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Paul's
Recommended
Reading List
for  Actors
by Paul Molinaro
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Here's my
recommended reading list for actors. Of course this is according to me...
"According to me, yes. I am the person it's usually according to
when I'm talking. Have you noticed this?" (Teach from American Buffalo by
David Mamet)
You can follow hyperlinks to purchase these texts from Amazon.com
But before you skip to my reading list take a gander at a great article
written by Billy DaMota, CSA - just for all you actor types
What
Every Actor Needs to Know
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Sanford
Meisner: On Acting
I had the great opportunity
to study with "Sandy" at The
Neighborhood Playhouse School of the Theatre in New York City, and I can
tell you, without exaggeration, there are no substitutes. He was the top
of his field. His method lives on in many of those
he trained to carry on his teaching... most notably Robert Carnegie
at Playhouse West in North
Hollywood. I have studied with Robert for many years and can also tell you
that there are no better schools or teachers of The Meisner Technique west
of the Mississippi.
For those not able to have been fortunate enough to study with
"Sandy" (he departed several years ago), this book can help you
understand his technique as well as what happens in your first year at The
Neighborhood Playhouse. |
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Respect
for Acting and
A Challenge for the Actor
Like everyone who begins their acting studies at HB
Studio in New York City, I picked up Respect for Acting on the first day of
classes. I still peruse it from time to time, as there is some sage advice
to be garnered here. This is a book for people who respect, or wish they could, the
theatre on both sides of the footlights, for the actor and audience who favor truth in a
creative process. The constructive stages of work delve into performance as well as the
issues surrounding a necessary change in the theatre. Among Hagen's distinguished students
were Jack Lemmon, Geraldine Page, and Jason Robards. Uta Hagen updated the views that she presented in Respect
for Acting. In 1991 she published her new insights, and A Challenge for the Actor has become as invaluable as
her earlier work. Her second major book has also been welcomed by the acting community. A
Challenge for the Actor covers voice techniques, timing, and rhythm. It teaches how
to establish the identity of a character, how to use physical senses and inner objects,
and much more. |
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Elia Kazan -
A Life
One of the most important theater autobiographies
of the 1980s, Elia Kazan: A Life, has finally been released in paperback. The extra
decade adds to the book's poignancy and its value: a history of backstage personalities
and politics in the 20th century is included in this release. Elia Kazan who was among
those shouting "Strike! Strike!" on the legendary opening night of Waiting
for Lefty, directed the two greatest Broadway dramas ever, Death of the Salesman
and A Streetcar Named Desire. He and earned countless other credits, but he also
played a flawed role in the greatest real-life moral drama of his era: the McCarthy
Communist witch hunts of the 1950s.
Kazan offered names to the House Un-American Activities
Committee. He cut his conscience to fit the fashion of the time, and his conscience
continues to bleed. Though this book is framed, like so much of Kazan's best stage and
film work, as a lifelong search for man's proper relationship to society, the book serves
as a massive explanation and apologia for Kazan's one monumental lapse. He lived his life
intensely, a life in which a single word could transform you, where a misdeed might be
"never forgotten or forgiven." Such were the times, and Kazan captures them with
appropriate drama.
Paperback - 864 pages (October 1997) |
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 How
to Get the Part without Falling Apart!
The
answer to every actor's audition prayers. Acting coach Margie Haber has
created a revolutionary phrase technique to get actors through readings
without stumbling over the script. The book helps actors break through the
psychological roadblocks to auditioning with a specific, 10-step method
for breaking down the scene. Actors learn to prepare thoroughly, whether
they have twenty minutes or two weeks. With a client list that includes Halle
Barry, Brad Pitt, Heather Locklear, Kelly Preston, Vince Vaughn, Josie
Bissett, Vondie Curtis-Hall. Tea Leoni, and Tom Arnold, among others,
Haber encourages and leads the reader through the audition process with
helpful and oftentimes humorous examples. Includes script excerpts,
celebrity photos, audition stories from today's hottest stars and tips
from top industry professionals. Margie Haber is regarded as one of the
top audition specialists in the country. For the past twenty years, she
has taught many of Hollywood's rising stars at her own Margie Haber Cold
Reading Workshops in Los Angeles. Ms. Haber also holds on-going workshops
in San Francisco, Chicago and New York, as well seminars in other cities
nationally and worldwide.
"Every actor about to audition wants to
hear: 'You can do it!' Margie Haber does more than tell you that; she
tells you how. Read the book, actors. You can do it." -Norman Lear,
creator of All in the Family, The Jeffersons, Maude
Paperback - 225 pages (October 1999) |
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On Directing
Paperback - 320 pages Reissue edition (April 1997) |
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The Fervent Years - The
Group Theatre and the Thirties
Paperback - 329 pages (April 1988) |
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My Life in Art
My Life in Art is
the autobiography of Constantine Stanislavski in which he describes many of the ideas and
experiences that he gained through a life in the theatre. Unfortunately censorship during
the time during which this book was written prevented many of Stanislavski's true thoughts
from getting into print. Jean Benedetti, a scholar of Stanislavski, has written several
books which give a more accurate view into the life and methods of Stanislavski.
Benedetti's works include Stanislavski, Stanislavaski - An Introduction and Stanislavski
and the Actor.
Paperback - 582 pages (October 1987) |
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Real Life
Drama - The Group Theatre and America, 1931-1940
Paperback - 482 pages Reprint edition (May 1992) |
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True and False - Heresy and Common Sense for the Actor
Never one to mince words, Pulitzer Prize-winning playwright David
Mamet lays out his advice to players in True and False with 29 curt, iconoclastic
mini-essays. To put it simply, he believes that nearly everything professional actors are
taught in acting programs is "hogwash"; he saves especially poisonous venom for
Stanislavsky and the vaunted "Method." Mamet, author of nearly two-dozen plays
and an occasional actor and director himself, believes that actors should learn their
lines and blocking and speak clearly - nothing else. His curmudgeonly, ferociously
condescending, and revolutionary book will provoke outrage and a great deal of useful
soul-searching.
The Pulitzer Prize-winning playwright, director, and teacher
gives us a blunt, irreverent, unsparingly honest guide to acting that overturns
conventional truths and tells aspiring actors what they really need to know.
David Mamet leaves no acting tenet untouched: How to judge the
role, approach the part, work with the playwright. How to concentrate and think about the
scene. How to avoid becoming the Paint-by-Numbers Mechanical Actor, the "How'm I
Doing?" Ham Actor, the over-the-top "Hollywood Huff " Actor. The right way
to undertake auditions and rehearsals. The proper approach to agents, to individual jobs,
and to the business in general. The question of talent.
Mamet is unmistakably clear about why he thinks actors should not
be taken in by such highly touted notions as "the arc" of the character or the
play, "substitution," "sense-memory," the Method itself - in fact, by
most of what is being taught in acting schools and workshops across the country today.
True and False slaughters some of the profession's most
sacred cows. It is bold, witty, and likely to be as controversial as the author himself.
Quoatations from the back cover include:
"This book should be read and considered by everyone who
acts." -Steve Martin
"Entertaining and enlightening...Mamet's new book on the
actor's life makes me proud to be a participant in that life." -Joe Mantegna
"This is a very important book. No one has defined the
actor's job better than Mamet. So much of the acting we see these days is, in my opinion,
emotional glop. The actors are not really acting the story, they are acting what the story
means. When all is said and done, it's just indicating. And as Mamet so outrageously and
compellingly shows us, the future belongs to those actors who don't indicate at all,
ever." -William H. Macy
"I agree with almost nothing Mr. Mamet says in this book and
encourage you to devour every word. Mamet is a genius." -Alec Baldwin
Paperback - 144
pages (March 1999) shown above left
Hardcover - 160
pages 1 Ed edition (October 1, 1997) shown above right |
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