Alchemist Episode #001 -”The WHY of a Character”
In this premiere episode of the podcast I talk about what I call the “WHY” of acting which is: Why does a character do what they do? Why are they there? And why does an audience care? This being the first episode, it’s just me, but tune in for future episodes for roundtable discussions and interviews. Covered in this episode are topics like this:
The Shakespeare Paradigm - or why does this particular character say these particular words at this particular time.
Background Importance - how important is the background for your character if the playwrite doesn’t specify?
Examples - quick analysis from Shakespeare’s Hamlet and Beckett’s Happy Days.
Being Specific - how being specific in your choices can engage the audience.
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The Alchemist Podcast: Episode #001
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3 Responses to “Alchemist Episode #001 -”The WHY of a Character””
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Excellent stuff. Very impressive. All of your podcasts and articles have really helped me in my acting and theatrical development. Keep the podcasts coming!
I’ll leave some suggestions for future topics:
- The importance of being professional in theatre, even if it’s not professional theatre (i.e. being responsible, polite, courteous, etc)
- How to find auditions
- How to pick monologues
- Backstage Etiquette: The concept of the audience. What I mean by this is that there are some actors who revert back to the peek-a-boo stage in thought where they believe that if they’re not supposed to be on stage, then the audience won’t see or hear them. A friend of mine constantly stands in the wings in full view of the audience and talks loudly backstage and causes other kinds of noises that the audience can fully hear. Unfortunately for him and fortunately for the audience, he was “let go” before opening night.
- Shakespeare is not Dr. Seuss. Iambic pentameter, yes, but don’t sing-song Shakespeare.
- The importance of the technical and why you should respect them: Their extremely thankless job is to make you, the actor, look good. Thank them.
Got some others floating around in my head, but you do such a great job of articulating things, I figured I’d leave them to you.
Kudos, and thanks for the advice!
-Camel
Camel,
Thank you for your very kind words. If this site has inspired or helped one person in any way then I’ve done what I set out to do. And thank you even more for the suggestions, they are excellent ideas and I will definitely cover them in future Articles and Podcasts. It’s this kind of collaboration that makes me proud to be in a community as wonderful supportive as actors. This is what the Alchemy of Acting is all about.
Thanks again,
Daniel Roach
I love these podcasts. I downloaded them and listen to them religiously. I had an acting coach talk to me about building a character and developing that character’s history of why he is the way he is and this podcast reinforced that even more. I loved all six of them will you be doing any more?