• Use of tired stencils or stereotypical gestures, often in broad and obvious strokes, in place of living in the moment

  ---

• A physical shorthand for what might otherwise be complexity, newness, and uniqueness of a spontaneous moment of human experience

  ---

• An inappropriate acknowledgement of the audience

  ---

• The generation of some effect in an obviously inorganic way

  ---

  ---

• Problems: 1) Interrupts the audience's willing suspension of disbelief.    2) Insults the audience's intelligence by assuming they are incapable of deciphering and understanding the genuine complexities of human experience for themselves.    3) It takes the fun out of the audience's opportunity to interpret.

The focusing of an actor's attention (on a task, person, object, or event)

• Immediate circle of ________-- a small area including the actor and perhaps a chair or a table, in which the actor is the center

  ---

• Intermediate circle-- area which may include several persons and groups of furniture

  ---

• Distant circle-- everything an actor can see on stage

• A state of being in which the actor's attention is fully concentrated on the execution of the intention, despite the presence of observers, so that the actor is at ease, without fear and able to forget worries and everything else which interferes with stage creativeness.

• A supposition. The use of the phrase "what if I were the character in these circumstances..." so as to stimulate the actor's imagination to believe in the possibility of the events.

• The recall and recreation of sensory experiences as an aid to help the actor create the sensations of a specific moment and become a vibrant instrument of transmission

• All that the character encounters living in the environment of the play. 

  ---

• All that influences her experience: the specific events of the plot, the demands that being alive in this play places on this character, other characters, and their relationships with her etc.

• The immediate location of a given scene and the attending conditioning forces which arise:

a.) From the sensory experience of this place (temperature, smells, sounds, sights)

b.) From the character's relationship to the place

• The character's life goal, the arc that is the sum of most or all of the action's this character is likely to pursue in a lifetime.

• A technique for phrasing in the infinitive the essential action which a character is engaged.

  ---

• The purpose is to fully enliven and involve the actor's being in the action of the play, to give the actor a specific purpose for being on stage, to awaken the actor's creative energies and to get behind the words to the essence of that which is driving the character.
• "To bring to life what is hidden under the words" (Stanislavsky)

  ---

• Specific ______ can make for specific work, beyond the generalities of trying to play moods and qualities.
• "It arouses an inner and real activity, and does this by natural means" (Stanislavsky)

  ---

a.) what you're really doing, pursuing, fighting for in any scene

b.) an aim, a goal, something that is striven for and ignites the actor in the scene

• The duration from the intiation of an intention to its achievement /or/ abandonment for a new one

• The character's overarching goal, intention, and motivation for the duration of the play

(i.e. Hamlet- to probe for the truth)

• Impediments to the achievement of objectives

  ---

• ______ are the actors friend because they give the actor a specific problem to solve in the moment, and help to enliven and make specific and necessary the objective

  ---

• Without ______ there is no conflict, without conflict there is no drama

• One approach to the solution of a problem.

  ---

• _____ are the means by which a strategy is followed.

• The character's overall plan for the achievement of an objective.

  ---

• Hamlet's ______ to catch the conscience of the King (his objective) is to use the player's performance to evoke a public response of guilt.
• The tactics include inserting some lines in the text, suggesting a particular passage, ensuring that the King is in attendance, observing the King throughout the performance, etc.

• An event whereby the character comes to new knowledge or understanding.

  ---

• Without _______, nothing happens.

• This is achieved when the actor, as the character, appears to be experiencing the events of the scene as if for the very first time.

  ---

• The actor fails at this when his work lacks the organic spark of spontaneity and newness, when it appears rehearsed, often performed, by the numbers, etc.

• The true inner thoughts and feelings of the character that for some reason cannot be said directly but are nonetheless communicated in the often subtle behavior behind the words.

• A preparation technique used to "get the motor going" for a scene.

  ---

• Because every moment of a character's life was preceded and influenced by some prior moment, the actor may benefit from doing a _______ ______ prior to leaping into a scene.

  ---

• This may mean playing out the scene's presumptive preceding moments, perhaps in the wings, or at least in the actor's mind, or it may be some other exercise that will have a specific effect on the actor's state of being (such as beating the hell out of a pillow, running through the halls, the use of a sensory or affective memory, or simply taking a moment to connect to the intention)

• The state of affairs between characters, including both the factual (brother-sister, husband-wife) and the feeling aspects (in the heavenly honeymoon stage, years of suppressed resentment).

  ---

• The __________ comes to life in the nature of the interaction and behavior with the respect of each other.

• The essence of what is happening in a scene, beat, or moment.

  ---

• Understanding the ____ is a key to understanding the scenes and strongly shapes the actor's choices.

  ---

• For example: imagine the possible outcomes of playing the nunnery scene from Hamlet as 1) a seduction  2) an exorcism  3) a love scene   4) the breaking of an engagement  5) an assault

  ---

• The ____ is arrived at by labeling the essential occurrence or happening in the scene.

• The circumstances which make the prospect of failure a serious problem and success a "consummation devoutly to be wished"

  ---

• Low ____= boring actor's work

  ---

• Plays are about people who want things very strongly, who are willing to fight for them because they have some importance

  ---

• Plays are about the important points in people's lives. Raising the stakes, appropriate to the circumstances of the play, will help the actor connect with the circumstances, and be more fully invested in the achievement of the intention.

  ---

• If  the character doesn't care one way or another, neither will the audience.

• Not the literal, material, naturalistic truth of out everyday reality, but one which "originates on the plane of imaginative and artistic fiction."

  ---

• "Something that is not actually in existence but which could happen."

  ---

• "Truth transformed into a poetical equivalent by creative imagination."

  ---

• In other words, Othello must not really strangle Desdemona each night nor must the actor always think the character's thoughts (which will come and go). The creation of a _____ __ ______ that the actor and audience can willingly believe in as if it were the true what is necessary.