by Barry
(Ireland)
QUESTION:
Should an Actor have a short routine everyday for at least two hours at home revising pieces etc? If so what else is good to fit into their routine?
ANSWER:
What a great question! Yes, if you can find 2 hours a day to work on your acting, a routine can be very useful, but even 15 minutes a day is better than nothing.
Depending on how much time you have, I would start with a body and voice warm-up. You can use this time to work on body relaxation, voice projection, do speech exercises, etc.
A great thing to do every day as an actor is to read aloud. Do cold readings from scenes but also read from newspaper articles, books, anything. The main goal with these readings is to get better and better at bringing out the meaning of the text to your audience, so your number one goal should be making sense of the text and communicating it, but you’ll find yourself also working on your voice and speech, cold reading skills and memorization skills.
If you do this everyday, you’ll get to the point where you can commit an entire scene to memory within 10 minutes, a great skill to have at cold reading auditions where you’ll be able to be off the page and concentrate on your acting.
Another thing that can be part of your routine is working on what you consider your biggest weakness as an actor. Depending on what your problem area is, different approaches and exercises will be required.
Finally, if you’re working on a part or monologue, you could incorporate that into your acting study routine. Don’t perform your monologue or scene everyday. That will make it stale and won’t be very helpful. The kind of work you can do is things like writing a bio for your character or researching the text for acting clues.
Have fun!