Script Analysis Workshop

(Acting Workshop NYC) A thorough and meticulous investigation of process that allows you to put into practice the tools of ACTING FOR DIRECTORS, to forge new skills, to hone and raise to a new level the skills you have.

Judith’s goals for directors in her Advanced courses are these: first, communication and connection with actors; that is, gaining their trust, troubleshooting their resistances, making breakthroughs, and maintaining authority, vision and getting the job done without shutting down actors’ creativity. But her creative alternatives to “result” direction and commitment to process give you more – a framework and tools for solving and shaping a scene, working beat by beat, locating events, through-lines and subtext. And even better – a deep connection to the imaginative world, its events and characters, that leads to joy and creative satisfaction.

How exactly do you bring the words of a script off the page and into life? How do you access the rich, inexhaustible “subworld” of a script and connect it to the infinite resource of your own imagination? How do you keep getting deeper, simpler, and truer with your ideas? How do you become a great storyteller? Where do you find the “hot button” words and phrases to whisper to an actor just before the camera rolls, that make the actor feel stimulated and supported by an “actor’s director”? Where do you begin? And how do you keep going when you get stuck?

In the intense and transformative SCRIPT ANALYSIS workshop, we make a uniquely detailed and depthful investigation into the subworld of a feature length script, chosen by Judith (usually an as-yet-unreleased major studio project). The script is sent to you in advance, to be read before the workshop. During the first two days, we delve into the script’s subtext, and unlock its “playable” secrets – its imaginative backstory, adjustments, and spines, its images, themes, events and arc. The purpose is structure – and at the same time flexibility – to prepare you for bringing the script to life through the actors. The approach is at once radical and practical, providing language and strategies for any contingency of casting, rehearsal and shooting. (It’s good preparation for talking to producers, agents and executives too!) Thorough preparation sets you free to follow your instincts on the set.

Getting Started: Rehearsal Techniques Workshop