Actor/Director Conversation – How to Discern Someone’s Style of Listening by Sean Pratt

10/19/09 SEAN PRATT PRESENTS HIS WEEKLY ARTICLE ON THE BUSINESS OF THE BIZ

Actor/Director Conversation – How to Discern Someone’s Style of Listening.

Understanding the director’s style of listening, as well as your own, will go a long way to helping you effectively communicate with each other.

The story has been told of the director who gave an actor the note, “Okay, the next time you do this scene I want to see some real passion and anger, so really tear up the stage.” So when the actor came back onstage to do the scene, he started screaming and jumping around and picked up chair and threw it through the window on the set. The director, who nearly had a heart attack, yelled, “What are you doing?!” The actor replied, “But you said to tear up the stage.” To which the director said, “Well, I didn’t mean it literally!” Nothing can be more problematic to the success of a project than when the director cannot clearly communicate with an actor and vice versa. Essentially, it boils down to the way each of them speaks and listens.

To read the rest of this article go to: http://acting.suite101.com/article.cfm/the_actordirector_conversation

Based in Washington D.C., Sean Pratt has been a professional actor for more than 20 years. He also teaches classes on and writes articles about the business of the Biz. http://www.seanprattpresents.com/