Provides exercises and scenework in seven historical periods to help students develop their basic acting skills.

A follow-up to the best-selling introductory text "Acting One", this text provides exercises and scenework in seven historical periods to help students extend their basic acting skills.

Preface / Notes to Students and Instructors Part I.
The Exercises Lesson 1:
Style
Exercise 1-1 Baby Talk / Exercise 1-2 Baby Moves / Caveat Lesson 2:
Stylized Exchanges
Exercise 2-1 Pig Latin / Exercise 2-2
Speaking in (Foreign) Tongues / Exercise 2-3 Contemporary Greetings / Exercise 2-4 A Sampling of Elizabethan Greetings / Exercise 2-5 Ad Lib Elizabethan Greetings / Exercise 2-6 Ad Lib Elizabethan Insults / Exercise 2-7
Hamlet's Greeting to the Players Lesson 3:
Roses Are Red
Rhyme and Verse / Exercise 3-1 Roses Are Red / Exercise 3-2 Roses Are Redder - Take One / Eye Contact - And Looking Elsewhere / Exercise 3-3
Roses Are Redder - Take Two / Exercise 3-4 Roses Are Redder - Take Three / Thinking Your Character's Thoughts / Exercise 3-5
Roses Are Redder - Take Four / Playing the Play Lesson 4:
Playing God
Exercise 4-1 Playing God / Playing a Character Lesson 5:
Characterization
Exercise 5-1 Reciprocal Characterization:
Gloucester and Hastings / Exercise 5-2 Intrinsic Characterization:
Gloucester and Hastings / Intrinsic Characterizations:
Extensions and Stereotypes / Centering / Exercise 5-3 Centering / Character Postures and Walks / Exercise 5-4 Character Walks / Character Voices / Exercise 5-5 Finding Your Voices / Character Descriptions / Exercise 5-6 Playing Out Character Descriptions / Animal Imagery / Exercise 5-7 Animate (Animalize) Your Character / Intrinsic and Reciprocal Characterization / Exercise 5-8 Character Greetings Lesson 6:
More God
Exercise 6-1
A Stanza, by God Lesson 7:
Playing the Devil
Exercise 7-1 Play the Devil Lesson 8:
Noah and His Wife:
The Battle of the Sexes
Scene 8-1 Noah and His Wife Lesson 9:
Performance
Exercise 9-1 A Performative God / Performative Aspects of Dramatic Scenes / Exercise 9-2
Performing Your Greetings and Insults / The Audience in the Theatre / Scene 9-3 The Performative Context:
Oedipus and Creon / Exercise 9-4 The Performative Context:
Shakespeare / Exercise 9-5 the Performative Context:
Chekhov Part II.
The Scenes Lesson 10:
Greek Tragedy
Scene 10-1 Oedipus and Teiresias / Scene 10-2 The Family Context:
Oedipus and Jocasta / Play the Scene Lesson 11:
The Commedia
Commedia Styles and Scripts / Commedia Performances / Commedia and Renaissance Ideals / Niccolo Machiavelli / Exercise 11-1 Commedia
Direct Address / Commedia Lazzi / Scene 11-1 Nicomaco and Sofronia / Stock Characters / Other Commedia Scenes Lesson 12:
Shakespeare and the Elizabethan Theatre
Scene 12-1 Richard and Ann / Verse / Scansion / Scene 12-2
Richard and Ann / Verse Variations / Playing the Verse / Rhetoric / Playing the Rhetoric / The Public Environment / Scene 12-3 Beatrice and Benedick / Shakespeare and Commedia / More Elizabethan Scenes
Lesson 13:
The Theatre of Moliere
Scene 13-1 The Bourgeois Gentleman / Costume ande Deportment / Play the Scene / Scene 13-2 The Misanthrope / Playing Translations Lesson 14:
Restoration Comedy
Exercise 14-1 Restoration Speeches / Scene 14-2 Restoration Scene Lesson 15:
The Belle Epoque
Exercise 15-1 George Bernard Shaw / Exercise 15-2 Anton Chekhov Lesson 16:
Contemporary Styles
Angels in America / Scene 16-1 Prior and Harper / The Piano Lesson / Scene 16-2 Boy Willie and Grace / Wit / Scene 16-3 Vivian and Jason Lesson 17:
L'Envoi