The ACS approach to Acting

At ACS, we approach acting very differently. We have chosen to deliver actor training that doesn’t focus on the traditional elements of text analysis, character and emotion.

For instance, we don’t believe that acting is becoming someone else – we believe that it’s being more authentically yourself. This means we do not really believe the actor should have anything to do with character, characterisation or character development. We think it’s a dead end and that it doesn’t lead to good acting, that it’s a tradition that is out of date. We do not believe in transformation, we believe in revelation of self.

We don’t believe that exercises where you pretend to create a fictional truth between you and another actor are useful in any way. They are a historical mistake that we are still dragging round with us. That person is not your husband and no amount of wishing or pretending will help you. Do what the character is essentially doing and you will create the illusion of character for the audience. You cannot be other than yourself, but you can do things to create the appearance of character.

We don’t believe that your responsibility is to comb the text for ways to connect to what is being said. When we are acting, we don’t care what is being said, we focus on what is being done, our behaviour and that of our scene partners which always changes, unlike the script which is always the same. We believe you shouldn’t put 100% of your performance into the 7% of human communication that is transmitted verbally, through the words.

On the other hand, we believe you should have supreme respect for the script. We believe that you must fully understand the script. We believe this does not refer to finding meaning in the words, but analysing the script for action, the do-able part underlying any script.

We believe a live performance cannot ever really be rehearsed.

We believe all exceptional actors improvise moment to moment.

We believe that you must acknowledge what is front of you and work off that.

We believe the actor should be a highly skilled translator of page to stage but is not a creative artist. They bring presence and life to someone else’s script, someone else’s art. The actor as creative artist is an attempt to be what an actor was never for most of their history, an originator.

We do not believe your job is to produce emotional performances. Emotive presentations came from Method acting’s hegemonic hold on our industry, as if the kind of performances they give IS good acting automatically and without question. If you want to make an audience cry, hold back your tears and be brave, they will see this and be moved by it. Do you want them marvelling at your ability to become emotional on command? Or do you want them to get emotional?

The audience is the key to our approach.

Let the audience imagine you are the character, they want to do this! They are willingly complicit in it!

Let the audience listen to the words and make sense of the script, they don’t need you to explain it for them.

Let the audience feel joy and sorrow, they wish it, that’s why they came.

We believe that acting is simply living truthfully, true to the moment, not some false realism or fictional reality.

We believe people can learn to be good actors, but that some people chose not to help themselves and cannot get out of their own way.

We believe that good acting IS captivating but that it doesn’t require months of suffering on the part of the actor.

We believe in craft and we believe in graft, and we have a technique that can liberate and empower you.

It’s learnable and we can teach it to you. It’s not magic, it’s not innate – we don’t even believe in talent.

Craft and graft. Skills and hard work.

That’s all it is.