At some point in your life, whether in childhood, watching your favorite movie or when choosing a course in college, you must have wondered what it’s like to work on stage or on the big screen. A career in the Performing Arts has many possible fields of work. Most of them revolve around the ‘magic’ of living a different life.
However, anyone who thinks that to be a good actor is enough to act is wrong. In addition to constant practice and care for the voice and body, a good performance requires a lot of study. What is the boundary between the actor’s feelings and the character’s? How to convey real emotions without actually experiencing them? The Performing Arts professional learns to answer these questions.
And to help with studies, GUIA has separated six books for theater lovers.
1 – The Actor’s Work: Diary of a Student, Konstantin Stanislavski
It would be impossible to make a list of books on theater without bringing in some work by Stanislavski. The Russian actor, director and pedagogue created an acting system that dominates the character study of actors around the world to this day. His first works were published between the 1920s and 1940s and were translated into several languages.
In this collection, Jean Benedetti gathered The actor’s preparation and character building in one volume. Benedetti was faithful to the original works, but placed the books in a more didactic way. Buy here
2 – How to stop acting – Harold Guskin
Actor and casting coach for over 30 years, Harold Guskin has worked with big names in American cinema: Glenn Close, Kevin Kline, Rachel Weisz, Bridget Fonda, among others. In this book, Guskin gathers insights and explanations about good acting—or rather, not acting. With real examples and the presentation of strategies, the author teaches methods to break free from acting stereotypes, activating less calculated instincts and impulses.
Thus, he offers advice for the development or even the renewal of a role, which does not remain static over time. It gives tips on acting in scenes with strong emotional content, depth of interaction with the audience and adaptation to screens. Buy here.
3 – Theater Dictionary – Patrice Pavis
In 560 entries, translated by professors and researchers in the field, the French Patrice Pavis brings a collection of reflections on theater ideas. The book synthesizes major issues of dramaturgy, staging, aesthetics, semiology and anthropology.
In this way, he walks through the history, theory and practice of acting, giving an overview of the art of the stage. The work even serves as a reference dictionary, which the reader should always consult to revive their notions of acting quickly, but with quality. Buy here
4 – Actor’s Minimum Manual – Dario Fo
Dario Fo was an Italian actor known as one of the most widely played contemporary playwrights in the world theater. Winner of the 1997 Nobel Prize for Literature, he based much of his work on the idea of improvisation and comedy once considered illegitimate in the theater.
In Mínimo do Ator’s Manual, Fo builds a reference mainly in the art of popular theater, its methods and narratives, which should sensitize the spectator and motivate him to pay attention to the sequence. Humorous and full of examples, the work proposes to associate theater with the broader idea of culture, showing how the procedures of representation are part of a larger and more complex context. Buy here
5 – 40 questions for a paper – Jurij Alschitz
The Actor and Director’s Book Yuri Alschitz has as its starting point a purpose: to bring irrefutable questions, not answers. He proposes to dismantle the creation process in order to reorganize and rediscover the character throughout the study.
In the work, the author reinforces that all methods — including his own — should not be seen as ‘dogmas’, but rather as proposals, always open to discussion. It’s an invitation to test the limits and details of each character in 40 questions. Thus, it would be possible to find a scenic maturity capable of transmitting to the public the truth of each story. Buy here
6 – The Invisible Actor – Yoshi Oida
Written by Yoshi Oida, Japanese actor and director, this book aims to unite the idea of western theater with the eastern one, permeating rituals and different interpretations of the art of acting. The great idea developed here is that the public should never see the actor on stage, but his character in its entirety. For this, it is necessary to have control, to define and expose emotions in depth.
Throughout the chapters, Oida talks about the relationship between internal and external creation, to what extent they should be the same or different, and about the self-observation necessary for a good acting job. He also works on the relationship with the public, which, according to the author, participates in art and must be in balance with the feeling on the scene, as in the dynamics of Yin / Yang. Buy here.
*The Student Guide has a partnership with Amazon and receives a commission for sales made through the links indicated on this page. The curation of products follows exclusively editorial criteria. Available stock refers to the time of publication of this post.
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