Acting Heightened Text: The Basics

Acting Heightened Text: The Basics offers a foundational understanding of heightened text in drama, fused with a truthful, contemporary approach to acting.

Using detailed text analysis and dynamic rehearsal exercises, actors and students bring heightened language to life by cultivating a joyful curiosity. A three-step homework process focuses attention on demystifying the intricacies of verse and prose, conveying meaning, clarifying changes in action (subtle shifts and beat changes), playing actions, and utilizing tactics. An innovative technique called hooking sparks energy between partners, and focuses actors on responding to impulses to create a wide variety of textually-supported choices. The book includes up-to-date practical approaches to effective auditions, callbacks and rehearsals, specific tools for handling rhyming couplets, complex rhetorical arguments, and materials to support a lifelong pursuit of engaging with dramatic material with rigor and passion.

Acting Heightened Text: The Basics provides a wealth of resources for actors, directors, students, and teachers to navigate the demands and embrace the challenges within dramatic texts.

To support the learning process and enhance the understanding of the lessons from the book, please visit the Support Material, available at www.routledge.com/9781032695297. These include scenes and monologues for practice, real-life examples of students using these techniques, and detailed examples from the Try It! sections within each chapter, such as line-outs, action verbs, rhetorical maps, and hooking.

Catherine Weidner is a professional actor and director. She was the founding Program Director for The Shakespeare Theatre Academy for Classical Acting at the George Washington University and taught acting heightened text at DePaul University and Ithaca College.