Description
of Classes
Scene
Study is the Mother Ship of Ed Hooks' acting classes, the place
where you work on acting as an art form. These are on-going,
mixed-levels classes that you can start at any time.
Format: Actors are assigned
scenes which they rehearse outside of class for presentation
in class. Stage plays comprise the primary source material.
This workshop also presents a good opportunity to prepare
monologues that you will need to use in the industry.
Schedule
& Enrollment
"An actor is an artist every bit as much
as a painter or composer. When he goes on stage and plays
a role, he is saying to the audience, in effect: "I understand
this about this character." When the audience applauds, they
reply, "I see what you mean."
Frequently
Asked Questions
Is
this the class I should take if I'm just starting out?
It
depends on what you want to be doing five years from now.
If you want a serious acting career, this is definitely the
right place to be. If, on the other hand, you only want to
do commercials, you can probably get by with just some specific
training in audition technique for commercials. I teach a
commercials class like that on
weekends.
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I
want to act in movies and television. Does scene study train
me to be a stage actor instead of a film actor?
No
matter what the medium, acting principles are the same, and
scene study is the place to learn them. This is the Mother
Ship, the arena where you work on acting as a craft and art
form, developing acting techniques you will be able to use
anywhere. Though there are technical differences between stage
and film, there really is not such a thing as "film acting",
regardless of advertisements you may have seen to the contrary.
Acting is acting. There are differences in technique but not
in the fundamentals. It is no mystery why the great movie
actors (DeNiro, Streep, Brando, Sigourney Weaver, Hoffman
-- just to name a few) all come from a stage background.
How
many people are in the class?
Enrollment is usually between 15 and 30. I equate class size
to an elevator in a sky scraper. Four people get on at six,
two get off on seven, three get on at nine.....Sometimes the
elevator is fuller than at other times, but we never get too
many to run efficiently.
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Is
sixteen weeks long enough for me to learn how to act?
You'll
be learning how to act for the rest of your life if you are
serious about it. I figure that, in sixteen weeks, I can work
with a student on three or four scenes and can get a sense
of his level. In that time, I can tell if he has particular
acting problems or assets, can communicate my perspective
on acting in a philosophical way and can generally get him
pointed in the right direction.
I'm
an experienced actor. Am I going to be stuck with a bunch
of beginners in this class?
This is
a mixed-levels class, and I make a specific point of assigning
scene work to people on the same general level. In other words,
I will not make an experienced actor work on a scene with
a novice. If he wants to, well, that's another issue....
Do
you do a lot of exercises in the class?
If
you mean relaxation exercises, sensory exercises, that kind
of thing, no. I believe the best way to teach acting is to
get people involved in scene work as quickly as possible --
even if they are novices. This forces the theatrical transaction
between actor and audience right off the bat. Then, to make
object-lessons, I may conduct some on-the-spot exercises or
improvisations. This way, the actors can see the immediate
application of the exercises.
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Do
you teach Stanislavski acting or Method?
Everybody
teaches acting based on the principles set forth by Constantin
Stanislavski from the Moscow Art Theatre whether they realize
it or not. I'm suspicious of teachers who claim to have a
special kinship with the man because Stanislavski himself
changed his views on acting a lot during his lifetime. As
for the Method, that is a term coined by Lee Strasberg at
the Actors Studio, and he based his "Method" on Stanislavski's
"System." I am personally much more influenced by Sanford
Meisner, Uta Hagen, and
Stella Adler than I am by Strasberg.
They are all teachers of note who work on the principle that
"acting is behaving believably in pretend circumstances."
What
makes your acting class different from others I see advertised?
My
goal is to teach principles and techniques that lead to a
career as a professional actor. I presume that the people
who enroll in my classes want to be paid to act. I don't believe
that theatrical training should take the place of psychotherapy,
nor do I think acting teachers should become gurus. I have
serious objections to acting classes where the focus seems
to be more on the teacher than on the student. You'll never
see me tear an actor apart emotionally in one of my classes.
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