Different Every Time: Spontaneity in Acting

"The supreme skill of the actor is to appear spontaneous while being very deliberate in everything he does."

- Dorothy Heathcote

Different Every Time
Saturdays, May 18–June 22
No Class May 26

11:00 AM to 12:30 PM

Instructor: David Zobell (Education Director)

Tuition: $200 

REGISTRATION CLOSES MAY 13.

To register click here.

Acting, by nature, can be very repetitive: say the same lines, stand in the same places, find the same emotional notes. So what is it that makes some actors so brilliant? Why do we find their performances so engaging and moving? The secret is spontaneity - the minute improvisations that happen within each line without disturbing the framework of the play that create the "illusion of the first time."

While this seems like a simple concept, putting this theory into practice can be remarkably challenging. Here's where our class comes in.

In "Different Every Time," teen actors will learn to make each time they approach a piece as exciting as the first! Through a variety of techniques involving individual and group exercises, the class will focus on fundamentals: spontaneity, listening, verbal and non-verbal communication, relaxation, and more. This course for the growing actor will help students avoid falling into habits onstage and give them the confidence necessary to communicate honestly and create a live experience in performance every time.

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Inside the Lines: An inside Look

This spring Signature Theatre is offering a class for teens called "Inside the Lines: Text and Performance."

The class will be Mondays, April 29-June 10th (no class on May 27th) from 6:30-8:00 PM. Tuition is $240. Registration closes on Monday, April 22nd! REGISTER HERE.

So what exactly is this class about?

You’re given a part, handed a script, and then what? Learn to use every word for your advantage by breaking the script down to its essentials, including structure, subtext, beats, and objectives. Once you’ve mastered the text, you’ll learn how to take that knowledge to create a detailed and engaging performance.

Who will be teaching the class?

Jack Novak, a professional actor, writer and teaching artist who has worked with several renowned theatres in Chicago, including the Filament Theatre Ensemble and the Mime Company.

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Acting for Beginners

HAPPY HALLOWEEN!

 

Sign up for our Acting for Beginners class, taught by our very own David Zobell!

In this class, students will develop skills such as concentration, sensory and physical awareness, voice and diction, and characterization and then learn how to apply those skills to playing a part in a show. We'll be using a unique combination of improvisation and textual work. It should be fun.

The class runs Saturdays November 10 - December 15 from 11 am - 1 pm, with no class on November 24 for Thanksgiving.

Have questions? Just ask!

David, Signature Theatre’s Education Director, is a Las Vegas native and a graduate of Brigham Young University. As a student in Las Vegas, David trained with the nationally-recognized Rainbow Company Youth Theatre, graduating from their Student Ensemble Program in 2003. Directing credits include Un-American (Signature in the Schools – premiere), Man to Man (premiere), Apologies, Dancing at Lughnasa (assistant director), Walter Cronkite is Dead (premiere – assistant director), and Shakespeare, Will (premiere – assistant director).  Acting credits include Reuben (Joseph), Glubb (Drums in the Night), and Luke (The Wrestling Season.) He has taught extensively with Signature Theatre, Adventure Theatre, The Rainbow Company (winner of the 2010 Children’s TheatreFoundation of America Medallion Award), Arlington County Public Schools Adult Education, and Brigham Young University. 

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On Creativity, Intuition and Inspiration

Sophy Burnham. Photo Credit: Mark Regan.

Sophy Burnham, author of the bestselling book A Book of Angels, is a popular author, playwright, journalist, and non-fiction writer. Her works have been produced at Studio Theatre and American University. She has appeared on Larry King Live, Oprah, The Today Show, Good Morning America, and CBS Morning News. This spring, she will teach at The Signature Academy with former Signature playwright-in-residence, Paulette Laufer, Call for Creativity. This popular course, blending and borrowing techniques and skills from both writing and acting, will explore the creative imagination within each student.


Of all the things that stifle creativity, none is so smothering as an abusive Inner Voice—the one that says you aren’t good enough, old enough, young enough, rich enough, poor enough, neurotic enough, happy enough, smart enough, creative enough . . .  Not enough!  The  Voice that whispers in your ear, "You’ll fail; you always fail; so best give up before you’re rejected publicly."

But being creative is part of being human.  We create.  We cannot help it!   We build gardens, cook meals, knit, sew, design, build, fashion and fabricate.  Creativity is engraved in our nature. Inspiration claps its hand on our shoulder.

And intuition is closely allied to both.  Creativity is one facet of intuition—the gut feeling that tells you to go here, not there.  It comes like a bolt from the blue, the sudden inspiration that lifts you out of yourself and into higher states.  It wakes you in the night, mind churning.   It comes also in response to struggle and work, when you are striving to listen to your inner wisdom.  It comes when you invite the muse, your guides and angels, the secret, hidden springs of your highest Self.

What is creativity?  Where does it come from?   Who has it?  How do you get more?  Here is Mozart, writing of inspiration.

“When I am, as it were, completely in myself, entirely alone and of good cheer, say, traveling in a carriage, or walking after a good meal, or during the night when I cannot sleep; it is on such occasions that my ideas flow best and most abundantly. Whence and how they come, I know not; nor can I force them. . .  Nor do I hear in my imagination the parts successively, but I hear them, as it were, all at once. What a delight this is I cannot tell!”

What people don’t tell you is that it can be learned.  Like intuition.  You invite it.  Every artist understands this.

“I slip into a state,” wrote the playwright Neil Simon, “that is apart from reality…I don’t write consciously—it is as if the muse sits on my shoulder.”

But what exactly is inspiring us?  Is it simply our unconscious mind spewing out information lodged in forgotten memories or making connections we hadn’t recognized before?  The verb inspire comes from Latin, meaning “to breathe in.”  Subtly enfolded in its essence is the sense that something is breathing into us, filling us with Life!

Creativity begins in the Right-Hemisphere of the brain, which is also the seat of emotion, of the ability to recognize faces, of psychic power, and mystical epiphanies.  The creative process is different from conscious analytic thought (although critical left-brain thinking is also essential). Creative ideas collide in a dreamlike state, or they rise up like bubbles in that hypnagogic state you occupy just as you are drifting off to sleep.

How do you invite creative inspiration?    I have written of this in my latest book, THE ART OF INTUITION: Cultivating Your Inner Wisdom.  And now I’m teaching at Signature.
Take the journey with me.   Dare to enhance your own powers of creativity!
I’d love to see you join us.

~Sophy Burnham


For more about creativity, be sure to enroll in CALL FOR CREATIVITY, a four-week course taught by three extraordinary women:  playwright Paulette Laufer and bestselling author Sophy Burnham. New to this course is a two or four-week option, allowing students to create their own course toward creativity.  Registration closes February 27th! Sign up today!

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