Tips: Ideas for Actors
Author: Jon Jory
Genre: Non-Fiction, Theatre
Publisher: Smith and Kraus
Cost: $16.95
Rating: **** (4 out of 4)
Availability: Widely Available
As an actor, it’s very rare that I find a book that I feel is absolutely indispensible for the aspiring performer. Most books published on the subject of theatre are marketed as though they are definitive texts. They are “the” guide for actors, or the “ultimate” guide to theatre. More often than not, however, they are not all they are cracked up to be. They serve at best as additions to the actor’s toolbox – and you don’t always need your ratchet set. As a matter of fact, you may never need that magnetic hammer. And you might not even want that bizarre screwdriver that doesn’t fit any standard screw you would ever use. In short, these books are never the be-all and end-all – they’re something for you to read and accept or reject on your own.
Jon Jory’s Tips: Ideas for Actors is one of the few books on performance that I consider to be absolutely indispensible. For one thing, while the cover copy still suggests that Tips is the only acting book you’ll ever need, Jory’s text takes the position that this is just another addition to your tool box. And what an addition.
The idea is simple. You’re having a problem on stage? Flip through the table of contents. Practically every major problem you will ever encounter can be found in the list of headings – from Inner Monologue to Sense of Humor, from The Small Stage to Fighting Spirit, from How to Handle an Interview to handling Kissing or Nudity onstage. The “tips” range from the spiritual and mystical background of what it is to be “an actor” to the absolutely practical and simple matters of space, physicality, and light.
If you’re not having a specific problem, but you feel that you need some sort of inspiration or you could stand to find some area to improve upon (and you can always improve something), flip to a random page in the book and read it.
The way the book is laid out, each page is a single subject. Prop Acting is page 43. Finding the Light is page 67. Exiting is 82, The Arc is 11, and Kissing is 126. Each subject talks about the nature of the problem, what needs to be done, and suggests ways that you can deal with the situation. What do you do with your hands? Read about “The Toothpick” on 113 – it’s a tip that has helped me many times in scene work.
Jon Jory is perhaps best known for his long stint as the Producing Director at the Actors Theatre of Louisville, one of the most prestigious theatres currently operating in the United States. With Tips: Ideas for Actors, Jory has provided us with that rarest of objects – an absolutely indispensible guide for performers. If you’re an actor and you don’t have this book in your rehearsal bag next to Shurtleff’s Audition and Spolin’s Improvisation for the Theatre, you’re missing out on the lion’s share of acting tools.