ED HOOKS BAY AREA ACTING CLASSES -- March 22-April 14, 2004
I am looking forward to beginning an 8-session series of classes at the Pear Avenue Theatre in Mountain View next week. The seats are filled, scenes have been cyber-assigned and everybody is already working hard. See you soon! During my time in the Bay Area, I will be staying at the Embassy Suites near SFO. Here is the contact info if you need to reach me there: 150 Anza Blvd, Burlingame. Hotel phone: 650-342-4600. There is enough space there for private coaching, so if you want to schedule something, let me know.

"THE ACTOR'S FIELD GUIDE" DEBUTS AT LA ACTOR-FEST
Look for the Backstage Books table at LA Actor-Fest May 8th. They'll be selling my hot-off-the-press new book, "The Actor's Field Guide - Acting Notes on the Run". This book was fun for me to write and I'm pleased with the way the Backstage editors have put it all together. "The Actor's Field Guide" is a portable acting class, chock full of brief and to the point acting notes, many of them directly from my classes. It is the most craft-specific book I have written to date, and I really hope you like it.

WANNA SEE SOMETHING WILD?
Type your area code and telephone number into Google and hit "return". It will give you your address and a map to your location. Comforting, isn't it?

HOOKS ACTORS WORKING
JANET ROTBLATT, a former student and cherished personal friend of over twenty-five years, landed an important role opposite Patty Duke in a Hallmark television movie entitled "The Christine Bennette Mystery". ERIC SWARZ (s.stdy '00) appears in an indie feature. "Collections" and he recorded a V/O for a Cisco Systems industrial. JOSEPHINE DE JESUS (s.stdy '03" booked an industrial for Walgreen's. She'll be getting her AFTRA card soon. Congrats, Josephine!

ED HOOKS'S UPCOMING SCHEDULE
(Mostf these dates are in connection with my Acting for Animators workshops. If I am in your area, however, and you would like to arrange a private coaching session, I frequently have time to do it. And of course, if I am teaching an Acting for Animators a workshop that is open to the public, you are welcome to join us.)

March 20-21 ANIMA '04 Showcase, Montreal, http://www.anima.sat.qc.ca/en/index.htm

March 22-26 San Francisco Bay Area. Acting workshops in Mountain View plus participation in the Game Developers Conference, San Jose, CA. (http://www.gdconf.com/)

May 6-9 FMX '04, Stuttgart Germany (keynote speaker) http://www.fmx.de

June 7-11 Annecy, France (I'm not teaching, I'm just going to join the fun and watch the flicks. Drop me a note if you'll be there and we'll hook up for a French brew.)

June 18-19 Zurich Switzerland. This is an open Acting for Animators class sponsored by FOCAL and ASIFA-Switzerland. For more info, contact Robi Rengler at: rengler@mail.tnca.edu.tw

CHICAGO CLASS SCHEDULE
SCENE STUDY -- On-going, Thursday nights, 7-10:30 at The Audition Studio, 20 West Hubbard Street, #2W. Free audit, start any time. $135 per month, sixteen-week commitment. Here's a Yahoo map to the The Audition Studio

It is easy to reach The Audition Studio on the CTA red line. Exit at Grand Street and State. Walk two blocks south on State to Hubbard. The #36 Broadway bus also stops very near the school.

PRIVATE COACHING
I'm always available for private coaching. My rate is $75 per hour. We can work on cold reading, career strategies or whatever you want. Call 773-929-1667, or send an e-mail to edhooks@edhooks.com

CRAFT NOTES
SCRIPT ANALYSIS

Script analysis is a tricky thing. On one hand, an actor must know his character inside and out but, on the other hand, too much analysis can lead to over-intellectualization. An actor must portray the character in real time, not write a book about him. At the end of the day, acting is more a matter of feeling than of thinking. It is more a matter of doing and allowing than it is causing and analyzing.

With that proviso, I want to share with you a script analysis I prepared a while back. It is for Tennessee Willliams's play "A Streetcar Named Desire" and I'm attaching it to this newsletter. If for some reason you cannot open the attachment, drop me a note and I'll paste it into an e-mail for you.

In preparing this analysis, I used only the play itself and a dictionary. My objective in writing it is to demonstrate how much information you can piece together from the play alone if you know what you are looking for. This particular analysis covers all of the characters in the play and, in that sense, perhaps more representative of a director's notes. When you prepare analysis of your own, you need only do it for the character you are portraying. Think of it as a bio of the character. What you are looking for are character traits that will stimulate you emotionally. Ideally, you will be so much inside the character's skin that it will come to feel like your own. For example, you know whether or not you are a vegetarian, and so too should your character know. You know how much education you have had, and so too should your character know. You know if you are allergic to wool, and so too should your character know. You remember your first kiss, and so too should your character.

Script analysis is actually fun to do. The challenge is in getting it off the page and onto your feet.<g> And remember: What the audience sees is the theatrical equivalent of the tip of an iceberg. Eighty-five percent of an iceberg is under the water line. You have to create everything below the water line or you will not have an iceberg. You'll have ice cubes.

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