Loading...

Course Description

The Anatomy of a Villian!

This is an acting and text analysis class focused on the unsavory, the selfish, the scum and villainy of dramatic literature. We will look at the bullies, the beasts, the disturbed and damaged as well as the criminal masterminds and the personifications of evil. We will be focusing on those characters who embody the most atavistic fears, the greatest senses of loss, hurt, anger, and pain. What are the specific challenges to playing the villain? Are there tools you might need to embody one of these damaged or transgressive souls that you might not need for other kinds of characters? What is just like building any other character?

Who Should Take This Course

  • Actors seeking to deepen their range by exploring morally complex, antagonistic, or psychologically extreme characters in classical and contemporary dramatic literature.
  • Students interested in text analysis and character psychology who want to investigate how trauma, power, fear, and desire operate within dramatic structure and performance.
  • Performers ready to engage challenging material who are curious about embodying difficult emotional states and exploring the specific technical and ethical demands of playing villains and transgressive roles.

What You’ll Gain

  • Expand or refresh your ability to read and analyze a dramatic text for building complex, morally dodgy characters and making bold, textually-informed choices
  • Integrate essential technical acting skills and working vocabularies to embodying a character
  • Transform dramaturgical understanding of whatever ails or angers your character into dramatic action
  • Create repeatable performances through the use of action analysis, particularizing and deepening emotional points of view to the circumstances, personal etude improvisations, scenic etude improvisations based on given circumstances and detailed stage composition
Loading...
Thank you for your interest in this course. Unfortunately, the course you have selected is currently not open for enrollment. Please complete a Course Inquiry so that we may promptly notify you when enrollment opens.
Required fields are indicated by .