Professional Acting

CYGNET TRAINING THEATRE is an educational charity, specialising in the training of actors. It functions as an ensemble company with a good reputation and a strong commitment to regular public performances in the
community. As well as performing in its own studio theatre (the New Theatre, Exeter), the CYGNET COMPANY tours to a range of venues in the South West. Productions are sometimes taken to London or to the Edinburgh Fringe Festival.

The ACTING COURSE normally involves classwork each morning and rehearsal for the current production each afternoon and covers:

• Acting and Performance Voice and Singing Improvisation TV & Radio
• Movement and Dance Verse Classical & Modern Text Work Stage Combat

ADDITIONAL OPTIONS: Acting with Music covers acting skills as above with the added opportunity to further previously established music studies. This usually relates to piano or singing but can incorporate harmony, composition and the technical skills of arranging and recording music for use in theatre work.

Acting with Directing follows the acting programme for the first year and then branches out into additional directing studies and assistant directing until the 3rd year when directing students are given full responsibilty
(with supervision) for at least one production.

The course enables actors to extend their skills and put into practice the techniques they are learning on a day to day basis in rehearsal and ultimately in performance.

A high level of individual attention is possible in the environment of a small company, ensuring that the unique qualities of each student are enabled to develop. Assessment allows the student to measure progress in relation to individual potential rather than to compete against others. There is no expectation of uniformity of style or individual progress and competitive attitudes are discouraged.

Lecture Evenings are also a regular feature of the course, so that visiting professionals (directors, actors, casting directors and others) can pass on their experience from working in the industry. Regular theatre visits
to touring productions are also organised.

Some important criteria for entry to the courses are: openness and flexibility of attitude, awareness, self discipline and good ensemble potential.

This is more than an ordinary drama training. Actors come to Cygnet for three years to study their craft in performance. This does not exclude talented beginners, provided that they have the maturity and dedication to work to professional standards.

An actor’s work is interpretative and creative. An actor’s tools are his voice and body, the hands, feet, face, energy, emotional range and not least, his capacity for human understanding. Training these aspects of the performer is a very individual matter and teachers, directors and actors together need
to recognise the realities of the raw material available and understand its workings very thoroughly.

It is easy for an actor to be tied to preconceived notions about him/herself and to carry those into the work. Acting skills depend on loosening those ties and finding the courage to become both vulnerable and disciplined. An actor must be able to do, in an understanding, controlled and totally exceptional way, those things which other people do every day without the actor’s awareness of quality: to stand, to walk, to sit, to talk etc. and in the process of this, to love, to hate, to laugh, to cry, and sometimes to kill or to die.

The skills required to do these things truthfully are immense and yet, in a well trained actor, the techniques involved become totally invisible. For this reason acting needs as much training as any of the arts and the training must be both practical and precise.

Three years is only a beginning: the learning process continues throughout life.

Watching and listening are among the most valuable things an actor can learn to do, both on stage and off. It is the first step and one that many actors find very difficult.

Student actors in the Cygnet Company are given the opportunity to do highly disciplined work. They are expected to be ready for this.

ACTING AND PERFORMANCE
This is the main purpose of the training. The influence of Peter Brook introduces acting students to an aim of spareness and simplicity that is often not discovered by actors until they have had considerable professional experience. Truthfulness and a feeling of ease are the result of many of the exercises that stem from Brook’s work and from the work of Michael Chekhov. The study of character and situation in the context of a play are accessed through the use of growing technical knowledge and assurance and the use of the creative imagination. Improvisation is coupled with acting exercises for this purpose and these also form part of the in-depth rehearsal process which creates a seamless continuity between the three elements of the acting course: learning, rehearsal and performance.

THE ACTING PROGRAMME is an on-going developmental process. In production work student actors are given progressively more demanding roles and increasing organizational and technical responsibility over the period of their training.

ASSESSMENT - each term duologues and/or monologues are prepared for performanceunder near audition conditions. Students gain practical experience of various theatrical styles from Ancient Greek theatre to classical and modern works. The preparation encourages the practical application of all areas of the classwork and a focus upon the individual’s growing technique. Assessors are drawn from the teaching staff and visiting professional specialists.

VOICE AND SINGING
The human voice is the most flexible and expressive instrument known to mankind and, as such, is one of the most precious tools of an actor’s trade. The basic techniques of breathing, resonance, projection, articulation, RP, text work, verse speaking and scansion are only the bare bones of the voice work that an actor needs to encompass. All these are taught within the context of this training where the voice is recognised as essentially expressing the inner condition of the whole human being.

In the early stages voice exercises, in tune with the rest of the training, lead to personal discovery in the development of freedom and self-knowledge. Once personal freedom is achieved and the voice is centred and well rooted in good technique, knowledge is able to be applied to character work, where psychological and emotional truthfulness enable the subtle use of tone colour to affect vocal work on a character without effort or strain. The aim at all times is to give the actor the use of the voice in its full potential in both speech and singing. It is often very gratifying to discover with an actor that he or she was born with a singing voice of considerable quality that has never before come into its own.

Voice training is divided between CLASS WORK and INDIVIDUAL sessions, which are given according to the developing skills and needs of each student.

MOVEMENT
Action is a significant part of all drama, expressed by the body moving in space. The body expresses thought, feeling and imagination and by his movement the actor can engage and communicate with both the audience and fellow performers.

The actor is trained to understand the body’s physical structure and to develop its flexibility. Through working the joints, bones and muscles and through specifically channelling the senses and the imagination into creative movement, the actor develops and extends the vocabulary of his unique personal movement language. He comes to an understanding of the creative possibilities available in the transitions from one spontaneous moment to another, both in the self and in a wide range of characters.

THE MOVEMENT PROGRAMME focuses on the individual’s growth within the group, an understanding of group dynamics as well as individual tutorial sessions.

Neutrality and Centre - working from the belly and heart centres the student discovers his/her physical neutrality in posture and movement. The inner processes of physical experience - impulse, breath, movement - are explored through a range of exercises including forms such as Chi Kung. Space - students explore internal and external space, composition, stage picture, through structured exercise and free improvisation, both group and individual.

Specific Movement Styles - occasional workshops by visiting specialists are included in the ongoing programme to introduce and develop specific skills (these may include Renaissance and Baroque movement and dance, Commedia dell’Arte and mime).

Stage Combat leading to certificate examinations is covered in an annual 2 week intensive course.

DANCE
The dance training working alongside other key elements taught at Cygnet has its ideology rooted in the belief that knowledge can only resonate meaning if it is sensed as well as thought. The body is perceived as the vehicle for our life and energy and we assert a practice that creates a fundamental unity where body, mind, spirit and matter, male and female, interact in dance.

The actor is trained to feel his body, rather than seeing it from the outside. In this way the performer embodies his experiences using them to create an inner reality. This process enables each individual to engage actively
in acquiring the skills necessary to deepen and enrich all experience. It is from this internal knowledge that we can make sense of the outside world; students are encouraged to listen, respond, feel, think, sense, and act, to
acknowledge consciously and to know deeply the essence of their own being.

THE DANCE PROGRAMME - a progressive structure with three components:
1 - Body & Spatial Awareness: Exploring breathing, deep stretch, relaxation, posture observation and embodied
presence, both internally and externally to increase awareness of the body and the space which it inhabits.
2 - Technique, Focus and Centering: To learn and practice a variety of dance techniques and disciplines, providing the student with invaluable skills to warm-up the body safely and focus the mind in preparation for
devising, rehearsing and performance. These training techniques enable the student to become comfortable and confident with movement, provide a strong centre from which to move and also increase the student’s movement vocabulary.
3 - Choreography and Instinctive Movement: Students will study and practise a variety of dance composition techniques to enable them to create dance performance material. They will explore rhythm, a range of dynamics,
contact work, counterbalance/partner work, movement with text, emotion and movement, performance skills and a variety of dance styles. Students also learn and practise instinctive movement and improvisation techniques,
providing them with the confidence and skill to devise their own movement / dance material. They will practise using the body’s natural movement memory to enable them to learn and perform complex movement / dance
choreographed sequences.

Classwork
develops technical skills and supports the ongoing rehearsal and performance commitments of the students.

Improvisation
expands and challenges the imagination within a discipline of creativity, which involves timing, co-operation and sensitivity to others and to the demands of the work in progress.

Imagination
is developed and exercised with the same precision as the physical skills, using techniques and exercises from many parts of the world. These may include influences from India, Japan, Russia, among others, and the imaginative work of Peter Brook, Michael Chekhov and Yoshi Oida.

Concentration
is one of the most essential attributes of an actor’s approach to his work. This is a discipline that is developed throughout the training.

Background Studies
these include play text analysis, research and study of the set texts of Cygnet’s prescribed book list, including the methods of appropriate theatre practitioners.

IN THE MODERN WORLD OF THEATRE THERE ARE VERY BROAD EXPECTATIONS
Actors can find employment in the fields of education, business and commerce, by using their transferable skills in presentations, workshops, role play, and corporate videos. Acting skills are used increasingly to enhance the visitors’ experience of living history in museums and other cultural attractions. This area of work could pay your rent while waiting for the big break!

WORKSHOPS are sometimes organized as part of the presentation of Cygnet productions in schools, especially when a play is a set work on the school’s curriculum. The Cygnet Company goes into schools for this purpose or welcomes school groups to the NEW THEATRE. Experience in the presentation of and participation in such workshops has stood many actors in good stead in their future careers.

IMPROVISATION is a valuable aspect of modern theatre work. It is often used as part of the selection or rehearsal process in large and small theatre companies. Directors such as Mike Leigh base their work entirely on the ability of actors to improvise. Actors who are self-conscious when asked to improvise are often more limited in their range of expression in scripted performance. Improvising as a company and in class work with children is an important part of the Cygnet training.

TECHNICAL BACK-UP is an essential area of experience for Cygnet actors. All have the chance to learn the basic-skills of Stage Management and will have the opportunity to run at least one show during their training. All actors are assigned to join one technical team for each production, working either on set design and construction, making and looking after costumes, properties, or designing and rigging the lighting. Everyone is involved with setting up and touring each show. These skills can often prove useful later and could tip the balance in an actor’s favour.