Dear Actor:

Despite what anyone may tell you, acting has rules. Acting has a lexicon, in the same way that ballet, jazz music, visual art -- any art form -- has a lexicon. But the lexicon has nothing to do with the "deep" psychology of Meisner and the Method, of sense memory and emotional memory and the cults that have grown around those two approaches to acting, as David Mamet has said so eloquently in his seminal book of acting theory, True and False. Those two approaches have everything to do with the emotional state of the actor and little or nothing to do with the monolith that every actor faces every time he or she steps onto a stage or in front of a camera -- the monolith that is the story the actor is tasked to tell. If actors are honest, they'll tell you that, more often than not, their emotional state is one of trepidation, one of fear. And yet, they still manage to tell their stories effectively. Given that, it should be easy to see how little emotion has to do with the craft of storytelling.

Can you tell me what the rules of acting are?

• Why stillness is important and when you must be still?
• When you should speak quickly and when slowly?
• What the general tempo pattern of a story is?
• Not just when to gesture, but how?
• What a beat is?
• Most importantly, what action is, and why it's central to what makes acting compelling?

• Extensive monologue work, including the best preparation for auditioning available in the Austin, Texas area
• Scene work with single and/or multiple partners
• Cold reading preparation
• A text-based, tool-oriented acting technique unlike any other
• The answers to all of your questions about acting

The latter may seem like a tall order, but I've spent more than three decades working both as an actor and with actors, I've literally dedicated the last three and a half years of my life to figuring out exactly what acting is and how it works, and my book about acting technique has been out for almost a year. If you want answers to your questions, I can provide them. And if by chance I can't answer a question myself, I'll find someone who can.

Above and below are links about the workshop and about me. They include a fuller description of the workshop; selected chapters from my book, Acting that Matters, published by Allworth Press (click here to order a copy); recommendations from workshop participants; an answer to the question, "What is acting?"; and a list of links you might find useful. You can also review my résumé, if you like.

Thanks for visiting. If you'd like to contact me, just click on the link below. I'll get back to you sooner rather than later.

Best,
Barry