1st Edition

Objectives, Obstacles, and Tactics in Practice Perspectives on Activating the Actor

Edited By Hillary Haft Bucs, Valerie Clayman Pye Copyright 2020
    282 Pages 7 B/W Illustrations
    by Routledge

    282 Pages 7 B/W Illustrations
    by Routledge

    Objectives, Obstacles, and Tactics in Practice is the first book that compiles practical approaches of the best practices from a range of practitioners on the subject of working with Stanislavski's "objectives," "obstacles," and "tactics."

    The book offers instructors and directors a variety of tools from leading acting teachers, who bring their own individual perspectives to the challenge of working with Stanislavski's principles for today's actors, in one volume. Each essay addresses its own theoretical and practical approach and offers concrete instructions for implementing new explorations both in the classroom and in the rehearsal studio.

    An excellent resource for acting and directing instructors at the university level, directing and theatre pedagogy students, high school/secondary theatre teachers, and community theatre leaders, Objectives, Obstacles, and Tactics in Practice serves as a resource for lesson planning and exploration, and provides an encyclopedia of the best practices in the field today.

    ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

    Introduction

    PART I Playing Objectives

    Chapter 1 Money in Your Pocket: Meisner, Objectives, and the First Six Lines

    DENNIS SCHEBETTA

    Chapter 2 Psychological Gesture: Michael Chekhov Exercises on Physicalizing the Objective

    ANJALEE DESHPANDE HUTCHINSON

    Chapter 3 Making Sport of Objectives: Teaching through Student-Developed Physical Competition

    JOHN KAUFMANN

    Chapter 4 Structured Improvised Scenes

    TIMOTHY JOHNSON

    Chapter 5 Scoring the Un-Scorable

    MARIA PORTER

    Chapter 6 Creating a Physical Score in a Snap: Using Social Media to Appeal to the Smartphone Generation

    TOM PACIO

    PART II Overcoming Obstacles

    Chapter 7 Engaging Obstacles

    KEVIN HOFFMANN

    Chapter 8 Active Obstacle Image Scoring

    DAVID HUGO

    Chapter 9 Resistance

    JANET HAYATSHAHI

    Chapter 10 Returning the Dress: Demonstrating Objectives, Obstacles, and Tactics

    DAVIDA BLOOM

    Chapter 11 Improvised Fantasies: Heightening Objectives and Obstacles in Scene Work

    HILLARY HAFT BUCS

    Chapter 12 Optimizing the Obstacle: Using Indicators of Csíkszentmihályi’s Flow to Help Select, Test,

    and Experience Stanislavski’s Obstacles

    FABIO POLANCO AND DIANE BONFIGLIO

    PART III Identifying Tactics

    Chapter 13 The Tag-tic that Works

    LYNN DEBOECK

    Chapter 14 Improvising Tactical Choices Based on Status

    or “Who’s Driving the Dramatic Action Bus?”

    JEAN DOBIE GIEBEL

    Chapter 15 Transformational Tactics: Engaging Students

    in the Heroic Pursuit of Their Objective

    KIM SHIVELY

    Chapter 16 Hunter/Hunted: Experiential Learning and the

    Actor’s Craft

    VALERIE CLAYMAN PYE

    Chapter 17 Tactics and Action Drives: Stanislavski

    Meets Laban

    CONRAD ALEXANDROWICZ

    Chapter 18 Stanislavski in the Voice Studio

    DERIC MCNISH

    Chapter 19 Stimulating Embodied Tactical Actions

    LESLEY-ANN TIMLICK

    Chapter 20 NRGs and the Nature of Action: The Lessac Tactic Circle

    CAROLINE GOOD

    Chapter 21 Relaying Action – from Breath to Text

    AARON ALPERN AND REBECCA COVEY

    Chapter 22 Using Improvisation to Identify Tactics

    NATHAN STITH

    Chapter 23 Activating the Actor with Game Theory: Using Gamification to Create Playable Tactics on Stage

    JEANNE LEEP

    AFTERWORD

    Chapter 24 Recording Truth: The Camera in Acting Training

    WELKER WHITE

    CONTRIBUTOR BIOGRAPHIES

    CHAPTER ABSTRACTS

    INDEX

    Biography

    Valerie Clayman Pye is an Assistant Professor of Theatre in the School of Performing Arts at LIU Post, where she teaches Acting, Voice, and Speech, and Shakespeare in Performance. She is the author of Unearthing Shakespeare: Embodied Performance and the Globe (Routledge 2017).

    Hillary Haft Bucs is an actor/improviser, playwright, and director. She is an Associate Professor of Theatre at Western New England University where she teaches Acting, Improvisational Comedy, and Playwriting.