Auditioning By Heart has been so successful on Fridays that we are adding another class! Yes, another day to study Audition Technique to make auditions like acting, when acting is like Life!

More than anything, Auditioning By Heart is  about empathy for our fellow man. To love what it is to be human so much that you are willing to make yourself vulnerable to a new life and circumstances, as if that life were your own.

As you know, my approach to auditioning is a practical one, “You do, what you do.” That is why it is so important to practice “doing” what you want to be doing. --Working truthfully and authentically at every “opportunity to play”.

Auditioning By Heart actors participate in every class, being put on tape in a faux casting office, afterward the tape is watched and discussed by Sara Widzer and/or myself. Sara is a wonderful director, who also currently teaches at the Lee Strasberg institute, the Performing Arts Workshops (script writer and teacher), The Young Actors Studio, the Leo Baeck Temple, and she is also a member of the Director/Playwright Unit at the Actors Studio, not to mention, the on ice acting coach for Los Angeles Ice Theatre! Eventually, the Wednesday class will be taught by Sara the majority of the time.

The participants in Auditioning By Heart realize that the role belongs to them from the moment the sides given to them; there is nothing to prove, nothing to win - except as the character inside the story.  As a result, auditions become like acting, when acting is like life!

Auditioning By Heart is a state of mind. To participate, you must agree to experience auditioning as a time to communicate rather than a time to book a job. These actors own the fact that they have nothing to demonstrate or to validate about themselves to the casting director, they have only to get what they want as the character, by being fully self-expressed to the other character. Acting is a conversation where something personal and important is at stake and only through communication can those needs be met. As an actor, you must be willing to communicate outside of what has been written for you. Humans express themselves thru words, gestures, facial aspects, and body language, so all of these means are all called upon in the audition. They are the golden moments, and they are generated uniquely by you.

The times of thinking between subjects (ie units or beats) are the greatest opportunity to live...without a life line, as it were, because those “in-between moments” are completely up to you. We make a point of distinguishing how important transitions are. This is where your ability to do your job, if you have prepared, will be most evident. Yet, so many of us when auditioning, get as quickly as we can from the last line of the previous thought, to the first line of the next subject, and completely miss our best chance at playing, living, inventing, experiencing, choosing...all the things that make a person alive (and primarily for what an actor gets hired.) Auditioning By Heart technique grants permission to "think from inside the story" and "generate the line" rather than just saying it because the sides say so. Now the transitions are filled by your history work, your imagination, your creativity, and all of the ideas that explode from that.

It is sad to watch a talented actor simply become a "line deliverer" at an audition out of...fear. Fear caused by the failure to realize the need to grant himself permission to take time and think in every transition...(you can not think and discover without the permission of time.) Secondly, the fear that comes from the failure to properly prepare. If you don't do your homework, and experience some significant moments in the character's history, feel the relationship and make the objective personal...granting permission will not be enough, for it will only be permission to fill the transitions with not much more than "generalized searching" until you choose to say the first line of the next subject. That is not living in truth.

Students of Auditioning By Heart are given the tools to easily gain mastery of their minds and imaginations. In order to create the world of the story in a synergistic way that truly resonates inside their mind and body. Your imagination is created by a muscle in the brain that needs to be strengthened by active use.  Actors are taught to exercise their “imagination muscle” in a productive way to give history to their characters, and to dynamically experience the three points in history which most strongly lead to the conversations given to them by the writer. Only then is the written word truly “the tip of the iceberg”.

It is a proven fact that Focus goes where Interest lies. By creating imagined experiences, the mind strengthens it’s ability to focus on the circumstances of a script. This protects you from breaking concentration and stepping outside of the story and into the casting office. This also keeps your thoughts in integrity with what is coming out of your mouth...your mind recognizes what you are saying as truth (to a good degree) and so does not trigger your body’s natural and automatic “lying response” - increased sweat out-put, elevated heart-beat, raised stomach acid levels, shallow breathing, fuzzy thinking / loss of focus, etc... This alone allows a better audition experience.

Auditioning By Heart homework creates a strong foundation which allows students of to go into any casting office with a truthful and solid “place to stand,” ready to communicate. They feel a sense of ownership of the life they are “living,” that allows them to be fully present in each moment, listening and reacting, playing, and experiencing the ride, instead of manipulating the lines to “sound right”.

Auditioning By Heart rids actors of any need “to perform.” The fear and dread that come from worrying about forgetting lines or missing a pre-planned moment are gone and replaced by excitement to experience and share your new life; to take it on and go after what is desired with your whole heart from inside this story. It is with joy that you choose to step inside and take the ride, personally affected  by each moment and affecting others through truthful communication. That is Auditioning By Heart.