Listening and Talking

Listening and Talking: A Pathway to Acting provides undergraduate acting students with a clear, achievable, step-by-step way to approach the work of playing a role. The text is supplemented by exclusive video material to take the actor from their first encounter with the text through rehearsals with fellow actors and into performance.

Drawing from the author's twenty years' experience of teaching at the Yale School of Drama, this book, which is influenced, too, by the work of legendary teachers such as Konstantin Stanislavski and Uta Hagen, presents a thorough examination of key aspects of the actor's technique (for example, listening, playing an action and pursuing an objective). Throughout, it includes exercises and process points through which students can put into practice the key lessons from each chapter.

The practices laid out in this book form a holistic curriculum that not only ensures measurable results over a semester- or year-long course, but also sets in motion an internal process that will serve the student over their life as an artist.