All Posts by Richard Sarell

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Over his twenty-five year directing career Richard found that many actors he auditioned didn’t actually listen. They acted listening to pre-planned choices they had intelligently worked out as a result of their preparation. That pathway plainly didn’t work – it was fake. Even actors who had emerged from the major teaching institutions often couldn’t listen for real.

Apr 20

Acting – Intermediate Workshop Class

By Richard Sarell | Acting Classes & Workshops

Intermediate Acting Workshop

Dates:

Duration:

Times:

Tutors:


Tuesday 20 April – 22 June

10 weeks

7.00pm to 9.30pm

Richard Sarell
Kyahl Anderson

ENROL NOW

THIS WORKSHOP IS NOW FULLY AVAILABLE ONLINE WITH LIVE TEACHING
email Richard@rehearsalroom.com or ring 0407 226 620 for more details 
BUILD YOUR SKILLS WHILE KEEPING RISK FREE

Are You Getting HIred?
Good acting technique translates into good audition technique.
           Good audition technique means actors get callbacks and get gigs.

A Casting Director doesn't want to see any sign that you are acting. They want to see you listening and inter-acting.  You have to be real.

To achieve that an actor needs to be able to:-
            Be relaxed and confident in the audition room (that's why you must know what you are doing)
            Prepare effectively and quickly
            Set yourself to deliver a good start to your audition offer - beginnings are important
            Be able to take direction and make big changes.

These are the skills that The Rehearsal Room acting process delivers.  It is practical, it is simple and it works.

Crispian Belfrage - London based actor

"

The week I finished this term of classes I booked two great roles in high end projects, through top casting agents.  I wish I had known about these techniques 25 years ago. 
There is an art to acting and this approach helps you understand that, in very real and simple terms. It keeps you from being in your head AND OVER COMPLICATING THINGS.

Crispian Belfrage - London based actor

A Complete Acting Process
That takes you from your first read of the script through to your final performance

In this Intermediate Acting Workshop you will acquire skills to use throughout your career. Learn to be real, to be versatile, to be a great listener and to be skilled in auditions. The Intermediate Acting Workshop will make you the director’s best friend.

Stefanie Caccamo is a WAAPA graduate

"

Thank you so much for an amazing 10 weeks (they went so quickly!) I’ve really rediscovered my passion for screen acting and it’s been more fulfilling than you know. I used to leave screen classes feeling deflated and unsure of myself but when I leave you, I feel inspired to keep working harder. Truly, thank you.

Stefanie Caccamo - Beautiful: The Carole King Story, Oklahoma,

What will be covered in this course?

1) Build real and effective listening skills

Listening is a core foundation skill that many actors find hard to manage. The key is to actually listen. Often the default choice for an actor is to ‘act’ listening – that never works. The focus of this workshop is on building real listening skills

2) Explore effective Meisner techniques to refine your listening

This adaptation of Meisner process is enormously effective at building listening skills. These challenging exercise develop a number of real skills that you will use in many different ways throughout your career.

3) Gain practical skills to find your place in a scene

Clearly understanding and controlling your character’s place in a scene is an essential skill for an actor. Those choices are crucial to delivering the unfolding story. These are the skills that drive the story forward and engage the audience. Nowhere else are these techniques taught so effectively. These are the skills that have you standing out in the audition room.

4) Be able to make big changes to character and story outcomes

How to change the nature of the character and balance that against the drama of the story is a skill that is not commonly taught. You will learn to make powerful choices that are dramatically engaging. With practice these skills are easy to manage. You will have a powerful professional presence in front of a Casting Director.

5) Learn to trust your actor’s impulses

Impulses are an instinctive part of daily interactions. But many actors take their importance for granted. The key to being real and believable is understanding what drives the impulses in a conversation. That understanding enables the actor to control a path to realistic but highly dramatic performances.

6) Test your skills with a professional casting director

The final exercise in this workshop is to test your burgeoning skills in front of a professional Casting Director

Shane Porteous A Country Practice [Lead actor]

For an actor a scene must do more than further the plot - it must explore the relationship between the characters. Richard has a gift for making this process clear and simple. His direction gives me confidence to trust my own intuition, thus allowing the character room to breathe...

THIS IS FOR YOU IF...

  • Casting Directors say that you aren’t listening authentically
  • You can’t make quick and effective decisions in auditions
  • Have tried other techniques but still want to know more
  • Have tried other techniques but found them confusing
  • Want to be able to use character to push the story
  • You want to learn about acting from a director

IF YOU DON’T HAVE THESE SKILLS …

  • you will ‘act’ rather than listen and respond
  • you will make vague intuitive choices rather than logical professional ones
  • be unable to effectively take direction
  • be seen to be ‘acting’ rather than be real and ‘inter-acting’
  • be rigid in your choices rather than relaxed, flexible and professional

ABOUT RICHARD...

Over his twenty-five year directing career Richard found that many actors he auditioned didn’t actually listen. They acted listening to pre-planned choices they had intelligently worked out as a result of their preparation. That pathway plainly didn’t work – it was fake. Even actors who had emerged from the major teaching institutions often couldn’t listen for real.

As a result a major focus of his work with actors both on the set and in the classroom has been to build techniques that develop ‘active listening’ skills. To be able to actively listen in a real and lifelike way is the foundation on which great performances are built. This workshop has a deep and powerful understanding of how our listening actually works and builds techniques that you will use in a variety of different ways throughout your career.

Richard believes this common sense and practical approach to this most basic of acting skills is unique to classes at The Rehearsal Room. It not only trains actors to make practical choices that will drive their listening in an active way but it will also enable them to monitor how their listening skills are working throughout their career.

Listening is the bedrock on which acting skill is built.

COURSE STARTS - Tuesday 20 April 2021

Learn skills you will use throughout your career. Learn to be real, to be versatile, to be a great listener and to be skilled in auditions. The Advanced Workshop will make you the director’s best friend.

ENROL NOW
Mar 29

Rehearsal Room launches new website

By Richard Sarell | News

Well we are finally here.  We have a new website.

Please bear with us over the next couple of weeks as we tweak the final bits and pieces to get everything perfect.

Most importantly, make sure that you check out our latest workshops that are ready for enrollment.

Thanks  for visiting!

 

Richard…

Jul 22

Acting – MASTER CLASS

By Richard Sarell | Acting Classes & Workshops

MASTER CLASS

Dates:

Duration:

Times:

Tutor:

Full Fee:

Deposit:

Thurs 22 July - 23 Sept

10 weeks

7.00pm to 9.30pm

Richard Sarell

$750

10% - pay remainder of full fee in instalments

ENROL NOW

THIS WORKSHOP IS NOW FULLY AVAILABLE ONLINE WITH LIVE FACE-TO-FACE TEACHING
email Richard@rehearsalroom.com or ring 0407 226 620 for more details  
BUILD YOUR SKILLS WHILE KEEPING RISK FREE

Expand the effectiveness of your skills to a highly professional level. Directors will love your ability to interpret their notes. Refine your techniques and practice very effective, uniquely practical add-ons. In the final session be directed by a professional guest TV director.

If you haven't previously studied here you can still audition for a place in the MASTER CLASS

David Paterson Chopper, The Curious Case of Benjamin Button, Saving Mr. Banks, Frost Nixon

I have observed leading teacher directors in the US and UK and Richard shares with them that facility to guide actors through the guff to the heart of the scene.

What will be covered in this course?

1) Stretch your emotional range

The character’s emotions are directly connected to the success or failure they experience at achieving their goals. These techniques teach actors to get the emotional balance right.

2) Engage an audience with the power of the story

Delivering the story is the actor’s primary focus. You will be empowered to engage your audience with the real drama in a very real way.

3) Create richly complex characters

Creating real character’s that function beautifully in different relationships is the pinnacle of the actor’s craft. These simple and logical techniques create richly textured characters in a profoundly simple way.

4) Be in charge of your professional conversations

The Rehearsal Room process will enable you to dissect Directors and Casting Directors intentions. Often you will be able to interpret their goals into actor friendly concepts better than they can. You will be empowered to share in the responsibility of finding both story and character choices.

5) Prepare efficiently and effectively

Being given a task at short notice will no longer frighten you. You will practice being empowered to prepare in either seconds or weeks with techniques that are appropriate and effective. They are proven to work.

6) No longer will you be ruled by acting myths

You will practice techniques that are so logical and so practical that the mumbo-jumbo of many of the acting myths will no longer befuddle your mind and confuse your choices.

THIS IS FOR YOU IF...

  • You have strong foundations of The Rehearsal Room process in place and want to continue to build your skills
  • There are still areas of acting process you wish specifically work on
  • You know that maintaining a craft means constantly practicing
  • You want to catch up with new techniques that have evolved at The Rehearsal Room
  • You want to keep working with actors who use these unique skills

IF YOU DON’T HAVE THESE SKILLS …

  • You will compromise the consistency of your performances
  • Under pressure of an audition you will rush to make ineffective choices
  • You wont be able to process director’s notes effectively
  • You will often be confused about direction and uncertain how to implement it
  • You wont be able to monitor the bad habits that have crept into your work since the last class
  • You will miss out on the fun of the most enjoyable and productive classes in town

ABOUT RICHARD...

Richard loves conducting the MASTER CLASS sessions. It is here that the learning is shared between the actors and the teacher. Although actors may still be clarifying their understanding of the detail of The Rehearsal Room process in these sessions they are now ready for big challenges and strong critiques.

Because we are all measuring performances from the same set of values the discussions are exciting and frank. It is in these sessions that new articulations of this acting process emerge. 



Actors now negotiate their performance choices with professional skills. Richard finds it very satisfying to hear actors identifying problem areas ahead of time.  That was the reason he established this course.  Its aim was to empower actors to see the possible outcomes of their choices while they are still in the preparation stage. Guest directors to classes see these skills in action.



Recently a director commented that he was impressed how well everyone could take direction.  When he discovered that the actors had never done their scenes before, but had prepared them over a 20 minute period before he arrived, he changed his mind.  "Now I am REALLY impressed," he said.



Richard believes those are the professional skills that all actors should be able to deliver with ease

THIS COURSE STARTS -  Thurs 22 July 2021

Learn skills you will use throughout your career. Learn to be real, to be versatile, to be a great listener and to be skilled in auditions. The MASTER CLASS will lift your professional skills to a new level.

ENROL NOW
Jul 21

Acting – Advanced Workshop Class

By Richard Sarell | Acting Classes & Workshops

Advanced Workshop

Dates:

Duration:

Times:

Tutors:

Full Fee:


Deposit:


Wednesday 21 July – 22 Sept

10 weeks

7.00pm to 9.30pm

Richard Sarell
Kyahl Anderson

$750:00


10% - when paying in three instalments

ENROL NOW

THIS WORKSHOP IS NOW FULLY AVAILABLE ONLINE WITH LIVE FACE-TO-FACE TEACHING
email Richard@rehearsalroom.com or ring 0407 226 620 for more details  
BUILD YOUR SKILLS WHILE KEEPING RISK FREE

This is a workshop for experienced actors. You will learn the broad array of sophisticated techniques that have been developed at The Rehearsal Room. Making powerful decisions that engage an audience, balancing the character against the action, managing performance intensity and character complexity will all become effectively within your control.

David Paterson Chopper, The Curious Case of Benjamin Button, Saving Mr. Banks, Frost Nixon

I have observed leading teacher directors in the US and UK and Richard shares with them that facility to guide actors through the guff to the heart of the scene.

What will be covered in this course?

1) Master a new acting vocabulary

Put yourself in charge of a new terminology that is totally focused on practical outcomes. The understanding you will achieve of how your acting techniques empower and activate your choices will liberate you.

2) Refine professional skills that put you in charge

These techniques will enable you to stand tall in any professional discussion about character or story and the best ways to deliver them.

3) Avoid making clichéd choices

Actors frequently make predictable choices without even knowing it. The Rehearsal Room techniques will teach you how to avoid the obvious cliché. They will also teach you how to make the obvious choice richly complex and potently real.

4) Learn how to REALLY serve the text

There is much taught about analyzing the text but the majority of that instruction is based on a ‘literary model’. Refine your understanding of story and how the writer creates the script. Put yourself in charge of the interpretation of that script with common sense and powerful techniques that are practical for the actor. This is the powerhouse of the actor’s decision-making process.

5) Realize the connection between physical action and the dialogue

Physical action and the purpose of the conversation are inextricably linked. In life they are united. It must be the same for the actor.

6) Understand the way the actor’s mind makes decisions

Actors frequently make decisions that they ‘feel’ are right but can’t explain with clarity. They can’t explain them because often they don’t actually make sense. Understanding how the mind makes decisions is very useful for the actor.

THIS IS FOR YOU IF...

  • You have good foundations in place and want to build your skills more in a practical and sophisticated way
  • Your understanding of process is strong but you need bigger challenges to stretch your capabilities
  • You love what you do but you want to find out more
  • You want a bigger repertoire of skills to keep a performance fresh and vital
  • You know you can push your skills further but aren’t clear how to do it

IF YOU DON’T HAVE THESE SKILLS …

  • You will make the same mistakes over
  • Will find it hard to change patterns that you know are unproductive
  • Your friends will be polite about your performances but never enthusiastic
  • You will lack confidence that choice you have made is the right one
  • You will believe everything a director tells you even when it doesn’t make sense
  • You won’t be able to interpret direction in a practical way

ABOUT RICHARD...

The major element that excites Richard about The Rehearsal Room acting process is that for thirty years it has continued to evolve. It has never lost any of its original goals but more and more practical ways of fulfilling those goals have continually emerged.

Richard makes sure that there are simple rules that assess the quality and practicality of new understandings. Those rules include...

· is the new concept simple and active

· does the new concept reflect life

· can the whole concept be clearly defined in a very short sentence

· can you do it

· does it produce an instant result.

It’s the possibility of a new discovery that gets Richard out of bed each morning with enthusiasm for the day ahead. The discoveries might come from finding a new perspective on how our minds make decisions in a psychology book. Or it might be some buried ingredient in one of the standard acting texts. But discoveries often come from an actor in a class. Because actors are empowered by The Rehearsal Room process to think about the practicalities of their choices sometimes they have sudden realizations about a new concept. And new techniques often emerge when Richard is trying to find another way to explain an existing concept.

Because the foundations of this process are so strong the new concepts always conform to the original overall goals. But Richard finds it exciting, even inspiring, to see what emerges next. You will find it exciting too. And you will also be inspired to continue the quest for further understanding.

THIS COURSE STARTS - Thurs 21 July

Learn skills you will use throughout your career. Learn to be real, to be versatile, to be a great listener and to be skilled in auditions. The Advanced Workshop will make you the director’s best friend.

ENROL NOW
Jan 24

Drop In – Wednesdays 2020

By Richard Sarell | Acting Classes & Workshops

'Drop-In' Wednesdays 2020

Dates:

From Wednesday 15 Jan 2020

Duration

Ongoing Weekly

Times

10am to 1pm

Tutor

Richard Sarell

Variable Fee:

$25 per hr to participate in the class (for as long as you stay)

Audit full length class for FREE

DROP IN TO A CLASS

The ultimate ‘Drop-In Workshop”.  You can DROP-IN and do a scene or just DROP-IN and watch.

To work on your scene with another actor you pay $25 an hour.   You buy either 4 hours of class time for $100 (Package 1) or 9 hours of class time for $200 (Package 2).  Use your time in hourly blocks any day that suits you until the end of the year.

If you want to find out more ring Richard on 0407 226620 or come and audit a class for FREE.

IT IS A GOOD IDEA TO BOOK YOUR SPOT …
Email your plans to attend to richard@rehearsalroom.com

Glenn Quinn Mama Mia, Spamelot, Jersey Boys [lead]

I was able to quickly overcome my long held misconceptions about what acting is and was ushered into a place of freedom, spontaneity and freedom with the scene.

What will be covered in this course?

1) Supportive direction will give you the chance to achieve your goals

If you are working on a scene the direction will be tailored to your personal needs. You don’t need to have trained here – Richard will adapt the acting process to support you..

2) Learn the basics of this process and test them out

This is a great way to try out The Rehearsal Room acting process. You can discover whether this approach makes sense for you. Ask questions and try the techniques one step at a time.

3) Practice your established skills and develop new ones

If you are already familiar with these techniques then this is a simple way to expand them further. There is so much information available here that the learning is never ending. Actors just keep growing and growing.

4) Keep exercising your acting muscle

Many actors have noticed that if the training isn’t regular the skills do drop off. This is the perfect way to keep your skills strong and active.

5) Enjoy a relaxed social environment

Enjoy the convivial atmosphere of these classes while you continue to explore the wondrous world of acting. You can make these sessions as challenging or relaxing as you like.

6) Just keep on learning

Actors who keep returning to The Rehearsal Room just see there skills get better and better.

THIS IS FOR YOU IF...

  • You have the foundations of The Rehearsal Room process in place and want to continue to build your skills
  • Or it is for you if you want to gain a basic understanding of this technique
  • You have an acting problem you want to fix
  • You are looking for a stimulating way of freshening up your weekly routine
  • Share your interest in actors with others of like mind

IF YOU DON’T HAVE THESE SKILLS …

  • You will miss out on the fun
  • You could miss finding an acting buddy or a new friend
  • You may never know the way this approach could change your view of acting and increase your skills
  • You will miss sharing stimulating views on a topic you love
  • You will never find out how much your skill could grow from these powerful techniques

ABOUT RICHARD...

​

Richard finds every workshop provides the opportunity not only for actors to grow more but also for the collective understanding of technique to grow more. The exciting element of these classes is that they train actors to think in a productive way about the practicalities of acting. The discussions are stimulating, purposeful and highly productive. Richard is always on the look out for the new view that he will learn from the next class. Some thought you philosophize about today might well be an exciting basis for tomorrow’s class.

Richard often says, “I get out of bed each day excited by the prospect of an unexpected new discovery.”

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Next Drop In - this Wednesday

Learn skills you will use throughout your career. Learn to be real, to be versatile, to be a great listener and to be skilled in auditions. At the Wednesday Drop-In you will learn a remarkable variety of skills.

DROP IN TO A CLASS