Meisner II – Emotional Life

CLASS OVERVIEW

Meisner II of our Master Meisner Program picks up where Meisner I leaves off as we dive into the Emotional Life of scene work.

During this semester, we will explore how to create the emotional life needed in fulfill the requirements of scenes, as well as leaning how to personalize the text to make it meaningful to YOU!

• Late Teens & Adults - Must be 16 years or older to enroll
• Prerequisite: Completion of Meisner I
• Begins: Monday, September 23, 2024
• Class Length: 28 classes / Twice per week
• Class Days: Mondays AND Thursdays
• Class Times: 7pm-10:30pm
• Tuition (in-studio): $1,095 for 28 classes (98 total class hours - less than $40 per class)
• Tuition Note: Only $273.75 to register - Payment plans available for balance. Please go to our Tuition Page for details.

CLASS DETAILS

Through the course work of Meisner I, we build an essential foundation by developing the ability to be fully available to another human being while being authentically and spontaneously responsive in the present moment.

We also develop and strengthen our ability, no matter what we are in the midst of, to fully do whatever we are doing, and to be in continual contact with our partners and the world around us.

In Meisner II, we continue working with personal meaning in this very demanding part of the process called Emotional Life. We begin to work toward a healthy and imaginative way of working to fulfill those moments in a script that require deep and powerful emotional responses.

Now, this is where most actors stop. Why? Because being free and open and having big emotions feels good, and many actors feel that this is enough. But, without the next part our work, the actor will always remain general, fuzzy, mushy, and random.

Our interest must be to move past the general and into the realm of specificity. This takes hard work. But it is this very work that will make us into a fierce, unceasing and relentless arrow—always pointed in the direction of accomplishing our deeply held need. When we reach this place, our work becomes exciting, immediate and compelling.

During this semester, we will explore this advanced part of the work through the tools of Emotional Preparation, Spoon River Anthology, and Personalization.

BREAKDOWN OF SEMESTER

Core Exercise: Continue working with the tool for outward focus; used to place the actor’s focus on the world around them, and to lessen the focus on the self.

Emotional Life introduced: Learn to work from our imagination that is based in things that are personally meaningful.

Emotional Preparation: Learn to work with this tool that allows the actor to quickly transform their inner life to match the undercurrent of the emotional life of the scene – used to enter the top of the scene full of meaning.

Extreme Circumstances: Continued to work with imaginary circumstances in the extreme; worked on specificity in imagination; continued honing the tool of working-off the partner under the imaginary circumstance.

Spoon River: Bridge tool that begins to apply the emotional tools to text; also, introduces the first tools for personalizing text to the personal life of the actor.

Scene II: Apply all of the tools prior to a scene; learn to work with additional personalization tools in order to truly make the scene the actor’s "own" life.

HOMEWORK

This class will be intensive in nature and will require homework. Students will also be required to meet with fellow classmates outside of class (or online via Zoom) for skills rehearsal for a minimum of 2 hours per week. Because of the rapid progression of the work in this class, attendance is of the utmost importance.

SIX PILLARS OF ACTING