Acting Heightened Text: The Basics - With Catherine Weidner

The Drama Book Shop presents, in association with Jay Michaels Global Communications, Acting Heightened Text with Catherine Weidner 

About the Book

Acting Heightened Text: The Basics offers a foundational understanding of heightened text in drama, fused with a truthful, contemporary approach to acting.

Using detailed text analysis and dynamic rehearsal exercises, actors and students bring heightened language to life by cultivating a joyful curiosity. A three-step homework process focuses attention on demystifying the intricacies of verse and prose, conveying meaning, clarifying changes in action (subtle shifts and beat changes), playing actions, and utilizing tactics. An innovative technique called hooking sparks energy between partners, and focuses actors on responding to impulses to create a wide variety of textually-supported choices. The book includes up-to-date practical approaches to effective auditions, callbacks and rehearsals, specific tools for handling rhyming couplets, complex rhetorical arguments, and materials to support a lifelong pursuit of engaging with dramatic material with rigor and passion.

Acting Heightened Text: The Basics provides a wealth of resources for actors, directors, students, and teachers to navigate the demands and embrace the challenges within dramatic texts.

To support the learning process and enhance the understanding of the lessons from the book, please visit the Support Material, available at www.routledge.com/9781032695297. These include scenes and monologues for practice, real-life examples of students using these techniques, and detailed examples from the Try It! sections within each chapter, such as line-outs, action verbs, rhetorical maps, and hooking.

About the Author

Catherine Weidner is a teacher, professional director and actor, and the author of Acting Heightened Text: The Basics.

Acting: The Kennedy Center, Center Stage, Arena Stage, and the Hangar Theatre. Directing: Anastasia for Hillbarn Theatre, Austin Shakespeare, Nebraska Repertory Theatre, Illinois Shakespeare Festival, and Theater at Monmouth in Maine.

Education & Training: BFA Acting/Ithaca College, MFA Directing/ University of Minnesota, Complicité (London), The Second City, and The Neighborhood Playhouse. She has worked at 

The Guthrie Theater, Theatre de la Jeune Lune, the La Jolla Playhouse, The Shakespeare Theatre, and Bread & Puppet.

Teaching: The Shakespeare Theatre’s Academy for Classical Acting MFA at The George Washington University (Program Director); The Theatre School at DePaul University (Head of BFA Acting), and Ithaca College (Chair of Theatre Arts).

Catherine belongs to Actors’ Equity, SAG/AFTRA, and SDC and is an IDC-certified Consent-Forward Artist.

About the event

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Please note that the purchase of Acting Heightened Text  ($28.99) is required for entrance. 

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