The Meisner Approach: Emotional Preparations | Music & Song into Repetition & Text

Sanford Meisner described Preparations as ‘that device that allows you to enter in a state of emotional aliveness’. Music has a transcendent ability to evoke emotions and memories within us. Incorporating music into Meisner’s emotional preparations can be an invaluable tool for actors. By using music in preparations, you can immerse yourself in the desired emotional state, activating and deepening your inner life, allowing you to enter into a space emotionally alive. Practicing this technique amplifies your ability to access and convey complex emotions during a performance.

In this class we will explore how music and song can be used to evoke specific emotional states that act as a springboard into repetition. You will discover how preparations are used for the entrance and then come under the influence of the first encounter during repetition and are changed in unexpected ways.