Acting Made Easy: Acting Technique and Monologues

Acting is a weighty and difficult craft to master, and one can often feel overwhelmed when first approaching it. How do I learn? What should I do? Am I even good at this?? Where is the instrument?! “Beginner Acting Technique” will answer all of these questions by providing students a solid foundation of technique to build upon in the future. This class is meant for any student who is curious about acting and has never tried it before. It is not quite recommended for students who have previous acting experience or knowledge, but could still be beneficial for them as a touch-up, and any are welcome to give it a try. Each class will structured as a mixture of lecture, discussion, and practice. It's my personal belief when it comes to acting that students should be able to immediately attempt to implement whatever is discussed in class, so in each class, students will practice what we cover with a partner. Of course, as the instructor I will be supervising and guiding students in the right direction. This 8-week course will culminate in performing a monologue with confidence, and also with peer-critique. So, another aspect of the class will be learning how to give others an appropriate and proper critique of their work in a way that is fair and constructive. Below is the outline for the 8-weeks:
Day 1: What is acting? A focus on answering that question so that one has that answer for themselves. This class will be a lecture-style discussion of what acting truly is and how a person could be “good” or “bad” at it. This class will involve a lot of discussion, so students should come prepared with an idea of their own answer to this question. 
Day 2: Objectives: What do you want? Learning about objectives and how they inform any piece of acting. In this class, we will discuss objectives and look at an example of a scene to dissect it and find out what the actor's objective is. 
Day 3: Activities: What are you doing? In this class, we will talk about activities – meaning, what someone is doing during a scene. Students will also practice a short monologue while doing a simple activity. 
Day 4: Actions: Why are you doing this? In this class, we will discuss “actions” - why someone is doing or saying something in a scene. Students will practice “actioning” a monologue. 
Day 5: Arcs: Is it going to happen? In this class, we will discuss an “arc”, which is the journey from point A to point B in a script, or, in the case of this class, a monologue. 
Day 6: Students will learn about giving feedback and critiquing. It's important to learn how to give someone appropriate feedback without having that person feel offended or attacked. We will use this class to discuss how to do that appropriately. 
Day 7: Monologue performance and feedback. Students will perform their monologues for the class and receive feedback from the instructor, as well as other students using the guidelines we set. In a large class, half of the students will present on this day, and half next week. In a smaller class, students will present twice – once this week, and once next week. 
Day 8: Monologue performance and feedback. Students will perform their monologues for the class and receive feedback from the instructor, as well as other students using the guidelines we set. In a large class, half of the students will present on this day, and half the will have presented the week before. In a smaller class, students will present twice – once this week, and once the previous week.