Taking notice

IF YOUR STUDENTS are anything like mine, they are already masters at modeling. And why shouldn’t they be? They’ve been imitating their parents since birth. Even before they get to high school, most kids can skillfully imitate their teachers, their classmates, their favorite TV characters; they can mimic gestures and speaking patterns for comic effect. They do it constantly. While this inborn affi nity for imitation sometimes can get in students’ way in an acting class—where a lot of the work is aimed at accessing one’s true self—I’ve found modeling to be a quick, easy, and very useful tool when it comes to characterization. Students can use themselves or others as models. Carefully observing people who resemble the characters your students will play provides immediate access to how those characters might feel, think, and behave. Observing people will give students a wealth of specifi c, authentic, and fascinating detail, and keep them from creating stereotypes, the result of only “imagining” their characters. Students easily enter and enjoy observation exercises because, as I said, they model naturally. When approaching modeling as a technique, in the way I teach it in my theatre classes, students fi rst observe themselves and then observe others. As actors, they need to recognize their personal idiosyncrasies, habits, gestures, and vocal patterns in order to eliminate them