M104 | Beginning Acting: Creating a Character |
In-person at BCC Limit: 16
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In this class, OLLI students will be guided through the actor’s process of analyzing a play from the character’s perspective. A contemporary play will be chosen to study for the semester. The choice of play (which could be comedy or drama) will be determined by the makeup of the class. After being cast in a role, all the students will read and analyze scenes, developing their individual characters. The whole class will be involved in this analysis (in other words, the discussion is not only with the one actor playing a role.) The actors in each scene read their parts and the director questions them about motivation, language, and subtext (the underlying meaning of what the character is saying). This kind of analysis is called “at table work” and it is based on the creative process of American stage director, Adrian Hall. The actors are challenged to plumb the depths of the characters, gaining a deep understanding of those characters before they begin staging the play. Instructor Jeannie M. Woods is the author of Theatre to Change Men’s Souls—The Artistry of Adrian Hall and she has used these techniques in her stage directing over 35 years. Her co-instructor, Dan Woods, has performed many roles in Jeannie’s productions over the years, so he is familiar with these techniques from the actor’s perspective. Jeannie and Dan taught a basic acting class for OLLI last April. Many students asked for a class to delve deeper into the actor’s process of text analysis. This class will meet more frequently so students will have sufficient time to accomplish that goal. Classes will be held twice a week for 90 minutes each. At the end of the 6-week semester, the class will culminate in a public reading of the play. Jeannie Marlin Woods is a Berkshire stage director and actor. She has enjoyed a 60-year career as a scholar, actor, director, arts educator, and administrator. A graduate of the Ph.D. program in theatre at the City University of New York, she was a professor of theatre and a stage director at Winthrop University for 17 years, where she was also founder and Artistic Director of the New Stage Ensemble Theatre. She is a Professor Emerita of Theatre at Western Illinois University, where she taught theatre for 12 years. She founded the Starry Night Repertory Theatre in Illinois and was its Artistic Director (2009-2019). Dr. Woods was a Fulbright Scholar at the National Institute of the Arts in Taiwan (1998-99). In 2023, as a Fulbright Specialist she had a two-week arts residency at National Taiwan Normal University. She also has taught theatre courses on the SS Universe Explorer with the Semester at Sea Program, teaching theatre as she circumnavigated the globe. Jeannie is the author of Theatre to Change Men’s Souls—The Artistry of Adrian Hall and Maureen Stapleton: A Bio-Bibliography. She has been a reviewer for BerkshireOnstage.blog since 2021. Dan Woods is a Berkshire-based actor and fine artist. Dan has been a professional actor for much of his life and has performed on stages from Hawaii to Denver to New York City, Taipei, and Beijing. As an actor, Dan is best known for his critically acclaimed performances in Vincent, in which he played the dual roles of Theo and Vincent van Gogh. Dan’s professional work includes costarring with Michael Cerveris in the New York premiere of Moon by Eric Baldwin. He was a company member of the renowned Germinal Stage Denver and the Third Eye Theatre in Denver. For Actors Theatre of Charlotte, he starred in The Waiting Room and in The Bible, The Complete Word of God (Abridged). Dan performed many roles as a member of the acting companies of the New Stage Ensemble and the Starry Night Repertory Theatre. Most recently Dan was seen on the Unicorn Theatre stage in several roles in A Christmas Carol, including the Ghost of Christmas Present. Dan is also a fine artist, working in dry media (charcoal and pastel pencils) and is a member of the Berkshire Artists Guild. |
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