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The Sanford Meisner Approach Vol 2: The Afterward

"What's next!

If you have gotten to this point by actually "doing" the book, I'm confident that you have learned some essential things about the heightened emotional demands the theatre makes of us. I also know that you have had to do some serious grappling with your own deeper point of view towards life and the world around you and how to become more freely the authentic expression of that point of view.

If you have reached this "wrap up" after simply reading the book, I hope you have found the information valuable and clear, and that it makes you want to go back to the exercises sometime and "get your hands dirty." Because the truth is, no matter how interesting this book may be, the only real knowledge available is in the doing of the work. If I have learned anything, it is that the real answers to all of our questions, the surprising and unimagined answers, are always and only to be found in the work itself.

As I mentioned early on, one of the traps of this work is the danger of becoming "emotion conscious." You see, it's a place I find most actors want to stop. Why? Because it feels good. You know, having our emotions is a great feeling, isn't it?

But, as I told you, acting is not emoting - it is doing. And so, you must understand very clearly for what purpose we have worked so hard on making powerful connection to our deeper truths. And, you must now learn what to actively do with it all. In fact, everything we have done together so far, in this book and in my Meisner Workbook that precedes it, has paved the way for you to begin to learn how to work with text, character and the more advanced aspects of interpretation.

So, This is where I plug my next book on the Meisner Approach, Workbook Three: Tackling The Text.

In Workbook Three, as you encounter the script for the first time, you will begin to experience how all the fundamental abilities you have been working on are essential if you are to truly bring the words to life. For the first time, you will discover in a most intimate way that acting is not really about the words. Clearly, the words must serve as our source of inspiration: they are the playwright's job. The actor's job is about really living on stage, it's about fighting for your life, it's about true and human behavior and what is happening between you and your partner - right now!

As in the first two books, when we start to work with text, I will be teaching you a specifically laid out process. In a step-by-step fashion, I will give you the tools that will lead you to transform the words on the page into a passionate and vital improvisation. You will see that in the scripted scene, you must be continually willing and able to give up your ideas of how you think the scene should be acted. And, I will consistently lead you away from the clichés of performance - all those preconcieved notions of how to deliver a line or in what way you think "a person like that" should act.

I will also begin to teach you how to look at the script as an actor. What does that mean? Basically, it means how to ask the right questions! You will learn the ways of talking to yourself that will first, enable you to understand the very personal desires of the character and then, help you make his or her deeply held needs your own. What I am talking about really, is taking our first steps into "interpretation," which will be explored in the last of my Meisner books, Workbook Four: Interpretation.

So, see you in Workbook Three. I can't wait to get to work with you on what I consider, the juiciest and tastiest parts of acting!

Stay well, Love Larry. "

-- Larry Silverberg