Acting Techniques for Directors

Develop successful collaborations with actors through scene study, improvisations, exercises, and script analysis

In order to direct actors toward performances that embody the director's vision, the director must have an essential understanding of the actor's craft. This class explores vocabulary that the actors and directors can share in order to communicate clearly and collaborate successfully. Through scene study, improvisations, exercises and script analysis, the directors in the class gain insight into how actors actually work and how they use what they learn to inform and develop a practical directorial tool set. Students perform in several scenes as actors and are given a chance to direct one another as well. The course requires a personal commitment by the students and is very rewarding for those seeking to seriously understand and work with actors.

 

“The more he knows (director) about acting, the more at ease he will be with actors…all in all he must know enough in all areas so that his actors trust him completely.”

--Elia Kazan

Instructors

Barry Primus

In a long film career of more that sixty movies Barry has worked with Martin Scorcese, Sydney Pollack, Mark Rydell, James Toback, Roger Cormen, Paul Mazursky, and Roger Vadim. He has appeared in films such New York – New York, The Rose, Boxcar Bertha, Absence of Malice, Heartland, Guilty by Suspicion, Big Business, Down and Out in Beverly Hills, Righteous Kill with Robert De Niro and Al Pacino, and JF Lawton’s Jackson (Best Actor Southern California Film Festival). 

Barry co-wrote and directed Mistress starring Robert De Niro. On television he has directed episodic TV shows, such as VIP and Tribeca. His film 20 Percent Fiction is in development. Currently he is directing Cirque Berzerk in Los Angeles.

On television he starred in all major shows including Law and Order, The X-Files, The Practice, Picket Fences, Boston Legal, and was a series regular on Cagney and Lacey. 

Barry has appeared in Plays on Broadway collaborating with such people as Elia Kazan, Jerome Robbins and Harold Clurman. Barry staged his own play Wonder Comes the Seventh Day. 

He has taught this course at the Maine Media workshops since the 80’s. As well as internationally and at UCLA, USC and currently at LMU film school and has coached many prominent actors in some of their most important roles.