NYC, NY Acting: Motivation.

In the NYC Vazquez Acting School you will learn about Motivation which is a theoretical construct used to explain behavior. It represents the reasons for people’s actions, desires, and needs. Motivation can also be defined as one’s direction to behavior, or what causes a person to want to repeat a behavior and vice versa.[1] A motive is what prompts the person to act in a certain way, or at least develop an inclination for specific… Continue Reading

New York, NY Acting: Substitution.

In the NYC Vazquez Acting School you will learn about substitution which refers to the method of understanding elements in the life of one’s character by comparing them to elements in one’s own life. For example, if an actor is portraying a character who is being blackmailed, he or she could think back to some embarrassing or private fact about his or her own life, and mentally superimpose that onto the character’s secret. This is… Continue Reading

NYC, NY Acting: Given Circumstances

In the NYC Vazquez Acting School you will learn the term Given Circumstances is a principle from Russian theatre practitioner Konstantin Stanislavski’s methodology for actor training, formulated in the first half of the 20th century at the Moscow Art Theatre. The term given circumstances is applied to the total set of environmental and situational conditions which influence the actions that a character in a drama undertakes. Although a character may make such choices unconsciously, the… Continue Reading

NYC, NY Acting: Meisner’s Technique.

In the NYC Vazquez Acting School you will study Meisner technique. Many American acting teachers inspired by Stanislavski broke off with Strasberg, believing his method was not an authentic adaptation of Stanislavski’s system. Sanford Meisner, another Group Theatre pioneer, believed the method was far too focused on the internal workings of the actor, and that acting should be “outside in” rather than “inside out”. His ideas came to be called the Meisner technique, and he… Continue Reading

NYC, NY Acting: Stella Adler’s Technique.

We study the Stanislavski approach at the NYC Vazquez Acting School. Stanislavski found faults with an experienced-based approach early on, noticing that users and abusers of techniques such as affective memory were prone to hysterics. For this and other reasons he shifted the focus of his system to rely upon imagination, which the actor can use to portray things they haven’t even experienced. This remains a fundamental distinction between the System and Strasberg’s method, and… Continue Reading

NYC, NY Acting: Strasberg’s Method.

In the NYC Vazquez Acting School we use the Strasberg method. Strasberg used the term “Method” to describe his philosophy of acting and his techniques of training actors, which built upon some of Stanislavski’s early ideas. Strasberg’s method is based upon the idea that in order to develop an emotional and cognitive understanding of their roles, actors should use their own experiences to identify personally with their characters. The method uses techniques to reproduce the… Continue Reading