Performance Education in the Department of Theatre Arts
Acting, Voice, and Movement

Performance Education is team-taught by five performance faculty members. The curriculum introduces students to the fundamental systems of thinking and the physical and emotional techniques that are important for effective acting. It does not teach a specific single way to do work. It requires students learn their own way of working by applying a variety of possibilities, making choices, and developing the areas that resonate with their own needs as developing actors.

Within the Department of Theatre Arts education and training in acting and performance skills can take place on six levels:

  1. Performance Lab — the foundational performance course
  2. Intermediate Performance Intensive — the stepping stone to advanced performance training
  3. A variety of advanced Performance Topics
  4. All levels of performance experience in production
  5. Individual work with faculty on specific needs
  6. Workshops with frequent guest artists

All Theatre Majors at Virgina Tech accomplish the first of these levels. The remaining opportunities are options for those who wish to increase their skills or with a specific interest in acting.

 

Performance Lab

Performance Lab is a year long course which meets 5 days per week. The areas of focus are:

    • Close reading of contemporary plays
    • Movement for the stage  -  Steady physical development work for the full year which includes coordination, strengthening, stretching, weight shift/balance/rhythm/pulse, expressiveness, physical daring, group and solo work in space, music/rhythm based movement
    • Voice - Steady vocal development for the full year which includes vocal impulse, vocal/emotional connection, strengthening, flexibility, breathing, breath control, singing, articulation, expressiveness
    • Contemporary scene work which includes research (interior and exterior), scoring, rehearsing, performing, reworking
    • Rehearsal /performance techniques
    • Discovering representational and presentational modes
    • Discovering and using an effective critical vocabulary
    • Improvisation
    • Introduction to the craft of acting, both as a participant and as an observer
    • Relaxation
    • Concentration
    • Imagination
    • Observation
    • Development of a basic knowledge of acting theory
    • Terminology
    • Life exploration (sensory memory, emotional recall, gathering stories, telling stories)
     • Understanding/maintaining/using: intention, motivation, "the moment," focus, condition, impulse response

 

Intermediate Performance Intensive
IPI is the second step in the development of acting in the Department of Theatre Arts at Virginia Tech. The one semester course focuses on understanding and application of Stanislavski based acting theories through scene work and specific voice work. Techniques illuminated by Meisner, Strasburg, Chaikin, Spolin, and Kristin Linklater are called upon to aid the acting student in strengthening his/her acting vocabulary and skills.

Performance Topics
A variety of Performance Topics is offered in the Department each year. The studies covered include: Acting for the Camera, Auditions Techniques, Dialects, Improvisation, Musical Theatre, Realism, Shakespeare, Comedy, Sensory/Emotional Work, Stage Combat, Advanced Diction, Advanced Voice, and Tap Dance.

Into the Woods

Jacques Brel