subscriber for bonus content! https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/actingclass/subscribe In this episode, Milton talks about how writing and thinking are great ways for actors to avoid acting, and offers a practical technique that allows us to fully own (and earn) our character’s reality, or in other words: make a complete lie sound like the truth. Email your questions to: questionsformilton@gmail.com...
Mar 23, 2020•21 min•Season 1Ep. 4
WANT MORE? Become a subscriber for bonus content! https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/actingclass/subscribe Contrary to popular belief, just because you can answer “who, what, why, where, when” and “what do I want?” doesn’t mean you can act. Stella Adler said: “Facts are death to the actor until they’re fed through the imagination and become the *experience* of the facts.” Tune into this episode to learn how you can allow the facts of a play to simmer within you and bring you to life....
Mar 21, 2020•14 min•Season 1Ep. 3
WANT MORE? Become a subscriber for bonus content! https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/actingclass/subscribe In this episode, Milton reveals what he feels to be The Biggest Sin of Acting and offers solutions on how we can resist the urge to commit it. What is one of those solutions? Look at the blank canvas and think: “so many possibilities.” Email your acting questions to: questionsformilton@gmail.com...
Mar 16, 2020•22 min•Season 1Ep. 2
WANT MORE? Become a subscriber for bonus content! https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/actingclass/subscribe Have you ever worried that studying and honing a technique as an actor will destroy your natural ability? Is acting just about being "natural"? In this first episode of I Don't Need an Acting Class, Milton answers the question: "why take an acting class?"
Mar 09, 2020•9 min•Season 1Ep. 1
