Acting Classes in London

Caravanserai Productions & Acting Studio, London:
The Caravanserai is a training organisation for actors providing regular and master classes for both professionals and beginners. We are located in Ladbroke Grove in the Royal Borough of Kensington and Chelsea in central London.We provide acting workshops around the UK and the world and a range of Theatre in Education projects. We also utilise all of our experience and expertise to provide a range of leading communications and creativity workshops for business. The Caravanserai is also a co-operative production house designed to create opportunities for actors, directors, writers and filmmakers who are at the beginning of their careers to work alongside experienced professionals in all of those disciplines. We tend to concentrate on realistic acting and the methodological approach to actor training. The work is heavily influenced by the developments of the founders of the Drama Centre London. The work is also influenced by Stanislavski

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An actor’s training does not cease the moment he or she leaves Drama School – in fact in many ways it has only just begun. Stanislavski believed that it was impossible to become a truly accomplished actor before the age of 40. It is vitally important that actors, like great athletes or musicians continue to practice and refine their skills and to develop new ones.

As we all know acting is a ruthlessly competitive industry – increasingly so. Few of us get the opportunity to work all the time – this was where actors used to develop themselves. Nowadays it is important to find a forum where one can practice, tune ones skills and essentially stay competitive while feeling creative and hopefully inspired.

The Caravanserai aims to supply high level classes in various disciplines at very reasonable prices. It is also at the centre of a community of actors and many projects and working partnerships arise out of these sessions.

BEGINNERS CLASSES:
Acting Intro are open to anyone interested in finding out more about acting and entrance is through an interview. After some time in Acting Intro individuals are invited to audition for the ADVANCED CLASS in front of a panel of teachers and students. Successful candidates are considered to have some potential to develop. This class is altogether more demanding and rigorous than the beginners. Every student in this class is eligible to take part in Caravanserai productions and workshops. They are also encouraged to develop pieces for our performance evenings.

Students who develop to the point of becoming professionals are invited to join the CARAVANSERAI MEMBERS CLASS. Here the students are presented to the profession through showcases, leading roles in productions and short films. They lead workshops in schools on behalf of the Caravanserai and become involved in the development of the studio and the many projects that it undertakes. They join a vibrant and evolving ensemble, providing them with a creative home – essential in the notoriously precarious and lonely world of the actor. They engage in professional work outside and come back to the studio to ensure that they are working and developing themselves all the time.

ACTING FOR PROFESSIONALS:
This class offers professional actors the opportunity to keep tuned in when not working, run through audition pieces, work on specific acting problems they have encountered and continue to develop their range and abilities as expressive artists. The class is led by acting coach – Giles Foreman – and the basic technique draws on the work of Strasberg, Meisner, Uta Hagen, Stella Adler and Susan Batson. It mainly deals with realistic acting processes. It encourages actors to push their limits, increase their capacity to use themselves and open up, to enhance their creative abilities in rehearsal through exploring impulses, to develop complex and layered characters, to rigorously dissect text and to come to rehearsal or set thoroughly prepared.The class tends to be a mixture of exercises and scene work. Everyone contributes to feedback and the general atmosphere is one of serious fun. As we all know acting can be a terribly frustrating and isolated profession – so what better than a weekly workout! Many projects tend to be created out of these classes.

This class provides professional actors with some experience of methodological work – be it Meisner, Strasberg, Hagen or Adler - to develop their skills still further. It is an opportunity to remain tuned between acting jobs, to prepare for auditions or roles and to widen ones range emotionally and psychologically. The class will look at a series of exercises - the song and dance, private moments, character private moments, preparations and much more. Scenes and monologues will also feature. The class is also a forum in which projects can be initiated that can tap into the resources of the studio. Entrance to the class is subject to an interview.

ONGOING DEVELOPMENT FOR PROFESSIONALS:
An acting workout, an opportunity to practise and fine tune monologues in preparation for auditions or if you have that that job and you need some extra coaching to really nail it before the day of the shoot.

ON CAMERA:
Based on 20 years of camera experience we have created a course which will teach actors the essential techniques for acting in TV and Film. Over a period of 10 weeks you will be given the opportunity to expand the various techniques you have learnt in class, and discover how to use them on camera. We will explore the technicalities of the shooting process, focussing on framing, timing, hitting your mark, the constraints of continuity, how to tell a story with and without words, all while engaging with the camera. Each week you will be given a scene or monologue and asked to prepare it. We will then discuss the demands of the piece, explore the possible techniques of preparation, play with the importance of the thought process, and finally look at the results.

There will then be feedback and evaluation.The aim of the course is to enable the actors; to give them a good grounding in the elements they will be confronted with on set. It will increase their knowledge and give them the tools they will need to bring a scene alive in front of the camera. In doing so, it will furnish them with the confidence to produce a daring and dramatic performance. It is open to students who have already shown competence in acting technique.

VOICE:
Learn the vocal tools of the professional actor.Actors need healthy, flexible, expressive voices with which to act: this course teaches you the tools from which to explore your voice safely and creatively. You will begin to release your voice from habitual tensions and develop appropriate breath connection, support and stamina for performance. Using the principles of general and specific resonance: you will learn to develop vocal range and projection without strain. Exercises specially designed for developing precision and muscularity in the spoken word will encourage you to build the essential skills for professional-level speech and sight-reading. Suitable for all levels.This course is taught by leading voice and dialect coach, Anne Walsh.

MOVEMENT:
Our leading movement coach, Liana Nyquist, takes the participants through principles of movement, the sensoric and the motoric nervous system, the spine, rhythms, the Laban concepts of working actions and animal characterisation work. The class, as well as building strength and flexibility, opens and expands the physical imagination. Liana is also available for private classes to help actors build their physical characterisation.

IMPROVISATION:
This class is designed to help students approach the work without a script. The course will cover essential principles for improvisation based on the work of Jacques Lecoq such as complicity, major / minor, building up of narrative / rhythm / tension / energy, space awareness, openness, musicality in the scene and the importance of pleasure and sharing it with the audience and other actors when on stage.

Classes will start with a physical warm-up created to free the body and the mind and will be structured through a variety of games, team building exercises, scene work, devising (from themes, pictures, paintings), mask work (neutral, larve, Commedia dell'Arte).

The work aims at helping students to have a broader understanding of the work of the actor, the power of the imagination and the poetry of the body.

The understanding of the power to communicate with the whole body will be emphasised. With this comes a knowledge of what gives scenes dramatic strength and believability which will aid students in audition situations, rehearsal improvisations and even in their text work. Best of all, the awareness, openness and understanding of the needs of the scene that improvisation skills can bring are invaluable goals for any actor.