This is the first slideshow in a series that distills some of the essential teachings of Konstantin Stanislavski in regards to the work a good actor must do in order to prepare for performing a role onstage.

The six lessons form an acronym--C.H.O.O.S.E.--which is easy for young actors to remember, and covers all the basics. Additionally, the acronym is appropriate because, after all, acting is all about making choices.

My name is Chris Schloemp, and I am a high school Drama teacher in Santa Rosa, California. I have been using this method for years now, and it does help beginning actors learn the fundamental tools of their craft. The ideas are Stanislavski's, the form of the acronym is mine, and others are free to use and edit this slideshow as they see fit. I hope you and your students find something useful in here.

The embedded video is from noted actor, director, and acting coach Suzanne Shepherd.

Holding an entire play in your hands can feel a bit intimidating. Where do we begin to get ready for performance. Some actors might simply begin by highlighting their lines and then starting the long road of memorizing them.

There is certainly nothing wrong with that approach, but saying the lines in the right order is not the end of the work--it is merely the beginning.

An actor must be able to analyze the text, to break it down into its component parts, in order to be able to put them all back together again into a finished performance.

First off, there is the play as a whole. Read the whole thing. Even if you are just doing a single monologue from a single scene. Read the whole thing.

Plays then get broken down into acts. Shakespeare's plays had five acts; plays in later centuries had three. Most contemporary plays have two: before intermission and after intermission. Know what the main thrust of each act is. What changes by the end of each act?

Acts get broken down into scenes, typically a distinct location in space and time. Whenever the action moves to a new place or time, that is typically a new scene. Know what the main thrust of each scene is. What changes by the end of each scene?

Scenes get broken down into beats. A beat is a small slice of the scene in which characters take a small step toward their goal, or objective, and there is some change in tactic by one or more characters.

Each letter in the CHOOSE method works at one of the levels on the previous slide.

For CIRCUMSTANCES, we work at the scene level, because the circumstances--the physical reality of where and when the scene takes place--will vary from scene to scene. What is true for one may not be true for another.

Note: what Stanislavski refers to as the "given circumstances" encompasses much more than the where and the when, but for the purposes of this approach we will deal with the other aspects under another letter in the system. Let's just take one bit at a time.

The assignment at the end of this presentation should be completed for each scene in which the actor appears in the play.

In Ancient Greek theatre, the skene was the building from which the actors made their entrances and exits. It was a single place (what would be termed in drama theory, the "unity of place") in space and time. Unlike contemporary plays, the tragedies and comedies of antiquity took place in one location in place and time as they had no way to easily change a scene without the benefits of electric lighting or a curtain. The skene was it.

In modern times, plays can move all over the globe and transition quickly from one time period to another, flashing back and forward at will. A scene is one location in space and time where some amount of continuous action takes place.

A dining room in the mansion ten years ago before it became haunted? That's a scene.

That same room ten years in the future covered with cobwebs and dust and inhabited by ghosts and rats? That's another scene.

Scenes can be indoors or outdoors, can be realistic or highly abstract, but they always exist in a specific time and place from the perspective of the characters onstage.

The big question an actor needs to ask for each scene is, "Where and when am I?"

Without this fundamental knowledge, they will simply be acting in general, saying words in order with no particular grounding in any kind of reality. An actor must know the answer to this question in order to be able to, as the acting teacher Sanford Meisner put it, "live truthfully under imaginary circumstances."

So, where do we start?

It's good to know some general details first.

When does the scene take place? During World War II? During the Italian Renaissance? In South Africa, during apartheid? If the actor already knows some history of the time period, then they should use that. If not, some research is in order. (Sometimes the time period stays consistent throughout the play, sometimes not.)

What time of day is it? Dawn? Lunchtime? Twilight? It matters.

What's the weather like? Entering a scene during a thunderstorm is not at all like entering one on a calm, sunny day.

What country and city are we in? Often that information will require an accent or a set of mannerisms. A rancher in the Old American West will not move or speak the way a British aristocrat in the Victorian era would.

All these details begin the shaping process of this character.

Then there are some specific details about this particular scene?

What kind of room is this? Are we even inside at all? A hospital waiting room is nowhere near a crowded restaurant. If we are outside, what kind of place is it?

What are the physical objects in this place? How has the room been decorated?

What building or other architectural structures can be seen in the distance and even close by onstage?

What does the character see "in the distance" both out there in the audience and in the wings to either side? Is that a mountain range out there? A lake? An endless wall of skyscrapers?

An actor needs to know.

Much of this information will be provided to the actor from external sources. Stanislavski refers to these as the "given circumstances," because they come already packaged into the play or the production itself.

The play predates the performance, sometimes by centuries, and inside the playwright set down everything they imagined when they wrote it. These sometimes very specific details are written down in the stage directions in the text.

A director will then choose to accept or disregard those recommendations for the specific production (depending on how strict the license agreement is). When the two visions are in conflict, the actor must adhere to the director's vision.

Other details emerge with various design elements. Some of the physical reality of time and place appear when the design team builds the set or the costumes. Some of what an actor sees and hears is actually literally there in the lighting and sound design. Again, the actor is responsible for accepting and believing in the circumstances given by the design team. If the actor wants it to be raining, but there are no rain sound effects in the design, then that's a problem.

Nevertheless, that does not mean that an actor is just a marionette, passively going along with whatever is given to them.

On the contrary, any good production team knows that a good actor is a thoughtful, sensitive, and creative artist who brings a deep personal history and a powerful imagination to the team. Whatever is not given, is a gap that an actor must fill with their mind, heart, and soul.

Any given production will make abundant use of the senses of sight and hearing. An audience will be able to see and hear the reality that they are being asked to believe in right up there on the stage, even in very minimalist productions.

However, an actor must be able to see and hear what is not there out in the audience and in the wings. Out the window downstage, there is supposed to be a vast cornfield right where the audience is sitting. The actor has to "see" that cornfield, as Shakespeare put it, in the "mind's eye." And how can they see it, if they have not imagined it first?

Live plays are typically not good with the other three senses, but those actually bring a scene vibrantly to life. An actor needs to "smell" Grandma's pie baking in the oven, needs to "touch" the sweaty flanks of that thoroughbred horse that isn't actually there, needs to "taste" the salt in the sea air.

How does an actor do this? Imagination and sense memory. Maybe you have never smelled a cherry pie, but you have smelled an apple one. Use that one in your imagination. Maybe you have never heard a plane crash, but you have heard a collision of cars. Use that.

Use your personal sense memories that approximate what is supposed to exist in the reality of the stage world. Your belief in the memory will be enough for the audience to believe in the performance.

There is also a very specific moment to make some decisions about for each scene. Stanislavski refers to this as "the moment before."

Where were you right before the scene started? Not you as the nervous actor waiting in the wings to go on, but rather the character who was doing something right before opening the door into the living room onstage.

What were you doing? What's out there? Were you running away from a werewolf? Were you building a canoe in the garage? Kissing a pretty girl on the front porch?

You have to know those circumstances and include those in your performance, which means, of course, that you have to include them in your preparation.

Link to Video: https://youtu.be/OEnKjLNU1jQ?t=10

Noted actor, director, and acting coach Suzanne Shepherd shares her thoughts on how an actor might explore the given circumstances of a play like "A Streetcar Named Desire" by Tennessee Williams.

An audience who comes to the theatre will bring something to the enterprise. They want to be entertained by you. They want to believe in you.

Yes, they know, literally, that you are not the King of England, but they will willingly put that aside for the next few hours. They will let you pretend and let themselves believe. They will consciously decide to hit the pause button on their normal skeptical routine. They will let you lie to them and agree to be fooled.

But, an actor does not get this goodwill for free.

The actors MUST believe in their onstage reality. That belief only comes from extensive rehearsal and thorough preparation.

Actors must know every detail of their onstage circumstances, given and imagined, for every single scene in which they appear.

Doing anything less will forfeit the audience's predisposition to give you the benefit of their belief. And no play can work its magic without that.

This assignment is pretty self-explanatory. Just buckle down and do it. No, seriously, do it right now. I'll wait.