THTR 1031 - Beginning Acting

Credits: 3
Hours/Week: Lecture None Lab None
Course Description: This course teaches students the basics of acting. In addition to training and developing the actor’s voice and body, students are taught methods to enter a creative state, create the world of a play, create characters and play scenes. Students use vocal and physical warm ups, read plays, apply acting vocabulary and concepts, write performance plans, work with physical and imaginative exercises, analyze play texts, and attend and evaluate the acting in a live theatre production. The course works with students at all levels to increase the student’s abilities in the performing arts.
MnTC Goals
6 Humanities/Fine Arts

Prerequisite(s): None
Corequisite(s): None
Recommendation: None

Major Content

1. Analyzing Acting
2. Audition Techniques, Head Shots, Resumes
3. Choosing performance pieces that are right for you
4. Finding the Objective and Through Line.
5. Improvisation to develop characters
6. Laban movement
7. Principles of Warming up the Voice and Body
8. Stanislavsky
   1. Working with the senses
   2. Given circumstances (Who, What, Where, When?)
   3. Units and objectives
   4. Logic and believability
   5. Creative state of mind
   6. Learning to enter the creative state of mind
   7. Sensory memory
   8. Spheres of attention
9. Techniques for Physical and Vocal Warmups
10. Use of the voice
    1. Abdominal breathing
    2. Phonation
    3. Resonance
    4. Pitch
    5. Intonation
    6. Topping in on a line
    7. Using phonation and pitch to explore character
    8. Placement of the Voice
11. Using Tactics and Committing to the Objective
12. Vocal and physical anatomy primer

1. make informed acting choices based on knowledge of what makes a successful performance.
2. define and apply acting vocabulary to character creation.
3. synthesize vocal and physical skills with analysis, creativity, insight and emotional commitment to create a compelling character.
4. create the environment of a scene using non verbal means.
5. use their bodies with an increased range of flexibility and gesture.
6. determine appropriate character objectives, and what stands in the character’s way.
7. enter a creative state of consciousness using a variety of possible cues.
8. demonstrate creativity (originality and insight) through monologue and scenework.
9. use their voices with greater volume, projection, and clarity.

06. 03. Respond critically to works in the arts and humanities.

06. 04. Engage in the creative process or interpretive performance.

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