The Vertical of the Role
Dear colleagues
Who of the actors among you has not already had a text in their hands and not the faintest idea of how to realise it? That’s actually the director’s problem. But am I nothing more than an instrument in the hands of the director? I took up this profession to communicate important things to the world, especially with complicated texts and multi-layered characters. I want to speak as an artistic personality about the issues that are important to me.
So when I meet the director at the first rehearsal or on the set, I want to be prepared so that we can work together on an equal footing. It’s great that the director takes care of everything practical, suggests an interesting concept – my job is to be alive in my character. How can I do that? By sharing a secret with my personage: we have already had an intensive dialogue about the topics that connect us. Even though we sometimes had extremely different views, this dialogue has led me to understand a little bit more about the world. And isn’t that my primary objective as an artist?
This time of preparation is the intimate encounter with my personage, who asks me questions and provokes me to think about things that may have been foreign to me until then, who inspires me to investigate, who leads me to invent speech and counter-speech, to give it form up to a monologue that is also a dialogue, which leads me far beyond the situations of the actual play and connects me as an artist with our common themes in such a way that I may no longer even know which of us is now speaking and acting.
I’m talking about the beauty and pleasure of developing a role yourself, exploring its philosophical core and using this knowledge to create a character that can unfold its power in any stage or film production.
The Vertical of the Role is a wonderful method developed by Jurij Alschitz and used by hundreds of artists worldwide. The development of a so-called Vertical takes time, which is why I offer this course online. This is a wonderful way to go through the process alongside all your other professional commitments.
After eight group sessions and two individual coaching sessions, participants will be able to perform their own monologue and will have learnt how to apply this methodology to all their future roles.
For colleagues working in teaching or directing, this course can be equally interesting to learn how to guide the process and use it correctly for your own work.
Welcome to the course!
Christine Schmalor
The Vertical of the Role
4 March – 29 April 2024
mondays from 17-20:00 (UTC+1)
online
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+49 30 612 87 274 akt.zent@berlin.de
World Theatre Training Institute AKT-ZENT / ITI