Based on the popular workshop of the same name, Audition Psych 101 takes a detailed, unvarnished look at the mental gremlins that can make auditioning stressful. With frankness, humor, and a pro-actor sensibility, professional working actor Michael Kostroff (The Wire, The Deuce, Luke Cage, The Blacklist, Law & Order: SVU, etc.) explodes commonly accepted mythologies and offers a fresh, more logical, and more effective approach to the whole process. Speaking directly to other professional a...

An invaluable guide to the traditions and best practices of the professional stage actor, from first rehearsal to final curtain.Professional stage actors are expected to have ready knowledge of a multitude of unwritten yet well-established protocols. Traditionally, this knowledge was passed along from one generation of stage actors to the next via word of mouth, or were learned by having one’s missteps corrected—until now.In The Stage Actor’s Handbook

For nearly a decade, Jackie Apodaca and Michael Kostroff shared duties as advice columnists for the actors’ trade paper, Backstage. Their highly popular weekly feature, "The Working Actor," fielded questions from actors all over the country. A cross between "Dear Abby" and The Hollywood Reporter, their column was a fact-based, humorous, compassionate take on the questions actors most wanted answered. Using some of their most interesting, entertaining, and informative colu...

Ever wonder what it’s like to be a real working actor? Wonder no more! Michael Kostroff is here to reveal, in hilarious detail, just what it’s like to travel with the road companies of The Producers and Les Miserables. His firsthand account of the exciting, funny, and sometimes bizarre highlights of his journey includes working at a temp job when his agent calls to say, You got the part!”; singing on a revolving stage while lugging a dead body; seeing ghosts in haunted theaters; and much ...

What do Natalie Portman, Robert Downey, Jr., Zach Braff, and Mandy Moore have in common? Before they were stars, they were campers at Stagedoor Manor, the premier summer theater camp for children and teenagers. Founded in 1975, Stagedoor continues to attract scores of young performers eager to find kindred spirits, to sing out loud, to become working actors—or maybe even stars.Every summer for the past thirty-five years, a new crop of campers has come to the Catski...

Courageous and compelling, an invaluable resource for actors, directors, and teachers that can open a pathway to inner creativity."The actor will do, in public, what is considered impossible." When the renowned Polish director Jerzy Grotowski began his 1967 American workshop with these words, his students were stunned. But within four weeks they themselves had experienced the "impossible."In An Acrobat of the Heart, teacher-director-playwright Step...

A practical, hands-on guide - for actors, directors, teachers and students - to Brecht's theory and practice of theatre, with a full set of exercises to help put theory into practice.The Complete Brecht Toolkit examines, one by one, Brecht's many, sometimes contradictory ideas about theatre - and how he put them into practice. Here are explanations of all the famous key terms, such as Alienation Effect, Epic Theatre and Gestus, as well as many others which go to make up wh...

The Potentials of Spaces interrogates the relationship between scenography and performance in contemporary dramatic activities. The book provides an illuminating platform for discussion concerning the interrelations between theatrical movement and gesture in physical space. In exploring territories of performance, the author equally combines theoretical research with details of dramatic methods and performances, thus providing a valuable insight into working practices. Avant-garde...

You remind me of my uncle's brother. He was always on the move, that man. Never without his passport. Had an eye for the girls. Very much your build. Bit of an athlete. Long-jump specialist. He had a habit of demonstrating different run-ups in the drawing-room round about Christmas time. Had a penchant for nuts.In a dilapidated house in West London, three men - kind but damaged Aston, the shambling tramp he invites to stay, and Aston's violently unpredictable brother Mick ...

The Lee Strasberg Notes reproduces the original teachings of a unique voice in actor training, for the very first time. It is a stunning document in the history and ongoing practice of Strasberg’s Method.Compiled and edited by Lola Cohen, the book is based on unpublished transcripts of Strasberg’s own classes on acting, directing and Shakespeare. It recreates his theoretical approach, as well as the practical exercises used by his students, and brilliantly conveys his appr...

"There is a mystery in every play that is written, no matter whether classical and poetic or modern and demotic, and it is the sound and the rhythm of the writing which take us there."Cicely Berry, the Royal Shakespeare Company's Voice Director, has been working alongside some of Britain's greatest actors and directors for over fifty years and is widely regarded as one of the most significant voice teachers in the world.From Word to Play draws on Cicely's extensive experien...

"I was totally unprepared for the transformation that Seth's technique created in me. . . . I realized that what I thought I knew about acting up to that point was largely misguided . . . but I now had a great, talented, dedicated teacher who generously wanted to share his tools with everyone. There is muscularity, not to mention wisdom and truth to Seth's techniques. He is a wonderful teacher, and I know that having him as my first guide is one of the luckiest things to have happened to m...