For professional performers who desire to return to, or maintain an ongoing relationship with a dynamic and fertile state of learning. The goal: to use the specifics of language, action, subtext, circumstance, and relationships in order to connect with the work at the deepest most personal level. You are encouraged to push boundaries with the aim of building ever more complex characters and situations, allowing and exploring what is powerfully, unexpectedly revealed. Expected rehearsal time outside of class: 6+ hours / week

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• Prerequisite: Open to Acting Level Studio Practice (Level 4). New to HB? Submit online for level placement.

For actors who have English as a second language. The question “How do I make these words my own?” is at the core of the actor’s craft. If you are speaking English as a second language, you may encounter additional stumbling blocks like getting stuck in “translator” mode, feeling emotionally disconnected from the language, and fearing being misunderstood. This course is designed to help you bridge the gap between the text and the self by unlocking the full expressive power of the language skills you already possess. The class guides you through activities to fully access your natural and learned language tools so that you can express yourself more freely, listen more intently and contribute more meaningfully in English. Voice and movement exercises will uncover the expressive musicality and physical experience of embodied language. Through text analysis, table reading, and guided rehearsal, you explore the vocabulary, grammar, subtext and context of a given script. The goal is to develop your language skills on multiple levels with a focus on improving your ability to perform in English. All of this serves the actor’s calling to make meaningful connections with others through collaborative dialogue.

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• Prerequisite: Prior completion of one full term (10 weeks) of Speech 1.

For professional performers who desire to return to, or maintain an ongoing relationship with a dynamic and fertile state of learning. The goal: to use the specifics of language, action, subtext, circumstance, and relationships in order to connect with the work at the deepest most personal level. You are encouraged to push boundaries with the aim of building ever more complex characters and situations, allowing and exploring what is powerfully, unexpectedly revealed. Expected rehearsal time outside of class: 6+ hours / week

• Learn more about the instructor
• Prerequisite: Open to Acting Level Studio Practice (Level 4). New to HB? Submit online for level placement.

You apply advanced lessons in technique and text analysis to the preparation, rehearsal, and presentation of scenes from a range of contemporary and classic plays. The work may incorporate Modern (19th/early 20th century) and Classical texts, as well as heightened, non-linear, experimental and Contemporary material. Scenes are presented in class for critique, then reworked to explore and apply feedback. Extensive research, preparation, and rehearsal are expected outside of class. Skills: understanding and realizing the event of the scene; layering conscious and unconscious behavior; applying technique as a tool to solve challenges outside your comfort zone; transformation of self. Through extensive examination, research, and experiment, you discover and rediscover the level of action and commitment needed to fulfill the form and idea of the play. Expected rehearsal time outside of class: 3-6 hours / week

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• Prerequisite: Open to students placed at Acting Level 3 and up. New to HB? Submit online for level placement.

Held online via Zoom: Continuing film actors with some film experience will work at an advanced level. This is an opportunity for beginning film actors to start  learning the steps needed to prepare to work on a professional film set, and for the working actor with film experience to stretch, renew and risk. We will practice everything you need to own after the director calls, “Action!” Let’s integrate your imagination, voice, body, and acting techniques to allow your most truthful work to be seen by the intimate eye of the camera lens. Let’s find freedom, joy, and presence in the technical world of film. We will practice the art of bringing-it-all- together. We will incorporate self-filming as an integral component of this course. Actors will experience creating work through the practice of filming themselves, in class and at home. Expected rehearsal time outside of class: 3+ hours/week.

• Learn more about the instructor.
• New Students must: schedule a Zoom meeting with Lisa Pelikan prior to your first day of class. Email her at lpelikan@hbstudio.org.
• Prerequisite: Open to Acting Level 2 and up. New to HB? Submit online for level placement. 

This class will give students the tools needed to read scripts with active curiosity, so that you can bring the script to life in unique and specific ways. Your enhanced understanding of the script will improve your performance. You will explore specific techniques that allow you to identify inciting events, main events, character relationships, themes and genre and all the particulars that make storytelling powerful and clear. The course begins with an introduction to the approach, followed by in-depth analysis of assigned scripts each week. We will be breaking down a screenplay, a play and a popular TV pilot together. You will each explore a character from each of the scripts, and perform excerpts from scripts and/or sides analyzed in this class.

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• Prerequisite: Open to Acting Level 2 and up. New to HB? Submit online for level placement.

In Acting 2, you continue developing the techniques from Acting 1, now applied toward scene work and the demands of crafting and scoring a role. You’ll use Uta Hagen’s object exercises to build habits of attention and unlock your rehearsal process. You’ll apply improvisation to the exploration of character and circumstances, and develop an approach to preparation. Among the skills you’ll practice: discerning beats, intentions, obstacles, and conflict; choosing actions; sensing the turning points in the text; substitution/personalization; endowment of sensory conditions; working with expectations and previous circumstances; finding immediacy in the give and take.

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• Required reading: A Challenge for the Actor by Uta Hagen.
• Prerequisite: Open to Acting Level 2 and up. New to HB? Submit online for level placement.

In Scene Study 2, you will apply the lessons of Acting 1 and 2 to the preparation, rehearsal, and presentation of scenes, focusing on contemporary realist plays (mid-20th century to present). Scenes are presented in class for critique, then reworked to explore and apply feedback. Technique exercises may be introduced diagnostically to address problems as they arise.

• Learn more about the instructor.
• Prerequisite: Open to Acting Level 2 and up. New to HB? Submit online for level placement.