Sanford Meisner notes

listening - really listen, do not pretend to listen

exercise one - listening for particular things - cars, birds, peoples voices. How many did you hear?
exercise two - observing a partner.
what is always important is the reality of doing the task, not the results.
repetition game- ping-pong game.
phase 1) listening and repeating the phrase - just the words not the attitude behind them.
phase 2) repetition from a point of view instinct - spontaneous, impulsive reaction to the moment.
Meisner's approach is to bring back the actor to his emotional responses and to acting that is firmly
rooted in the instinctive.
phase 3) putting repetition with an independent activity. The activity needs to be difficult and have
meaning to the performer. This takes you out of the "classroom" and into the instinctual reaction.
Meisner appreciates the Stanislavski concept of Public Solitude - relaxed, smooth, no pretense.
neutral script - actors are given a script and are to memorize it and repeat it over with no feeling.
neutral - open to any influence, an emotional flexibility.
important rule - the actor needs to pick up the impulse of the line delivered to you, rather
than the cue. the actor does wait for the cue, but the impulse, the emotion, comes
whenever it's felt.
preparation- the device that permits you to start your scene or play in a condition of emotional
aliveness. preparation only happens for the first moment of the scene, and then you never know what's
going to happen. use your imagination or recall to give yourself an impulse that moves you, and you
alone. preparation is a warming up process. warning: do not indicate the emotion, use it to stimulate
you.
meisner metaphor -the text is like a canoe and the river which it floats on is the emotion. the text takes
on the character of your emotion.
particularization - it's "as if"a personal example chosen from your experience or your imagination
which emotionally clarifies the cold material of the text. a particularization is similar to preparation
only that it's for a specific moment, chosen, and rehearsed.
punctuation - emotional, not gramatical.