Simple Acting Skills that Can Change Your Life: Part 1

The professional actor’s toolkit contains many resources that can be helpful to everyone. One of these is rehearsals—practicing before actually giving a performance. Just as the rehearsal process facilitates an actor’s incarnation of a character and enhances the actor’s acquaintance with all components of a creative work, rehearsals can do the same, and perhaps even more, for the layperson.

A famous Shakespeare quotation comes to mind: “All the world’s a stage, And all the men and women merely players.” How do the Bard’s words manifest themselves in everyday life? At one point or another almost everyone has taken part in an activity that is completely “put on.” Political gatherings, rallies, religious ceremonies, weddings, family get-togethers, group meetings, birthday parties, and even dates are often staged and rehearsed, complete with a breakdown of roles, speeches, exact duration of scenes, specific entrances and exits, etc. Shakespeare’s words gain even more significance when people take a closer look at their individual lives. On a daily basis, most people assume different roles as they move from one scene to the next. A restaurant manager switches uniforms, becomes a pharmacist, then returns home to be a mother; a lawyer serves simultaneously as a university professor, the chairman of the board of a non profit, and the neighborhood football coach, etc. Thus, people transition seamlessly from one role to the next.

Such transition is facilitated by training and practice. While growing up, people are taught—both at home and at school—to “act” in a certain way; doing otherwise is chastised as solecism. We also learn to acquire diverse skillsets and adapt to new situations through practice. Consequently, the high school graduate—once apprehensive of college life—soon becomes a proficient freshman, and the aspiring medical student one day becomes a doctor. Human beings develop by force of training and repetition. As Mark Twain opined, “There’s nothing that training cannot do. Nothing is above its reach or below it. It can turn bad morals to good; it can destroy principles, it can recreate them; it can debase angels to men and lift men to angelship.” Twain suggests a psychological transformation in the trainee by underscoring the role of training in shifting bad behavior to good. Similarly, in his book “Awaken the Giant Within,” world-renowned motivational speaker Tony Robbins states, “The simplest way to condition something is simply to rehearse it again and again until a neurological way is created.” Robbins’ words could pertain to mundane routines, such as changing the spot where one places his or her car keys, or to more momentous situations, such as shifting one’s outlook when switching careers. Accordingly, flawed habits that have long ossified can be rectified through rehearsals. Like Twain, Robbins underlines the correlation between training and a lasting neurological metamorphosis.

Apart from normal rehearsals, many people may be able to benefit from mental rehearsals—rehearsing an activity simply by imagining it unfolding step by step. This can be useful in a myriad of situations. For example, a student torn between two careers—say teaching and engineering—may be helped by visualizing himself or herself in both roles. By imagining oneself immersed in a specific task and mentally walking through it, one can get a feel for the task without actually doing it. This process can be helpful in making important life decisions, pre-living crucial events, and assimilating multifarious skillsets. Acclaimed physical therapist Joyce R. Maring foregrounds the efficacy of mental rehearsals in her article “Effects of Mental Practice on Rate of Skill Acquisition,” stating, “When fatigue makes physical repetition of a motor task undesirable, mental practice may be an effective aid to mastery of a skill without the expenditure of significant energy.” Maring points out the relative convenience—and commensurate benefit—of mental rehearsals.

In internalizing Shakespeare’s words and borrowing the pivotal skill of rehearsals long used in the theatre, individuals may find a helpful tool for changing their lives for the better. Just as an actor envisions a scene while preparing for a performance, we can visualize the scenes unfurling in our lives and make adjustments as needed. Ultimately, rehearsals relieve stress by mitigating the factor of the unknown so that we can be more present—and more intentional—as we go about starring in the performance of our lives.

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“You can have conscious preparation, but you have unconscious results."— Lee Strasberg

“Why, except as a means of livelihood, a man should desire to act on the stage when he has the whole world to act in, is not clear to me.”— George Bernard Shaw

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