In this course you learn a method of approaching your role in advance of the work with the director, which allows you to arrive at rehearsals prepared to live on stage as a fully rounded character who can stand tall in any circumstance – hence the idea of the “vertical.”
You learn to deconstruct the role and look at it again with fresh eyes.
You connect it with other literary, dramatic, and visual materials that create an intertextual network to feed your imagination.
You attach it to an inexhaustible source of energy that does not depend on yourself alone.
In the end, you will have gathered and distilled a set of resources that, once sequenced into a repeatable “journey,” will constitute a profound relationship between yourself and the character (and also build a strong piece for potential auditions).
Textbooks:
Alschitz, Jurij. The Vertical of the Role. Berlin: Ars Incognita, 2003.
Alschitz, Jurij. 40 Questions of One Role. Berlin: Ars Incognita, 2005.
Chekhov, Anton. The Major Plays. Trans. Jean Claude van Itallie. New York: Applause, 1995 (or other edition of the plays)
Chekhov, Anton. The Early Plays. Trans. Carol Rocamora. Lyme, NH: Smith and Kraus, 1999 (or other edition of the plays).
