30 November 2022
Year 11 and A Level drama students will soon be putting into practice learnings from their recent workshops run by Nick O’Brien, Director of The Stanislavski Experience, as Sixth Formers Izzy and Emma explain below.
Izzy S and Emma H, Upper Sixth
The one and only Nick O’Brien, professional actor, director and author, coached us in the Stanislavski System, which is designed to help actors achieve believable and truthful characters on stage and screen. This challenging, but enjoyable, workshop was filled with relaxation exercises and character objective exercises, culminating with a focus on actors’ intuition that seemed like mind reading. For this, Nick got us to play Chinese whispers, but instead of whispering the phrase to each other, we simply had to send ‘rays’ or our ‘thoughts’ of the idea to the person.
Nick’s passion for the Stanislavski System shone through and we all responded incredibly well to the workshop. All his advice and exercises will come into use very soon in our scripted practical exams and help us give a more believable and real outlook towards characterisation.