Actors and Acting

So You Want to be an Actor? We still have a problem.

8 December, 2025
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Actors and Acting
Posted by Kate Foy

Every now and then, and this has happened for decades since I’ve been an actor and in the actor-training game, someone tells me they’re thinking of becoming an actor too. It usually comes with a hopeful look and the slightest wince, as if they’re waiting for me to deliver bad news gently. And yes, the

Acting Notes, Actors and Acting, Collaborative Learning, theatre

Unexpected Learning

1 January, 2016
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Actors and Acting
Posted by Kate Foy

In the course of their careers, actors get to experience a wonderfully eclectic range of characters and human behaviors. We investigate the way people think and act, and have the often-daunting task of giving life to a character who seems light years away from our own understanding and experience of life.

Actors and Acting, rehearsals, skills

As You Like It – a daily rehearsal and performance log on Tumblr

16 January, 2012
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Actors and Acting, Casebook, Productions
Posted by Kate Foy

An image a day and a tweet or quote a day to sum up the passage of the next 10 weeks as I rehearse and perform in La Boite Theatre Company’s production of As You Like It by William Shakespeare. I get to play Duke Senior, father to Rosalind. This should be fun and a

Actors and Acting, As You Like It, La Boite Theatre Company, Queensland, Tumblr

Notes on the freelance life: voice work

22 April, 2010
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Actors and Acting, Voice and Text
Posted by Kate Foy

Yesterday was hardly typical, and it was memorable for a couple of reasons. Firstly, I had three freelance jobs that took me cross-town a couple of times through pouring rain and crazy traffic; Brisbane doesn’t respond well to the wet. The second was a confirmation (if I needed it) at day’s end that the business

Actors and Acting, training, voice

Quote of the Day: on the actor’s preparation

4 March, 2010
2 Comments
Actors and Acting
Posted by Kate Foy

Read the whole article from Andrew Utter at the Mother of Invention Acting School blog. The post is a review of a new book on acting by Howard Fine: Fine on Acting – A Vision of the Craft. * “Your central responsibility as actors is to affect and to be affected by, that is your

Actor, Actors and Acting, Education, Performing Arts

Line please …

23 February, 2010
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Actors and Acting
Posted by Kate Foy

A delightful little movie blooper reel out of the 1936 movie archives. Nothing much changes … not even the way actors react to a lines breakdown. Enjoy!

Actors and Acting, movies, Videos

Lines-learning just got cooler: another tool for iPhone toting actors

4 February, 2010
3 Comments
Actors and Acting, Technology and Creativity, Voice and Text
Posted by Kate Foy

I’m not all that keen on the name of this handy little iPhone app: ‘Hollywood Helper – Broadway Buddy’ – yuk! ‘Lines Coach’ is plain, but it might well have served for an application that helps you to learn lines without your script, and which also understands how most actors work with pencil

Actors and Acting, applications, iPhone, Jack Poggi, learning lines, tools

Accent or Dialect?

11 June, 2009
4 Comments
Actors and Acting, Featured, Voice and Text
Posted by Kate Foy

An interesting blog post on OurBrisbane.com today – it’s a performing arts blog run by Brisbane playwright Katherine Lyall-Watson – caught my attention. It had me reaching for the keyboard; it was about one of my favourite topics, something I’ve been dealing with for years – voice training, specifically dialect and accent work for performance.

accent, Actors and Acting, Add new tag, Christopher Hampton, dialect, God of Carnage, Queensland Theatre Company, speech, spoken English, voice, Yasmina Reza

Listening to books: Alan Bennett at the BBC

8 January, 2009
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Actors and Acting, Technology and Creativity, Voice and Text
Posted by Kate Foy

I can thoroughly recommend Alan Bennett at the BBC which is currently available from Audible.com or the iTunes store. I’ve just finished listening to the inimitable Mr Bennett reading what is a miscellany of his work from the past 30 or so years, and all via the BBC. By the way I very much also

Actors and Acting, Alan Bennett, BBC, characterisation, Harold Pinter, Maggie Smith, Reviews, Talking Heads, Uncommon Reader, Videos, voice

So you want to be an actor? We have a problem

15 December, 2008
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Actors and Acting
Posted by Kate Foy

A year ago I wrote about American scholar and practitioner Robert Hornby’s ‘The End of Acting’. It’s a book that has a strong point of view about the art of acting and the education of artists. I’ve enjoyed dipping back into it since a first reading in 1993. That an actor needs training is, from

Acting Notes, Actors and Acting, arts education, Asides, Higher education, Old Tote Theatre Company, skills, training

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