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Identity: Breathing Life into the Role
Paperback
Acting & AuditioningGeneral Education
Publisher: Dorrance Publishing Co.
Published: Jun 3 2025
Pages: 618
Weight: 1.80
Height: 1.25 Width: 6.00 Depth: 9.00
Language: English
Great acting is about authenticity, not artifice. It's about honestly embodying another human being-their thoughts, feelings, desires, and fears.
Identity is a guide to help you tap into the power of your intuitive right brain, encouraging you to step away from overthinking and to embrace your creative side, allowing your characters to emerge organically and genuinely.
Working with the words on the page and with imaginative techniques and exercises, you can imbue your roles with psychological depth and emotional truth.
Naturalistic acting requires you to do more than just memorize lines and blocking. You need to inhabit your character so fully audiences forget they're watching a performance.
Whether you're a beginner or a veteran performer, this all-encompassing guide to acting can help you build your characters from the inside out, organically and with nuanced subtlety until they feel like living, breathing people.
About the Author
John Basil lived in the Manhattan theatre district for over 40 years. This central location allowed him to pursue his craft as artistic director of American Globe Theatre for 25 years, as well as a regional theatre director, professor at Marymount Manhattan College and the author of three books.
Other than theatre, John's passions were his German Shepherd dogs, gardening, carpentry, traveling to faraway places and above all else, his wife Liz Keefe, who was at his side through each adventure. John passed away in 2024.
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