Drop the Act
An AUTHENTIC WORKSHOP
with John Markland
Los angeles: December 9th-13th
There is this idea that acting is becoming something other than you. Unless you change the biology, chemistry, and history of yourself, that is an impossibility. So, this idea that when I “play” or“inhabit” a character, it is not me, fundamentally is a huge disservice if your goal is to achieve authenticity. An authentic character is the alignment of two truths… if either is denied, then we see the ACT… it becomes a lie rather than a story.
Authenticity is being true to yourself and others, expressing what is honest, not contorting yourself to be liked or accepted but rather understood and respected. We as actors are drawn to playing for attention, and many of us have done it throughout our lives, so we are susceptible to pleasing and apologizing and socially morphing. This will try to control your acting and your “actor brain” into making it good, doing it right, impressing them, ways of thinking… and it will kill anything authentic about you. You will then continually feel conflicted inside and feeling like you could have done better.
There is a way to allow acting to reveal you, to empower you, to let yourself expose and express more of you than you feel comfortable with in your everyday life. What if your approach to acting was one of authenticating everything you hide, avoid, deny, doubt, and feel insecure about? What if your approach was you turning on the inner lights one by one until you are blindingly authentic? It makes the craft of acting a superpower and the living of life an adventure in which you boldly search out risk after risk.
Each day of this workshop will be a stage toward authenticity. We will begin with a crystal-clear reflection in which, yes, certain truths will be undeniable, and there will be a process by which you will understand how to accept that which maybe you found unacceptable until now. There will be reflective confrontation in which you will inhabit the parts of yourself you hide or deny and argue for their right to live. There will be anthropomorphizing of those neglected parts onto animals and objects. There will be “Dropping the Act”, scene work in which your character will be a fully authentic version of you.