WHY A BOOK STUDY?

Maybe you have it on your bookshelf, but have you read it? You pick it up once in a while and find a bit to read, but do you have the discipline to do the exercises? It’s all there in the book, so to speak, yet it is difficult to do it on your own. The learning in this work is so experiential that it is hard to get from a book. 

In this offering we read To The Actor, together with guided discussion and comprehension. We get on our feet and explore the exercises given in each chapter.  We go quite literally “by the book and beyond the book,” and in so doing we aim to hold space for you to develop your own understanding of Micheal Chekhov Technique and more importantly how it may be a support to your own creative practice. The group meets once a week. We go in class sections chapter by chapter, the speed to which we move through the material depends on the group.  You need a copy of the book you can read and follow along with. 

If you have studied MC technique in a classroom you will often experience the tools through the creative individuality of the teacher. Your teacher may have suggested you do not take notes and wait to read the book later. "Let your body take the notes so that the technique is in you and of you through presence and practice." I have experienced in my own training a great wisdom in this advice. However there is a time when you do want to go to the book, because it is a resource which is, well, "in your hands!" So, what of this book? What value might it have to you in an era where the artist needs an at home practice?

--Emma