New Course Announced: Level 2: Acting While Improvising

If you aspire to be an actor or you already are an actor in theatre or film, then read this post.

I’ve been acting professionally for the last 25 years and I have created a training program with Act Social Club that I think sums up the key points of what I have learned in that time. I know most people don’t have the goal of being a professional actor or improv comedian, but even if you are an amateur thespian, this course will teach you all the stuff I wish I had learned back when I was doing community theatre as a teenager in Illinois.

Class Info

Title: Level 2: Acting While Improvising (Online, 10 Weeks, Repeatable)

Level 2: Acting While Improvising is a live, online course that focuses on the truthful, vulnerable acting skills needed to succeed as an improvising actor. A big drawback of most improv school training programs is that they are so focused on getting students through 4 levels of classes, that they dive into improv forms without teaching much acting. This is a problem because (and you know this if you’ve ever been invited to your friend’s improv class show) it doesn’t often make for truthful, compelling theatre. Unless by some miracle they are “naturals,” beginning improvising actors are often very difficult to watch for an audience because hardly anything is grounded in reality. In Level 2: Acting While Improvising, you’ll get exhaustive reps in “grounded truthfulness.” Be prepared to break a sweat in class. You will have fun and get to play, but you will also do drills that will force you to drop your ego and be vulnerable. The whole course is geared towards balancing improv basics with acting fundamentals. This course is repeatable and we’ll continue you at this level until you are ready to advance.All students will receive detailed instructor feedback at course end recommending either to repeat Level 2 or be promoted to Level 3.

Weekly Topics

Repetition and Instinct: Human beings have powerful drives that society teaches us to suppress from a young age. This includes our voice–notice how a baby can scream all day and not get hoarse, but you sing one song at karaoke and you’ve got laryngitis? This is because our societal condition chokes off our life force. We’ll use some Sanford Meisner and Viola Spolin exercises to help our actors break some of that conditioning.

Relationship with Space: “Life moves pretty fast. If you don’t stop and look around once in awhile, you could miss it” –Ferris Bueller. There is so much detail in the room you are sitting in right now that you fail to notice because you are lost in your thoughts. This class focuses use some concepts from Laban Training to help you direct your awareness where you want it to go in the scene. This allows you to create the most real body for your character and the most real setting for your scene.

Relationship with Objects: You need to be able to flip a convincing burger with a spatula and to hold a real-looking coffee cup during your scenes. We will learn mime techniques such as “fixed-point” and giving weight in order to create veritable objects in our improv scenes.

Creating a Real Deal: Character deal is the psychological component that you focus on in order to make a your character into a living, breathing yet still archetypical person.

Just Talking: Do you truly believe that you are enough? That you are interesting? Most people don’t. Here we learn how interesting we actually are, just by talking.

Authentic Doing: “What’s my motivation?” is the classic actor’s line. Here we learn tools to never lack a reason for doing things in character.

Accepting Offers: A lot of people think they are good at improv, yet they just don’t listen in scenes. Here we will drill being a generous actor.

Taking Away Everything but You: Life may imitate art, but your art needs to have a focus to it. Here we will strip away all the extra ticks and “tells” that you have as an actor so that you don’t distract from your performance.

The Power of Observation: Ever notice an interesting person in public and think, “They would make a good character in a scene?” Once you take this lesson, you will become obsessed with observing people, mannerisms, and styles of speaking. You be given a method for creating a backstory for people you observe, leading to powerful and interesting characters.

How to Slow Down the Now: When we put all of our acting skills into practice onstage in a show, technique can fly out the window and we may feel like things are moving way too fast. This class puts it all together and gives you tools for focusing during performance.

Format

1 x per week, for 2 hours. 10 weeks. On Zoom.

Prerequisite(s)

Act Social Core Training Level 1: Act Social Master Class or equivalent.

Required Reading

The Actor’s Art and Craft by William Esper and Damian DiMarco

Free Jam Pass

While enrolled in classes, student have a free membership to attend our weekly improv jams, currently scheduled every Tuesday, 8:30pm-9:30pm ET.

Instructor

Act Social Club is led by founder/lead instructor Sean A. Mulvihill. A theatre/film actor and director, he has performed professionally on stage and screen in the United States, Europe, and Asia and his work has been seen on such outlets as Amazon Prime, Sony Playstation, and RAI Italia. He directed and produced the film Act Social starring Colin Mochrie of Whose Line is it, Anyway? Sean is the Artistic Director of the Exuberant Theatre Company, which has a long-running improv comedy show at the Broadway Comedy Club in New York City. In 2005, his breakout project was creating and acting in Living Luminaries: On the Serious Business of Happiness, a docu-drama starring Eckhart Tolle, author of The Power of Now. Sean has also performed onstage for the Venetian Casino Macau, the Italian National Tour of Action Theatre (Torino, Italy), and various regional theatres in the United States. He holds a Masters of Fine Arts (MFA) in Physical Theatre from Acccademia dell’Arte in Italy and a Bachelor of Fine Arts (BFA) in Theatre (Acting) from the University of Southern California.

Sign Up

Starts Tuesday April 27. Sign up at: https://www.actsocial.club/product/level2