Open Daily: 10am - 10pm | Alley door pickup 10am - 7pm 3038 Hennepin Ave Minneapolis, MN
612-822-4611

  • Open Daily: 10am - 10pm
    Alley-side Pickup: 10am - 7pm

    3038 Hennepin Ave Minneapolis, MN
    612-822-4611

Open Daily: 10am - 10pm | Alley-side Pickup: 10am - 7pm
3038 Hennepin Ave Minneapolis, MN
612-822-4611
The Pulse Approach: Physical Improvisation for Theatre-Makers and Directors

The Pulse Approach: Physical Improvisation for Theatre-Makers and Directors

Gerstle, Tanya
Luckhurst, Mary

Hardcover

Acting & AuditioningTechnical Theater

ISBN10: 1350524557
ISBN13: 9781350524552
Publisher: Methuen Drama
Published: Mar 19 2026
Pages: 216
Weight: 1.19
Height: 0.50 Width: 6.69 Depth: 9.61
Language: English

How can we effectively apply improvisation to train an ensemble of actors?

Where is the method to create physically dynamic staging for text-based contemporary and classical plays?

And how can a trainer and a director utilise improvisation to devise new work?

The Pulse Approach answers these questions and more, captured here for the first time in a workbook to the practice.

Pulse is an improvisational performance strategy that can be used by actors and directors to develop original text-based performance material and rehearse dramatic scripts. Director Tanya Gerstle has been developing the approach since 1989 and has used it to stage more than 25 theatre productions.

Through step-by-step instructions for the student and practitioner; troubleshooting advice; case studies of productions directed using the Pulse Approach; and interviews with practitioners involved, this book is the first practical guide to this innovative methodology, which has its roots in the Australian actor-training scene.

The Pulse Approach fuses improvisation and text-based theatre, too often disconnected, to offer up a methodology and rigorous practice for improvisation as a holistic process of development in classical and contemporary plays. It can be used to train any ensemble of actors in any context - inexperienced, professional, young, old and culturally and linguistically diverse.

A companion website will include a video documentary of practitioners using Pulse in their work with the author.

Also in

Acting & Auditioning

View All