1st Edition

The Actor's Survival Handbook

By Patrick Tucker, Christine Ozanne Copyright 2005

    Worried about short rehearsal time? Think that fluffing your lines will be the end of your career? Are you afraid you'll be typecast? Is there such a thing as acting too much? How should a stage actor adjust performance for a camera? And how should an actor behave backstage?

    The Actor's Survival Handbook gives you answers to all these questions and many more. Written with verve and humor, this utterly essential tool speaks to every actor's deepest concerns. Drawing upon their years of experience on stage, backstage, and with the camera, Patrick Tucker and Christine Ozanne offer forthright advice on topics from breathing to props, commitment to learning lines, audience response to simply landing the job in the first place. The book is rich with examples - both technical and inspirational. And because a director and an actor won't always agree, the two writers sometimes even offer alternative responses to a dilemma, giving the reader both an actor's take and a director's take on a particular point.

    Like Patrick Tucker's Secrets of Screen Acting, this new book is written with wit and passion, conveying the authors' powerful conviction that success is within every actor's grasp.

    Contents: Introduction How to use this book Family Trees Acting: what is it? Agents Amateur dramatics Anecdotes and jokes Attitude Audience Auditions Battle of the sexes Be yourself (plus!) Believability Blowing your nose Breaking up (corpsing) Business (biz) Casting directors Comedy and farce Commercial casting sessions Commitment Conservatories and drama schools Consistency Costumes, wigs and shoes Crew Designers Dialects and accents Directors Discussions Don't ask for permission Don't give up Drugs Editing and acting Example: Al and Bob's first meeting Example: Anna Christie and her dad Example: Broadway versus Hollywood Example: Brother and sister act Example: Kate and corpsing Example: Lady Bracknell's handbag Example: Mr. and Mrs. Noah fight Example: Mr. Horner is exactly that Example: Noel Coward on the phone Example: Olivia's ends Example: Plunging in the deep end Example: Princely business Example: Signs of the times Example: The silence of the lads Example: Valuable verbals Example: You, thee - and the gold Eye-to-eye contact Fellow actors Film versus television Forgetting lines Further training Gear changes Getting work Good and bad taste Hierarchy Homework Illness Impr ovisation Instinct versus intellect Interviews It's not what it used to be Jobs requiring acting skills Journey Know your image Laughter Learning lines Less is more? Let the words do the work Medieval acting Melodrama acting Method acting Mistakes Modern contemporary acting Money is probably the answer Multicamera versus single camera Never say no No training Notes Open auditions Opposites Outside-in versus inside-out Over the top Pauses Performing Photographs Problem s Producers Projection Properties (props) Pulling focus Punctuality Qualifications Radio acting Readings Rehearsals (long, short, or none) Rehearsing Rejection Restoration acting Resumes Role play Screen acting Screen cheating Screen reactions Screen vocal levels Sex and violence Shakespeare acting Shakespeare: First Folio Shakespeare: Prose or poetry Shakespeare: Simple or complicated Shakespeare: Verse Shakespeare: What you call people Shakespeare: Word play Shooting and acting Stars Starting off Step-by-step Style Teaching acting Technical and dress rehearsals Technique Ten second rule Text The Team Thinking Training Truth Typecasting < br>University courses Versatility Voice Whatever works You (your other life) Biographies

    Biography

    Patrick Tucker has staged plays and musicals, directed for television, and taught acting workshops throughout the world. A member of the board of Shakespeare's Globe (which rebuilt the Globe Theatre on London's Southbank), he is the author of Secrets of Screen Acting and Secrets of Acting Shakespeare. Christine Ozanne trained at RADA, acted in the original production of Tom Stoppard's Dirty Linen, and has since worked as an actress, teacher, and prompter. Tucker and Ozanne are cofounders of the Original Shakespeare Company. They live in London.