| STONESTREET
Workshop One - First Semester |
Stonestreet One
First
Semester
Offered
in Fall, Spring and Summer
8
Points
For first-time attendees, this curriculum introduces students to the art of screen acting, providing introductory courses in its many genres. It is open to NYU students who have completed their primary acting training at one of the Tisch School of the Arts Drama Department affiliated primary studios or non-NYU students with acting experience. Stonestreet I is offered in Fall, Spring, and Summer.
Directing the Actor
Instructors: Bennett,
McCabe and Guest Professionals
This course is designed to give theater-trained actors a chance to experience what they need to do to reach a professional level screen performance. Students learn the peculiarities of screen acting by working on scripts and monologues in a single camera setting, alternately in medium two shots and close-ups. While inviting any and all previously learned techniques, this class helps students widen their tools and techniques and think creatively out of the box when it comes to creating a compelling, believable and moving character on screen. This class debunks the conventional wisdom that screen craft requires only a minor adjustment from stage craft; screen acting is significantly different from stage acting, and this class reveals the truth of this proposition through practice. Students work only on unknown, unproduced material, strengthening their skills for creating characters and performances that can tell a story, illuminate something hidden, and develop material without a previously drawn road map.
Layering for Character on Screen
Instructor: Grace Kiley
This class focuses on the physical, vocal and emotional aspects of character and how exploring, defining, and executing that is tantamount to screen acting. Students work on developing characters in an organic way on both physical/vocal and psychological levels. Development of an actor's sense of truthful subtext is explored before juumbing into text. Students work on screen on structured improvisation from non-verbal situations to scripted material. All work is centered around material that the actor knows deeply and is compelled to work on. When actors are comfortable with both their character's essence and vulnerability in combination with their character's POV, armor, or outward veneers, their work is finalized in shooting their characters and material in different situations and different directions.
Embracing the differences of acting for screen vs. theater, students choose material that they've studied intensively in one of their Dramatic Literature classes, which can range from Shakespeare to modern classic to obscure and lesser-known material.
Multi-Camera and Rapid Shooting
Instructor: Linda
and David Launda
This class addresses the particular demands of working with multiple cameras live, such as in daytime television. The first half of the semester is devoted to script analysis and camera technique; students learn the vocabulary and body language needed to be successful in the daytime world. During the second half of the semester, students tape actual soap opera episodes in an environment that simulates a typical day’s work on a real soap opera set. The effect is achieved using Stonestreet’s professional control room, with multiple cameras, sound, and lights.
Improv, Sit-Coms and Screen Comedy
Instructor: Marc Adam Smith
This class analyzes comedy in film, sitcom material, and working conditions, as well as the demands placed on actors who are asked to be creative and “funny” (however that may be defined or interpreted). Comedies, in all their venues, come with certain pressures placed on actors; these pressures often cause the actor to lose their craft in service of the writer’s comedy. This class assists the actor in creating and holding on to a character in the face of calls to be “funny.” We also attempt to identify and nurture each student’s individual comic persona. The class culminates in a production of finalized scenes.
Screen Audition Technique
Instructor: Zach Galligan
This class provides a forum for students to learn how the camera and industry professionals perceive them, both in the commercial and legit departments. With the instructor’s guidance, students choose and prepare commercial sides and dynamic 1-2 minute monologues. This class is also a warm-up and preparation for students’ auditions in front of the commercial and legit agents, casting directors, and managers who attend Stonestreet’s Showcases each week.
Acting As A Business and the Art of Auditioning
Instructor: Ted Sluberski
This one semester course is designed to give students a complete overview as to how the business of show business functions. It's purpose is to understand how best the art and craft of acting compliment the film and television industry. Week to week facets of the business are discussed as they pertain to commercials, industrials, television, and film. Each class will include mock auditions in each of these areas including interviews, cold readings and prepared auditions. Topics covered include: the role and function of the casting director, the manager and the agent; SAG, AFTRA and EQUITY as they pertain to professional work; the climate of the business in its two most employable cities New York and Los Angeles and other areas; the headshot and its importance; show business periodicals and websites; and alternative sources to seek employment, representation, career management and continued education.
Voice-Overs
Instructors: Kevin T. Collins and Guests
How
does an actor “sound REAL”? Using the Alexander
Technique as our ground, this class will focus on voice
for commercials, TV, and film. We will explore vocal freedom,
expressive bodies, and authentic sound. We will begin
with voice and advertising, finding the part of us that
sells in “real life” so we don’t just
sound real, we are real. We will end the semester working
on voice for TV and film by using scenes from your other
classes. What is a “character voice”? How
much is too much? This class is about freedom and expressive
presence so dress to move.
Audition
and Showcase
Instructors: Guest Talent Agents, Casting
Directors and Managers
Students work on audition material in and outside of their other classes that includes all television, theater, and film formats. Each week in this showcase, students then present the material, individually or in a scene if they choose, to visiting professional talent agents, casting directors, and managers. It is an opportunity to showcase their work and talent, while receiving professional feedback. It also maximizes industry contact between students and professionals. This showcase is highly regarded by the industry because of Stonestreet’s reputable training program, the impact it has on the students’ work and auditioning skills, and its use as a casting tool. This class is monitored by Ted Sluberski and Zach Galligan, connecting what is learned in their respective classes to the real environment of an audition and vice versa.
History
of Screen Acting
Instructor: Charlie Bass
This class explores some of the most inspiring examples of this relatively infant art, from as early as 1910 to approximately the 1950s. It creates a base of knowledge of film that shows not only what has been, but also what can be.
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