Recess: An Acting Class

When an actor starts work on a role one of the initial questions she asks herself is:

What does my character want?

She studies each scene and asks:

What will my character do to get what she wants?

Actors help themselves by focusing on the actions of the character and good actors know if they play those actions one hundred percent, the emotions will follow. Actors help themselves by thinking in verbs.

There is a misconception that actors become "someone else" when they take on a character. If that were truly possible, there would be far more actors in loony bins than there currently are.

An actor searches the character for points of identification and asks:

If I were so-and-so, in such-in-such a situation what would I feel, think, believe and then do?

Lizzie and I set out to tackle these questions, find verbs and take action against a bully.

One thing I've learned about little kids is they don't like being "little kids." Cracking a kid can be as challenging as 007 cracking an enemy's secret code.

Little kids tend to think that when trouble shows up, they are at fault. Or they should be able to handle the problem. Or all freedoms will be taken away if they talk.

Another thing I know is that it's hard to be a kid.