Liked on YouTube: Vulnerability in Acting | Meisner Technique | Charlie Sandlan

Vulnerability in Acting | Meisner Technique | Charlie Sandlan

http://www.maggieflaniganstudio.com/meisner-acting/vulnerability-in-acting/

Charlie Sandlan is the executive director and senior acting teacher at the Maggie Flanigan Studio. In this video Charlie talks about vulnerability and the Meisner Technique.

I wanted to talk briefly today about the importance of vulnerability and sensitivity in the work of any serious actor. Anyone can train you in a program. Hopefully they are going to give you technique and craft. They are going to train your body so that it is pliable. They are going to work on your voice and speech so that it is resonate, you have good speech and you know how to handle language. That should just be a given.

I don’t think however that enough training programs and enough actors know how to work in a vulnerable and sensitized way. Brenee Brown, the very popular social scientist, has talked so eloquently in her TED talks about being creative and possessing vulnerability. The two of them go hand in hand. I don’t think that you can be a really good dynamic actor without vulnerability, but that does not happen over night.

We have all been parented and we have been socialized. We have been educated for ten, twenty, thirty or forty years. We build up armor that protects us so that we can survive in the world. The actor has to rid themselves of that armor so that they can return to that inner child, because that is where the artist in you lies. The child is open, fascinated and curious. They are all consumed by the present moment. Spontaneous and free. Free of judgement. Free of self criticism. Free of the shame and insecurities that come with our adult life.

That happens brilliantly with the Meisner Technique. His repetition exercise in the first year of the work is a really incredible tool that allows the actor to begin to take in and take personally, not only what has been said to them but how. For any serious actor that is interested in playing complicated material, major parts, if you want to be an actor that has the ability to stand up and illuminate something about the human condition, you need to sensitize your instrument.

For more information about the Meisner Technique visit http://www.maggieflaniganstudio.com or call the studio directly at (917) 789-1599

via YouTube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rCUZA_fDOzc