1st Edition

Improvisation the Michael Chekhov Way Active Exploration of Acting Techniques

By Wil Kilroy Copyright 2024
    214 Pages 15 B/W Illustrations
    by Routledge

    214 Pages 15 B/W Illustrations
    by Routledge

    Improvisation the Michael Chekhov Way: Active Exploration of Acting Techniques provides readers with dozens of improvisational exercises based on the acting techniques of Michael Chekhov.

    The book features key exercises that will help the actor explore improvisation and expand their imagination through the technique. Exercises that have been successfully taught for decades via the intensive trainings from the National Michael Chekhov Association are now clearly laid out in this book, along with information on how these performance-based techniques can be applied to a script and even provide life benefits. Guidance on how to use the exercises both in a group setting and as an individual is provided, as well as tools for lesson plans for up to a year of  actor training. These step-by-step exercises will allow readers to expand their range of expression, discover the joy of creating unique characters, improve stage presence and presentation skills, and find new, creative ways to look at life.

    Improvisation the Michael Chekhov Way is written to be used by individual actors and practitioners as well as in group settings such as acting or improvisation courses, and to benefit anyone wishing to enhance their creativity and imagination.

    1. Expansion/Contraction - The Pulse of Life  2. The Four Brothers of Art: Ease, Beauty, Form and Wholeness/Entirety  3. Qualities of Movement: Molding, Flowing, Flying, and Radiating  4. Archetypal Gestures  5. Radiating and Receiving  6. The Three Sister Sensations: Balancing, Falling, Floating  7. Qualities and Sensations  8. Moveable Centers  9. The Imaginary Body  10. Costume Characters  11. Thinking, Feeling, and Willing: The Trinity of the Psychology  12. Atmospheres  13. Tempo and Rhythm  14. Focal Points  15. Psychological Gesture

    Biography

    Wil Kilroy is the Department Head of Theatre Arts at New Mexico State University and an AEA, SAG-AFTRA actor. Kilroy is Co-Founder of the National Michael Chekhov Association, along with Lisa Dalton and the late Mala Powers, who was executrix of the Michael Chekhov Estate. Kilroy has utilized the acting techniques of Michael Chekhov for many decades world-wide as an actor, director, and teacher, and to uplift everyday life.