Mastering Stage Presence: How to Present to..24 Teaching Company lectures on DVD

Description: Condition is "Good". Shipped with USPS Media Mail.Mastering Stage Presence: How to Present to Any Audience - 24 Teaching Company lectures on DVDby Professor Melanie M. Long, M.F.A“You can share your experiences with other people and you can do it with passion and clarity—with joy, even—because what you say and how you say it is a powerful expression of who you are and what you believe.”Professor Melanie Martin Long is a professional theatre director, privateperformance coach, and part-time Assistant Professor of Acting andDirecting. A Phi Beta Kappa graduate of The College of William &Mary in Theatre and English, Professor Long holds a certificate fromthe Alliance Theatre Acting Program in Atlanta and a Master of FineArts in Directing from the University of Minnesota in Minneapolis.She completed further theatrical studies as a Dunn Peace ResearchScholar to South Africa and as an assistant director to Joe Dowlingat the Guthrie Theater in Minneapolis.Professor Long has directed productions ranging from classics suchas Hamlet, The Tempest, and AMidsummer Night’s Dream, to her original adaptation of theGabriel García Márquez short story A Very Old Man withEnormous Wings for the Lincoln Center Theater DirectorsLab. As a performer, Professor Long has appeared on various Atlantastages, including the Alliance Theatre, Theatrical Outfit, andTheatre Gael.Professor Long’s publications include two annotations of Shakespeare (TheTempest and Julius Caesar) for Teacher’sDiscovery and the book and lyrics for The Frog Prince withcomposer James Woodward.Professor Long has received numerous awards, including the Ken BryantOutstanding Directing Award, three Lotta M. Crabtree Theatrical TrustAwards, and multiple Certificates of Merit for directing from theKennedy Center American College Theater Festival.Course Description:Stage presence—the ability to connect powerfully and authentically withan audience—is something we often associate with performers. Greatactors, musicians, and public speakers all seem to have it. But thissame capacity is something we all need and use in many areas of life,both professional and personal.Any timeyou present yourself to others, whether in a speech, a publicpresentation, a meeting, an interview, a class, or a negotiation,your success depends on far more than the words you say. Your abilityto communicate, to inspire, or to convince is heavily influenced bythe way you carry yourself, the way you speak, the way you expresswhat you’ve decided to say, and the way you connect with yourlisteners and the space you’re in. In any situation where youpresent yourself, your way of being and interacting with yourlisteners—your presence—is equally as important as what yousay.But ispresence something you’re born with—an innate talent—or arethere ways to develop it? Can presence, in fact, be learned?Asyou’ll discover in this illuminating and highly practical course,the answer is an unqualified “yes.” The skills of poise, physicalease in public, clarity of speaking, and engaging, effectivecommunication are well understood, and can be practiced and developedin ways that will greatly improve your success in presenting yourselfin any setting.Presence: A Learnable SkillDrawing onthe skills and techniques used by professional actors and publicspeakers, you can learn to offer your best self tothe world, by cultivating self-awareness, mental focus, and thefreedom of your body and voice. Whether your goal is to act on thestage or screen, speak at a public gathering, present at a businessmeeting, or even to be in top form over the dinner table, expressingyourself at your very best is a practical and reachable goal.In Mastering Stage Presence: How to Present to Any Audience,Melanie Martin Long, a celebrated teacher of acting and directing,leads you in an in-depth exploration of the skills—and the joy—ofperformance and self-presentation, which apply to any situation whereyou present yourself to others.Like golf,tennis, or painting, learning performance technique involves buildingone skill on another. In the course of 24 interactivelecture/practice sessions, you’ll learn core principles of modernacting technique that allow you to define and expressyour purpose for presenting. You’ll worksystematically to become conscious of your own physical and vocalhabits. And you’ll practice the techniques of freeing your body andvoice for fuller self-expression.Building onthese practices, you’ll integrate your new skills by walkingthrough the experience of an audition or interview, and then byexploring the process of preparing a performance or publicappearance. Finally, you’ll learn how to channel nervous energyinto effective performance, how to draw your audience in, and how tokeep their attention through the end of your time onstage. Withremarkable clarity and thoroughness, this course teaches you the whatand how of presence and self-presentation, on stage andin life.Hands-OnTraining in the Skills of PerformanceIn these dynamic learning sessions, you’ll study and practice the threebuilding blocks of performance technique:mental focus and preparation;your physical life; andvoice and speech.This ishands-on, high-level work in which you’ll explore all of the mentaland physical resources that go into an effective stage performance orpresentation. Far more useful than any book could be, the videosessions allow you to experience the work directly, practicingphysical and vocal workouts in studio sessions with Professor Long.First,you’ll learn that what drives a successful performance is the clearpursuit of your objective (or, in acting, the character’sobjective), which unfolds moment by moment through specific actions.Using characters from Tennessee Williams’s A Streetcar NamedDesire, study acting pedagogue Uta Hagen’s “NineQuestions,” which crystallize a dramatic character’scircumstances, motivations, and objectives, and see how thesefactors propel their behavior onstage.Learn how to specifically apply the principles of purpose andobjectives to both dramatic scripts and public speaking, giving yourperformance or presentation crucial clarity and focus.Next,you’ll work to develop physical freedom and ease onstage—a vitalasset for presenting yourself in public.Drawing on the discoveries of movement pioneers F. MathiasAlexander, Moshe Feldenkrais, and Rudolph Laban, practice movementexercises used by professional actors. These will help you bringyour body into natural alignment, release unnecessary physicaltension, and move with balance, spontaneity, and freedom.Stage Savvy: A core element of skillful performance and stagedeportment, learn how to take focus onstage, as well as howto give focus and create visual variety through physicalpositioning, movement, rhythm, and balance.Finally, you’ll work extensively on vocal technique, expanding and freeingyour vocal resources over eight lecture/practice sessions on voice and speech.Explore each facet of vocal technique for performance, fromexpansive, natural breathing to sound production, resonation, andinflection, as well as how to project your voice to fill theperformance space.Exercise and strengthen the muscles of speech, work out your vocalarticulators through speaking written texts, and study pace andphrasing.Discover the Joy and Satisfaction of PerformingProfessorLong, a highly respected theatre artist and performance coach, bringsdeep technical knowledge as well as extraordinary insight and skillas a teacher to this unique, interactive program. By bothdemonstrating and leading you in exercises to enlarge your expressiveand creative horizons, she teaches performance technique as a path ofself-awareness and physical freedom. As just one remarkable example,she illustrates, citing Harvard studies, how practicing physical“power” stances changes your mental outlook and body chemistry,boosting testosterone and lowering the stress hormone cortisol.Emphasizing experiential learning, the course is designed for you toview over and over for extra practice.Incompleting the learning process, the final sessions take you throughthe application of the skills you’ve learned:Auditions and Interviews: Learn a complete approachto presenting yourself in high-stakes situations, from your entranceand introduction to your self-presentation, its aftermath, and yourexit.Preparing a performance or presentation: Explorehow to systematically prepare and rehearse a stage performance orpublic appearance, from initial exploration and practice of yourmaterial to run-throughs and final dress/technical rehearsals.Dealing effectively with nerves or “stage fright”: Grasphow key principles of mental focus such as releasing self-judgmentand focusing on your fellow performers or audience can make yournerves work for you; andHolding your audience’s attention: Discover howclaiming your power onstage, keeping your performance simple, andusing variety allows you to sustain your performance from start tofinish.Mastering Stage Presence: How to Present to Any Audience takes you deeply into the practical skills of performing and self-presentation, teaching you each element in a highly engaging, step-by-step learning system. With the skills you’ll develop, you can confidently step forward as a performer or presenter, offering your best self to the world in any setting.

Price: 39.99 USD

Location: Memphis, Tennessee

End Time: 2024-02-13T05:29:43.000Z

Shipping Cost: 3 USD