The Fourth Pillar, Emotional Life, is the heart of the system. Like a heart, it is the most integral and elaborate of systems, requiring tremendous courage, stamina, and creativity from the actor. Emotional Life centers on training the imagination to open u...

            The magical thing about human nature is that the same event can happen to two people and it will be received and responded to differently. The event has a different meaning for the two individuals. For this reason, Meaning is the third Pillar. A...

BUILDING A STRUCTURE

“If you build it, he will come.” ---Field of Dreams

If Contact is the foundation, then Circumstances are the walls and contours of the house. And, they must feel as real and as solid as the walls of the house you live in in your own life. To the c...

         My students' constant requests to read more about The Seven Pillars of Acting Technique, is now answered! Over the next several weeks, I will be writing about each Pillar in the Seven Pillar system. These are longer than normal, so please take breaks, make som...

"The purpose of Art is to lay bare the questions that have been hidden by answers."

                                                                                                         ---James Baldwin...

It's sad, but true that very often your working relationship with your scene partner is not productive, pleasant, creative, or enjoyable. They smell bad, they hit on you, they are constantly forgetting their lines and/or blocking, they seem to be looking through you, t...

My first acting coach, Jo Spiller, who began training me when I was sixteen, taught me many incredible lessons. I owe a large part of my acting, teaching, and life philosophies to her wise guidance. I would like to highlight one thing I learned from her…Where is the Lo...

We are the music makers,

And we are the dreamers of dreams,

Wandering by lone sea-breakers,

And sitting by desolate streams;—

World-losers and world-forsakers,

On whom the pale moon gleams:

Yet we are the movers and shakers

Of the world for ever, it seems.

--- Arthur O'Shaughn...

We are not all that honest. Consider your life: How often are you fully candid about how you feel? Are you aware of how you edit your reactions? When and how do you sugar-coat, change the subject, circumambulate the topic, veil your feelings, grin and bare it, stifle a...

“The truth will set you free, but first it will make you miserable.” ---James A. Garfield

            Being truthful is an action. Truth demands unscrupulous authenticity, and unfortunately that can come at a steep price. When you tell the truth, something is lost. Con...