Dreaming of a career on the music theatre stage?  If you answered "yes" to that question, are still in high school, headed for college and planning to audition for entrance to a BA or BFA program in music theatre, then you MUST hone your skills in singing, acting, and dancing.

At my voice studio in Bywater, you will focus on establishing a solid vocal technique so that you are ready to compete successfully when it's your turn to audition for entrance to a post secondary training program that will set you on the path toward a career on stage.

• Who: beginning, intermediate, advanced
• What: private voice instruction
• When: primarily Saturdays and Sundays
• Where: home studio only
• Format: technique - repertoire - musical rudiments
• Specialty: preparing high school singing-actors for college auditions

• Cost: $35.00 per lesson
  •  Students in high school or university: $25.00 per lesson
• Payment: cash, check, or credit card.
• Age: 15 years and up - younger than 15 considered on case by case basis

Interested? Learn more.

Knapping on the job!

Taking his training to heart this quarter, Thomas Knapp, NOCCA grad and Freshman in the BFA Musical Theatre program at CCM, applies newly learned "method acting" techniques to prepare for a workshop on Kander and Ebb's, And the World Goes 'Round. 

Method acting, or as it is sometimes simply known, the Method, is a technique used by actors. Method acting is thought to have revolutionized acting as we known it today. It is the antithesis of the wooden actor and uses techniques such as sense and memory to achieve realism in acting. Actors who use the Method rely on using their own emotions from their past in order to bring new depth to a part.

Method acting is thought of as an American form of acting, but it was a Russian theatre director named Konstantin Stanislavski who wrote books on the subject in the 1930s. Around the same time, one of Stanislavski’s students, Richard Boleslawsky, opened an acting school in New York. Boleslawsky began teaching Stanislavski’s basic principles of acting. In the 1940s and 50s, method acting was popularized and taught at the legendary Actors' Studio in New York City by famed acting teacher Lee Strasberg. Another school in New York, called the Actors' Group, also taught the method under the coaching of Stella Adler. Acting students came from far and wide to learn this new technique.

Although method acting is thought to be the most realistic of techniques it can sometimes present a minor irritation to other actors. Dustin Hoffman once went without bathing and sleeping for two days in order to immerse himself in a role. On seeing Hoffman’s condition, Laurence Olivier his co-star in the film, famously asked him, "Why don’t you just act?"