Relaxation:Relaxation is perhaps the most ignored and yet the most important aspect of acting. Lee Strasberg says that relaxation is the Occupational disease of the actor. It needs to be addressed and worked on each and everyday. Relaxation should be approached systematically, with focused work being done on both the muscles and the mind. The actor should spend time each day doing a relaxation exercise that includes isolating specific muscles in the body and then releasing their tension through vocal releases sounds. This is a process of mentally going through each part of the body tensing and relaxing each muscle systematically.

Mental relaxation is just as important as physical relaxation for it is here that tension blocks the story of the script from entering in to our understanding as well as impeding it from being transmitted to the audience.

Tension also loves to sabotage the audition process. Tension can make our dialogue sound wooden and our character seem flat.
The relaxed actor is the flexible actor who is able to handle a variety of material and who can present more fully complete characters.

Yoga, meditation, exercise and deep breathing are all useful exercises for the actor. Here are three steps to becoming a more relaxed actor.

1. Spend 20-30 minutes 3 times per week doing the Strasberg relaxation exercise.
2. Spend 10 minutes per day in meditation.
3. Spend 10 minutes per day doing deep breathing.

Developing ways to relax need to be a daily habit of the actor. One needs to in fact be hyper-vigilant about this because tension is all around us and it creeps into our mind and our muscles often without our awareness.

For more on relaxation go to http://www.theatrgroup.com/Method/relaxation.html Without relaxation a lot of things an actor may rightly want to do will be deformed as they enter his instrument, because the instrument itself sets up resistance through tension.

- From: Strasberg: At the Actors Studio, p. 89

Tell the Story

The story is more important than the words. You have to know what story you are telling. Whether it’s a story about love, about power about heartbreak, about desire, the story must be told. When you know the story you want to tell, then you are free and you don’t’ have to try to be a good actor or to make it happen. These are two acting concepts that lead to indicating and mucho snoring!

No, the beauty of acting is telling a story, your story as told through the character. Yes, it comes down to you, your life, your imagination, your talent and nobody else’s! Don’t wait for somebody to tell you what’s right or wrong, if you wait, it’s too late. You make the choice, you express the truth, and you create beauty.

• Art is the search for beauty, as religion is the search for truth” – Peter Ouspensky

• Don’t worry about keeping up with the Jones’ the only Jones you need to worry about is you - Tiler

If you haven’t had a chance read what an Oscar winning actress says about self-discovery: Ellen Burstyn’s autobiography Lessons in becoming myself www.ellenburstyn.net

Special thank you to our amazing “Dis-Order!” crew:

Adam Philipson-videography:
http://www.canyonspac.com/index.html

Gabor Szitanyi - Editing
http://tenstrongmenstudios.com/

Julianne Figueroa - Stage Manager

If you like the show “In Treatment”, check out the students at Scott Tiler’s acting class.

While working on a scene actors will often say “I can’t relate to this”.

That’s when I start asking them questions. The first question I ask them/character is “What’s going on with you?” Right away they start talking to me about what they’re feeling, what’s happening in their life, what their frustrations are, what their desires are. Before you know it they transform into the character right before my eyes. They forget what it was they couldn’t't relate to. The acting becomes emotional, vivid and powerful. AMAZING! It blows my mind how much the human spirit can overcome. We just need as actors to really understand the depths of who we are and what we have to offer. Our doubts are not our truth, doubts are merely a step on the pathway to greater understanding, not a ditch to “camp out” in.

For us to grow, it often helps if we start from the premise that we don’t know. For example, “I don’t know if i can relate to this” is a perfect place to start. From their you can start asking questions, and expressing the answers in an out loud, in the moment, visceral fashion.

Vegetarian Lasagna: I want to make it but I’m not sure if I can, so I start asking questions like, what ingredients do I need to buy? What do I have to do? How long will it take? And through this process, I will soon be cooking up a scrumptious culinary feast for my wife and myself (I’m hungry now).

It comes down to this: Always be a beginner, always ask question. In this way acting and life become an adventure, a rite of passage.

Cultivate what is known as “Beginners Mind”. “In the beginners mind their are many possibilities; in the experts mind their are few” -Shunryu Suzuki, “Zen Mind, Beginners Mind”

Sense-Memory or Sense-Fantasy are equally powerful tools. They are the key that opens the door to an Imaginal Subspace in the mind. This subspace can also be described as an Altered Reality, Creative Reality or Artistic Reality. Whatever name you give it, it has the power to CHANGE your performance. It also has the power to make you believe you are somewhere else or someone else.

It is in this Subspace that the actor has a fuller, richer experience of the character and a truly visceral understanding of their true capabilities.

It’s not easy. We all struggle with focus, clarity, freedom of expression. The acting workshops give us the opportunity to confront these challenges. Our demons who want to take over our will, have to be put in proper perspective in order for our instrument to be free. The exercises we do give us a new perspective on those demons and in so doing lessen their grasp on our minds.

Acting is a process of gaining knowledge about life, about ourselves and about the human condition. I pray for all of us to have to willingness to go through that fire, in whatever way we need to, so that our passion and talent will not sit quietly in the mist.

It is so good to know that you’re doing what you know your supposed to be doing. How many people can say that? Those of you who are members of Scott Tiler Studio Theater (STST) are very dear to me for you are the mouth piece of light, truth and creativity. All you need to do to find the truth of the scene is to know yourself. And you learn yourself by sitting with yourself, buy engaging the depths of your mind and soul and then opening your mouth and speaking. You must detach from any intellectual result, your mind must be free of unnecessary chatter. So get a mantra, count, listen, accept, watch, learn, look listen. It’s all in you, now, here, today.

It’s “Our Time”:

“Something is stirring,
Shifting ground¦
It’s just begun.
Edges are blurring
All around,
And yesterday is done.

Feel the flow,
Hear what’s happening:
We’re what’s happening.
Don’t you know?
We’re the movers and we’re the shapers.
We’re the names in tomorrow’s papers.
Up to us now to show ‘em¦

It’s our time, breathe it in:
Worlds to change and worlds to win.
Our turn coming through,
Me and you, pal,
Me and you!”

-Stephen Sondheim

A new dream is taking place, is being lived, people from all walks of life are coming together to do something that makes life really worth living.

Doing work that feeds the soul and engages the mind. Creating, acting, writing, directing, living.

But in order to shine our light and bring joy to the world, we must turn within. Therefore I offer words from the ancient hindu text

“The Baghavad Gita”:

“The vibration of the senses(Kurus), which keep the the devotee’s attention upon the internal sounds of the physical body , are shrill and disturbing-comparable to shattering a quiet atmosphere with the clamor of drums, horns and cymbals”

Tiler: Too much focus on the satisfaction of our senses clouds the mind and depletes vital energy needed to create the magnificent work we wish to create and can lessen our ability to share it with the world.

Therefore we must (Gita) “aspire to develop steadily in spirituality and must calm the mind by the practice of the right techniques of concentration; must keep the breath quiet by pranayama and proper breathing exercises; must preserve the vital essence (generally the most abused of the senses) by self-control and by seeking only the company of good people; and must free the body from restlessness and aimless motions by conscious control of the life force, and by keeping the body in good health and training it by patient discipline to sit absolutely still in meditation”.

The theater will be a place like no other: an artistic center of healing, a creative oasis, a place to express our personal truth and illuminate the human spirit through acting.