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9 October 2024

How to 'teach acting': Creating a Study Unit with Hugh O'Gorman

Hugh O'Gorman

Actor, Director, Author & Teaching Artist

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Earlier this month, Digital Theatre+ published 25 Higher Education Study Units, covering topics from Costume, Lighting, or Sound Design to Postdramatic Theatre and Shakespeare's Tragedies

Each Study Unit is a curated collection of resources from the DT+ platform, expertly put together by a leading academic to help you create more impactful learning experiences. Each Study Unit is divided into two sections: 'Introducing', which offers bite-size snippets of materials, and 'Exploring', which includes longer-form, deep-dive content to support independent and further study.

Head of Acting at California State University Long Beach and Co-Executive Director of the National Alliance of Acting Teachers, Hugh O'Gorman curated our Acting Study Unit. In today's blog, we spoke with Hugh about the common challenges of actor training, and how he hopes this Study Unit will help both students and educators alike...

How did you approach curating this Study Unit?

I was extremely excited when DT+ reached out to me. I saw this as an excellent opportunity to share the platform's incredible resources with my colleagues in actor training around the globe.

I began by reviewing the titles in the DT+ catalogue directly related to acting training. This took some time - but as actor training is my passion, it was quite enjoyable.

As with so many curatorial projects, be they writing or otherwise, I find it helpful to review the material first without any set agenda, simply with an open, beginner's mind. I let the material wash over me, seep into my consciousness, and notice what strikes me.

What stands out? Why? What remains with me days after I viewed it? What did I learn from it? As someone who has spent almost 40 years as an actor, and more than half that time teaching acting, I wanted to let the material itself talk to the actor in me without a pre-prescribed plan; to allow for a natural, unforced response.

Arrow Graphic from the DT+ Key Concepts in Acting Series

Hugh O'Gorman previously curated the DT+ Key Concepts in Acting Series.

After reviewing the material this way, I asked myself: 'What are the organizing principles around which I want to choose material for this Study Unit?'.

What immediately came to mind is that acting is an art form and, like all art forms, it is not sloppy: it is precise. It demands years of training, technique, rigor, discipline, and a huge breadth and depth of imagination. Yet, if an actor is working well under imaginary circumstances, the viewer often forgets that acting is indeed a craft. Which is the way it should be.

So, I settled on Technique as the organizing principle for this Study Unit. Why? Because, as Michael Chekhov writes:

"No matter how naturally talented the actor may be, he will never evolve much for his art or bequeath his own gifts to theatrical posterity if he isolates himself in that small cell of his 'own technique' and devices. The art of acting can grow and develop only if it is based on an objective method with fundamental principles."

It is through this lens of the 'objective method' or technique that I feel DT+ users can access this Study Unit and ground themselves in the ephemeral art of acting. With this in mind, I went back to my list of titles and examined them from this point of view. Then began the hard part: which to keep and which to exclude. This was not easy, at all!

Each Study Unit contains two elements, 'Introducing' and 'Exploring'. How would you describe the difference between these sections?

As the titles imply, 'Introducing' is for those just setting out on their quest to learn more about the art of acting, while 'Exploring' is for those looking for a deeper dive into particular aspects of the field. This division made the curatorial process fairly straightforward.

For the 'Introducing' section, I included a lot of material from Key Concepts in Acting, a series I curated for DT+ a few years ago which offers a high-level view of a number of aspects of acting. I also included segments from the series Interviews with Legendary Acting Teachers, which is a treasure trove of wisdom.

For the 'Exploring' section, I really wanted to include all the titles that interest me - but that would be too overwhelming! I included essays, interviews, workshops, and documentaries that offer a more thorough examination of the detailed mechanisms of a variety of approaches to actor training. And of course, I was cognizant of trying to include as many different cultural perspectives as possible, given the library catalogue.

As much as I adore the 'Introducing' section (and I do!), I really appreciate the massive offerings in the 'Exploring' section. It is here that the viewer gets to slow down, settle in, and receive the gifts of genius teaching and inspiring productions from around the globe. I find it truly thrilling.

As an actor and facilitator yourself, were there any common challenges to acting training that you had in mind during the curation process?

Yes. The most common challenge is to actually define 'acting'. It's easy to give an arguable working definition of acting - but like swimming, dancing, or riding a bike, acting can't be understood intellectually; it must be 'understood' in the body, psycho-physically.

Unlike some of the fine arts, perhaps, or music, you can't point at acting and say 'that's acting'. It's not coffee in a cup that one can taste, see, and smell. There are landmines of paradox littered across the landscape of actor training. One of the biggest, again, is that when an actor is working, you don't want to see their 'work', you want to experience the character in the story.

And yet, the actor is still acting, and they must train to do so through knowable methods. Actor training involves a wide variety of objective techniques that allow for the building of a practice with practical, practicable, repeatable, and concrete practices, all of which help the actor 'to live truthfully under imaginary circumstances', and to do so under the highest professional performance pressure.

Helping the user in getting a hold of this aspect of actor training was definitely on my mind when working on these Study Units.

How do you think digital resources aid acting and theatre students in particular?

Well, as all acting is psychophysical, one must get in the proverbial pool of acting to actually learn how to do it. But one can learn an enormous amount about acting from digital resources and the like.

The extensive DT+ library provides a wealth of essential, invaluable contextual information on acting. One needs to understand the art form relative to different genres and mediums of delivery (stage, film, television), as well as the different demands of contemporary vs. classical scripts to build a clear perspective on it.

The classical offerings, I feel, are a particularly helpful aspect for the actor, as it helps them to orient themselves in work that they might not have been exposed to very often, if ever.

And finally, how do you think Study Units will enhance the learning experience for students and the teaching experience for facilitators?

The DT+ Study Units will act as an investigative launch pad for students of acting, opening the door on a plethora of hand-selected, high-level resources for the classroom and beyond. A careful viewing of all curated materials will not only enhance the students' understanding of acting, but hopefully unleash their curiosity about the craft, leading them to further study.

The selected offerings, viewed either individually or collectively, will provide the student of acting with a solid footing in this mercurial art form, no matter their experience level.

Should the serious student of acting wish for a deeper, more detailed exploration of acting methods, approaches, philosophies, rehearsal techniques, and/or productions, they will not be disappointed by the wide range of thoughtful and eye-opening offerings in the 'Exploring' section. Enjoy!


 

If you are already a DT+ customer, you can access Study Units now as part of your subscription. If you would like to find out more, get in touch with our Sales Team today!