Cover of Psychophysical Acting, published by Routledge (2009).
Psychophysical Acting is a direct and vital address to the demands of contemporary theatre on today’s actor. Drawing on over thirty years of intercultural experience, Phillip Zarrilli aims to equip actors with practical and conceptual tools with which to approach their work. Areas of focus include:
• an historical overview of a psychophysical approach to acting from Stanislavski to the present
• acting as an ‘energetics’ of performance, applied to a wide range of playwrights: Samuel Beckett, Martin Crimp, Sarah Kane, Kaite O’Reilly, and Ota Shogo
• a system of training though yoga and Asian martial arts that heightens sensory awareness, dynamic energy, and in which body and mind become one
• practical application of training principles to improvisation exercises.
Psychophysical Acting is accompanied by Peter Hulton’s interactive DVD-ROM featuring exercises, production documentation, interviews, and reflection.
Reviews:
‘Being taken step-by-step through these highly evocative and fascinating exercises and concepts of actor training by a master such as Zarrilli certainly qualifies as essential reading.’ – David Zinder, Tel Aviv University, Israel
‘The book proposes a radical paradigm shift within undergraduate and graduate acting and directing training and should be required reading for performers, directors, and theatre educators. It has the potential to transform the field in significant ways by offering a new understanding of what constitutes engaging performance and actor training in the 21st century’ – Rachel Bowditch, The Drama Review
Psychophysical Acting was selected for the 2010 Outstanding Book award by the Association for Theatre in Higher Education (ATHE).
View this title on the Routledge website.
Mandarin translation published by Bookman Press, Taipei, 2014.