The Professional Actor Training program offers excellent training that balances course work and performance opportunities in an environment of working theatre professionals. Traditional as well as new approaches to actor training, are drawn upon to engage intellectual, emotional, physical, vocal and creative talent. The curriculum is designed to serve the development of a creative process that will meet the demands of classical text. This includes developing the actor’s ability to work creatively within structure and the ability to merge technical skill with imagination. Core components of the training program are:
Principles of Acting
Creating a process for understanding character psychology is dependent on understanding actor psychology. Students begin this process through identifying habitual patterns of behavior and learning to intensely observe, re-create observation, efficiently execute actions, and clarify dramatic intention. Listening exercises that examine human dialogue are used as a foundation for discovering and performing the thought behind the word. Special focus is placed on the technical and creative needs of performing classical text: dramatic forms, rhetorical forms, figures of speech, verse, vocabulary, use of the O.E.D., First Folio, syntax, punctuation, operative words, scansion, historical research, scholarship and literary criticism.
Voice and Speech
Clear voice work is the springboard of the actor’s imagination, without which his story goes untold. A command of physical and vocal integration is the sign of a thorough and capable actor. Our classwork is body-based, increasing the students’ perception of their own balance of resonance and articulation. Skill building includes the International Phonetic Alphabet, breath control, phrasing and interpretive techniques of voice required to clarify the complex thoughts and images in the verse and prose of our greatest writers. Character work is explored through Laban-based Movement Analysis of each student’s performance style.
Theatre History
A rigorous and extensive study of theatre history and dramatic literature is approached from a practitioner’s point of view. The two-year reading list ranges from classical to contemporary literature and includes Shakespeare’s complete canon in the context of other Renaissance drama. Seminar discussions, oral reports, reading journals and occasional analytical essays develop the actor’s ability to consider, create and express a specific world when approaching characters, auditions, rehearsals, and performances.
Movement
Through the recognition of personal habits, the development of personal range, and the broadening of physical, vocal and emotional vocabularies, students examine theatrical choices of presence, impulse, action, behavior and relationship for the purpose of transforming the artist and embodying the text. The journey of bringing one’s self to a role can be challenging. To facilitate this journey, physical vocabularies of neutral and character mask, textual masks of action, period styles, historical/theatrical dance and stage combat (Society of American Fight Directors Skills Proficiency Test) are taught. The work is based on the principles of Alexander and Feldenkrais, rooted in the practices of embodiment based on sensory awareness.

In addition to actor movement training, an ongoing physical discipline is encouraged by such classes as Tai Chi, pilates and yoga.
Associate Artists
Each year members of the Equity Acting Company are chosen by the Artistic Director to serve as Associate Artists. In addition to their duties with the company, these artists serve as mentor/coaches to the students of the MFA/PAT Program. The nature of the student/Associate Artist relationship may include meeting to work on monologues, scenes, understudy assignments, class assignments or self-initiated projects; also, they may simply get together to discuss the student’s work and career path.
Master Classes and Workshops
ASF Artistic Staff members, Associate Artists, Equity Company members and guest professionals teach master classes and workshops which support core course work and program projects and performances. Master classes and workshops that have been presented in the past include: dialects, stage combat, Restoration style, first folio study, Suzuki technique, mask, clown and commedia performance, Alexander technique, audition preparation, period dance, on-camera performance, make-up application and resume writing.
Understudy Coaching/Scene Study
Recognizing and embodying choices through text analysis and understudy observation teaches the art of working creatively within structure. Such study reinforces the principles of traditional storytelling and encourages students to work outside their own vocal, physical, intellectual and emotional habits. Understudy is a demanding, yet enriching process at ASF. Students are assigned understudy roles based on approximation of type and on what can best stretch the student’s range of expression. And although assuring the integrity of a production is the first reason understudies are used at ASF, the faculty works with the student in integrating the skills acquired in class to the challenges of performing a role with minimal formal rehearsal.
Projects and Performances
Throughout the two-year program, students are cast in ASF Equity productions in supporting roles, cast in understudy roles, and often join ASF professionals in the Southern Writers’ Project. Graduate Company Productions are fully realized plays on our Festival or Octagon stage and cast with MFA students. Recent GAC productions have demonstrated a wide range of theatre such as Alice in Wonderland, Beauty and the Beast, The Grapes of Wrath, Twelfth Night, ‘Tis Pity She’s a Whore, and The Comedy of Errors, with The Winter’s Tale scheduled for 2005!

Studio Project Performances allow students to perform course-based work either in-house or for an invited public. Projects have included the performance of sonnets, scene work, community-based plays, and original work. Last fall our Second-year actors performed August Strindberg’s Miss Julie and The Creditors. This past year’s projects included Strindberg, Sophocles, and Marivaux.
Professional Showcase
Students who are successfully working in the second year will be professionally showcased for an invited audience of agents, producers and casting directors. Traditionally held in New York, ASF makes a substantial contribution to financing this showcase. Students, however, are primarily responsible for raising their travel costs through benefit performances and other fund raising events held in Montgomery. Professional directors, casting directors and agents have also been invited to ASF through the Shares Program, a program designed to promote professional networking.
Grading and Evaluation
Faculty and students meet three times a year in private, individual conferences to discuss areas of challenge and growth as well as to identify goals. Each student must successfully complete each aspect of the program curriculum. The University of Alabama requires one letter grade be issued for ten credit hours of practicum; this one grade must reflect the successful completion of all aspects of the program. A letter grade of “B” or better must be maintained to continue in the program. Those unable or unwilling to fulfill the requirements of the program are placed on probation or dismissed from the program.

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