The Actor's Wheel of Connection

How to Integrate Your Skills and Refine Your Performance

Brestoff, Richard

• Publisher: Smith and Kraus
• Year: 2005
• Print ISBN: 9781575253916
• eBook ISBN: 9781684763719

This exciting new book by Richard Brestoff is a breakthrough. It will change the way in which acting is discussed and taught in the future. Simply put, Richard Brestoff's The Actor's Wheel of Connection puts together the craft of acting for the actor.You'll experience no more conflict between inner and outer technique; no more conflict between personal truth and character; no more barrier between actor and audience. Using exercises and a unique troubleshooting section after each chapter, The Actor's Wheel of Connection offers a complete, comprehensive, and graspable new approach to acting that includes the entire chain of performance-from personal truth to audience reception.Based on Stanislavsky but applicable to all styles, the actor's wheel is made up of six interconnected spokes. They are: · connection to self · connection to others · connection to circumstances · connection to text · connection to character · connection to audience Each spoke is discussed in detail with new examinations of personalization, objectives, strategies, transitions, character, and that taboo subject, the audience. But though each spoke is looked at separately, the wisdom of the book lies in the knowledge that the wheel must be set in motion-that is when the spokes disappear, as they must in all great acting.Brestoff illustrates his points with brilliantly chosen examples from films and plays and with insights from Robert Lewis, Elia Kazan, Evgeny Vakhtangov, T.S. Eliot, Kevin Kline, and even Lance Armstrong and Sir Isaac Newton! Fresh and wise, this book is a must for actors and teachers alike.This book shows the actor how to put it all together, from connection between the actors, through circumstance, text, and character into the soul of an audience.