Meisner Intensive: Impulses in 18 Classes

• Building on the Repetition Exercise: Start with the foundational repetition exercise to connect with your impulses and respond truthfully.
• Engaging in Independent Activities: Move into independent activities that demand full attention and create unanticipated, truthful behavior.

Intensifying Exercises: Gradually increase the complexity of exercises by incorporating time pressure.

You coach will guide you to craft reasons for activities: from justifying why you do your activities, you enter the imaginary world.

Applying Techniques to Text: Bring the techniques learned to a written text, practicing the reality of the conversation.

As arbitrary as it may seem, listening is the cornerstone of acting. In this training, listening is treated as a critical skill. You will learn to perceive what lies beyond the spoken words and truly “listen” to someone’s behavior, understanding the subtext and experiencing its implications.

Sanford Meisner emphasized that “an actor should do nothing unless the other person makes them do something.” Through attentive listening, you open up to your scene partner, allowing impulses to arise naturally. This leads to authentic and unanticipated responses, which is the hallmark of any great performance. Meisner’s signature repetition exercise helps you grow into trusting in your impulses, ensuring every performance is authentic and surprising.

By focusing solely on listening, you anchor yourself in the moment. This eliminates hanging onto about what happened before or anticipate of what might come next, enabling you to work from “unanticipated moment to unanticipated moment”.

In order to truly listen to both your partner and what happens within yourself you must be open and vulnerable. Stanislavski asserted vulnerability is an actor’s most crucial tool. Meisner training aids you in shedding the defensive barriers and conditioning instilled by upbringing and societal expectations, enhancing your openness and receptivity continuously.

Being truthful is essential for actors, but striving to impress jeopardizes the truth. Attempting to captivate an audience might result in reproducing preconceived ideas rather than letting the scene unfold organically, or one might push to be emotional out of the fear of being boring.

The Meisner training sharpens your ability to distinguish the false from the truthful, ridding you from any imposed behavior and anticipation.

Since plays aren’t about your personal experiences, connecting with unfamiliar circumstances is vital. The Meisner training vigorously engages, develops, and broadens your imagination, taking you to places which were once beyond imagination.