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The Actor's Art and Craft

William Esper Teaches the Meisner Technique

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The Actor's Art and Craft

By: William Esper, Damon Dimarco, David Mamet - preface
Narrated by: Michael Esper, Damon Dimarco
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About this listen

 William Esper, one of the leading acting teachers of our time, explains and extends Sanford Meisner's legendary technique, offering a clear, concrete, step-by-step approach to becoming a truly creative actor.Esper worked closely with Meisner for seventeen years and has spent decades developing his famous program for actor's training. The result is a rigorous system of exercises that builds a solid foundation of acting skills from the ground up, and that is flexible enough to be applied to any challenge an actor faces, from soap operas to Shakespeare. Co-writer Damon DiMarco, a former student of Esper's, spent over a year observing his mentor teaching first-year acting students. In this book he recreates that experience for us, allowing us to see how the progression of exercises works in practice. The Actor's Art and Craft vividly demonstrates that good training does not constrain actors' instincts—it frees them to create characters with truthful and compelling inner lives. Acting & Auditioning Entertainment & Performing Arts Film & TV Theatre Entertainment Celebrity Physical Exercise Art Techniques

Critic Reviews

"Utterly inspirational. . . . The best book on the craft of acting that I have ever read." --Mary Steenburgen

"As far as I'm concerned, there is only way to learn the craft of acting, and that is through the Meisner technique. And there is only one person to learn that technique from, and that is William Esper." --Patricia Heaton

"The essence of this book is like William Esper himself: kind/clear, caring/generous, passionate/graceful, brilliant/profound. Inspiring. Invaluable." --Jeff Goldblum

"A veritable magnum opus on acting from a Master Teacher." --Olympia Dukakis

"Working with Bill Esper was an inspiring and unforgettable experience. . . . Every serious actor who dreams of becoming a first-rate artist must read this book!" --Calista Flockhart
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Alright, I'm just going to say as an aspiring actor no.. in the words of Bill Esper a practitioner, who is now working part time acting in a few projects. This book book took me 1.5 years to start and finish. Reason being is because I was listening to it and re-listening to previous chapters over and over again whilst learning on the job. What Bill teaches in this book is directly transitional to everything I found myself witnessing in rehearsals and on set.

I have read 5 books on the craft now, Audition being one of them and so far this one kept on being the most relevant to direct working procedures with particular truth of technical usage of the Meissner technique.

I am now doomed to re-read/listen to this book forever as I am yet to find something as potent as this book again.

Some caution, it does start a bit slow and if you aren't involved in theatre or film projects yet a lot of the emotional insights within this book you may not find as helpful until you are on the job.

However, if you are currently practicing the craft in real time, I cannot preach the usefulness of this book enough.

One of the gems that Bill teaches is total sensory focus on a task or object until interrupted by the scene or your partner. The interruption+reaction process is something that I continue to use and has made me a better practitioner with each passing moment in a project.

Among many others.

Enjoy!

There Are No Words.

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Beautiful book, I’ve given up Spotify and just listen to this book, over and over again. Beautiful and amazingly useful. Is there any way to get the 2nd version on Audible?

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