Studio classes/workshops
NOW
Alex is currently teaching classes at Mulholland Academy. See below.
..teach goals..
If I have a technique, it is laying the groundwork for actors to exercise, rehearse, and perform as much and by any means possible. All while aiming for a constant state of being loose and precise at the same time- exceedingly loose in body and spirit, and very, very precise in action. I use technique from a wide swath of the contemporary and classical technique landscape.
My observation- over many years in the trenches, sorting training and performance challenges - is that any real lasting absorption and then practical benefit of actors “technique” only really comes from a very slow cook. Time. By all means, whatever it takes- however long it takes, absorb technique and use it to “put a little gunpowder” to your scene work, but then.. forget it.
Technique, any kind, it was never necessarily meant to teach you how to act. It is there to help you question.. activate..refine..it is to be used when you’re stuck, flat, off the mark, and significantly, to help you adjust, and finally, to right you when you are just not quite serving the “original intention” of the writer’s vision. You will have such days.
The road to a cold dead place that is mediocrity is littered with skilled smarty pants act technicians. It’s not enough.
Situationally intelligent, honest, spontaneous and very human acting is another thing; it is what we all wait for.
The actor’s job? Before you even get to this answer, give time and space to answering this: why, why act? Why are you doing this? Your understanding of this, settling it, it is i believe more important than so called..talent.
As you move to figure that out the job of the actor, there’s this: show up to play, very willing, open, working off the other actor with generous abandon and, at the same time, maintaining spontaneity and specificity with text -in rehearsals and especially at show time. And doing so, again and again, day after day as honestly and humanly as you can; your take on the world at that moment, using no more, no less than is needed, and then putting it all together out there-on stage, on camera- as a reflex. Unwavering, consistent, persistent, steady about things one day at a time, it all adds up to something.
Go at it, always, with ebullience and an open heart - because you WANT to do so. All the above..I believe it is the surest path for actors to be watchable, believable, and crucially, to perform for stage or camera in a way that consistently serves the story.
- Alex Murphy
“Learn to ask: what does the character in the script want? What does he do to get it? What is that like in my experience?..Every scene should be able to answer these three questions: “Who wants what from whom? What happens if they don’t get it? Why now?” -David Mamet
Alex Murphy Fall Classes, 2024
Link to classes Alex will conduct at Mulholland Academy. Follow the link to view specifics for all Fall classes available from mid September to late October, 2024 - class descriptions, dates, and pricing.
https://www.mulhollandacademy.com/2024-summer-courses/
A quick look at Alex’s Fall Classes: __________________________________________________________________________________________________________________
Fusion Technique,
with Short Play Production
Dates: Sept 2024 to late October
Duration: 7 weeks.
Times: Sundays time tbc.
2 final Performances for invited audiences in week 7.
*This class is sold out/All seats taken
Acting for the Camera – Intermediate
Dates: Sept 2024 to end of October 2024
7 sessions
Times: Saturdays (tbc).
Location: WG Plein/Studio 163
*This class is sold out/All seats taken.
Use this link to apply directly and to view class description: https://www.mulhollandacademy.com/acting-for-the-camera-2/
Actors for this class must have some previous act training. We may ask for a resume or a taped monologue if you are new to the studio. The 5 week series will move steadily and efficiently to give all actors the best chance to get material for SHOWREELS. Actors will be sent some scene material to learn before our 1st class. Actor are expected to search for and choose a 1 minute monologue, contemporary. We will work on this and shoot it in the 1st class.
Your mentor, Alex Murphy, will reach out to all actors via email before start of class.
Meisner Technique – Introduction
Dates: September 2024 (start date tbc).
7 weeks.
Times: Thursday 6pm – 10pm (4 hours)
Maximum class size: 10
Location: WG Plein/Studio 163
*This class Sold out/All seats taken.
Use this link to view class description: https://www.mulhollandacademy.com/meisner-technique/
Foundations of Acting with an Introduction to Acting for the Camera, with Alex Murphy
Dates: Wednesday Sept 18 -Oct 23, 2024.
Duration: 6 weeks.
Times: 6pm – 10pm (4 hours).
Location: WG Plein/Studio 163
Class size strictly 9 actors
As of August 22, 2024, there are still 2 seats available.
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Alex teaches a weekly schedule of classes throughout the year at Mulholland Academy in Amsterdam, Netherlands. Please view this link for a sample of these classes, and a description of some of his classes and workshops. Additionally, you may begin viewing other classes Mulholland Academy offers each 7 week cycle throughout the year here:
https://www.mulhollandacademy.com/courses/
Hit the “Courses” page at the top right of the page for seasonal studios classes in motion now, and coming soon-there are both Advanced training classes, and classes for the Beginner, and for students wanting to start training seriously, building a base in Mulholland’s series of Foundational level acting classes. Also, you may link in deeper to Mulholland’s 3 different Diploma programs:
1- The One Year, Full time Professional Acting Diploma Program, 2-The Two Year, Part Time Pro Performance Professional Diploma Program 3- The International Foundational Diploma Program for actors just starting.
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Here, just below, are visual suggestions of the actor training disciplines Alex will continue to offer in rotation throughout the 2024/2025 studio season at Mulholland Academy. Also, at the bottom of this page, there is information on the Professional Acting Diploma Programs at Mulholland Academy for which Alex has also served as Program Director since 2019.
Fusion Technique I, II, III
with Short Play Production
Why Fusion Technique?
“Success leaves clues.”
There are very few successful actors today that have relied on a single technique of acting-one way of working to get to their peak, and significantly, to stay there, making it possible to deliver consistent, believable, emotionally intelligent performances for stage or camera.
Fusion technique offers a mixed practice approach as precisely the way to work.
For each weekly 5 hour workshop, Fusion practice applies choice key notions of modern, classical actor technique: Stanislavsky, Stella Adler, Meisner Technique, Practical Aesthetics, and Second City Improvisational technique.
The Fusion technique explicitly creates contrast in the exercise regimen; alternating analysis and context, pure on your feet technique challenges, weekly “snap’ project presentation, and then finally, live performance for invited audiences of short play works.
As “cross-training” is to athletes, Fusion Technique for the actor aims to develop an adaptive confidence in the actors interpretive instinct leading to a reliable, sturdy performance capability-in any medium – which will remain, significantly, enduring.
We work with short and long form improvisation, character creation, extreme action and objective exercises, devised and ambiguous scene work. Fusion practice moves experientially toward exploring, testing, and then advancing emotional and situational intelligence. ”Your talent is in your choice.” -Stella Adler
A cornerstone of Fusion practice is frequent performance challenge. We’ll get right to rehearsing text weekly for live stage performance(and at times, act for camera challenges). We’ll test the the training by working toward openheartedly sharing our choices with an audience. Each week, the workshop is divided between 2.5 hours of training, and then 2.5 hours working with the short play selections.
All actors in this cycle may take on solo pieces and/or long form monologues for eventual performance; each actor will definitely be assigned a contemporary short play with a partner to be performed for a live audience in the final week.
Fusion Technique II,
with Short Play Production
Fusion Technique III,
with Short Play Production
Acting for the Camera – Advanced
This is a fast paced class. Actors are required to be very prepared, fully memorized when stepping to shoot. We shoot every week. There is plenty of opportunity to collect multiple pieces of footage for showreels.
Actors must have some training for this class. You may be asked to submit a self tape to be admitted.
Meisner Technique – An Introduction
Meisner Technique for actors is quickly becoming a center piece for any serious actor training program. The technique is on fire… from London to Manila to Prague to Dublin to Sao Paulo to Helsinki to Amsterdam – world-wide. It has become essential study for actors. Many of the most well-known actors working today have Meisner training on their resume.
Please use this link to apply: https://www.mulhollandacademy.com/meisner-technique/
Meisner Technique, Advanced
Repetition work is a practice that will serve the actor for the rest of their creative lives. In the Advanced Meisner sessions, in addition to ongoing repetition warm up and workout, we’ll move right onto the “independent activity/knock-knock” improvisations, and then Meisner’s “Preparation/Daydream” technique for the actor will also be introduced and urged into practice.
All actors will be assigned a scene from a published play and a scene partner to prepare for a final presentation-emphasizing text from contemporary, world-class writers in English. Sanford Meisner had very particular ideas about how to begin and advance work on a scene – and we’ll integrate that into our work. Actors will be urged to do some rehearsals with partners during off hours.
Meisner masterClass
All actors for Meisner Masterclass must have previously followed Meisner training through the “Independent Activity/Knock at the door” improvisations phase for a minimum of 6 to 8 full workshops sessions.
Weekly, in the Meisner masterClass with Alex Murphy, we’ll warm up by returning to full on Repetition practice as a ballet dancer returns to the dance bar- working for honest moment by moment impulse as habit, the very basis for flow in all other exercises.
We’ll briefly jump back into Indie Activity/Knock at Door improvisations, using this recap to stress deep dive specificity with “Preparation/Daydream” practice as a preface to all exercises.
We will engage various signature stages of the Meisner “Knock at the Door/Independent Activity” improvisations leading ultimately to sessions working with the advanced architecture of the “relationship” and “domestic exercise” improvisations.
There will be scene text assigned to all actors to prepare, rehearse and exercise with, getting it ready to be shot on camera near the end of our 7 week cycle. Actors will work on the scene materials with Alex-though, additionally, each pair of actors will be urged to rehearse on their own as well.
On our final day, we’ll do a staged presentation of the assigned scenes for an invited audience.
Foundations of Acting with an Introduction to Acting for the Camera, with Alex Murphy
This class exercises the fundamental techniques of the craft of acting. Actors will be familiarized with the foundational building blocks of acting technique pursued by acting students in the best acting schools and studios across the globe.
This class is for relative beginners to understand, experientially, what it means to work at becoming a skilled actor. The class can also serve the advanced beginner by reworking, through exercises, the technique notions that will keep you in shape to “play the scene.” We will learn by doing, jumping right into technique exercises and mini performance challenges which will be played weekly for the camera. This class introduces you to basic “on-camera” act technique. There is a significant difference between stage work and camera work, and we will give you that perspective, and practice, early on.
We work, and play, in each class to understand experientially what it means to work at becoming a skilled actor. This class experience has been devised for actors to begin to get a hold on what process works specifically, and then, finally, above all, to be loose and playful, just jumping right in to give acting a good go on stage, and “on-camera.”
Students in this class will work on short one-minute monologues, improvisational exercises, and some short contemporary scene material with partners. All this will be filmed with quality sound.
https://www.mulhollandacademy.com/foundations-of-acting-2/
Presently, Alex Murphy serves as Program Director for Mulholland Academy’s One Year, Full time Professional Acting Diploma Programme, The Two Year, Part time, Pro Performance Professional Diploma Programme, and the One Year, Part Time, International Foundational Acting Diploma Programme.
Please see the links below if you wish to apply to any one of the these Diploma training programs for the 2024/2025 season.
Each program is designed to accommodate different levels of act training.
See the “One Year Acting Diploma Programmes” page on Mulholland Academy’s website for info on the various levels of diploma acting study:
https://www.mulhollandacademy.com/one-year-diploma-acting-programmes/
You’ll get a full overview, guidelines, and pricing for each of the following diploma programs:
1- The One Year, Full time Professional Acting Diploma Programme
https://www.mulhollandacademy.com/one-year-diploma-acting-programmes/
(*Note: The Professional Acting Diploma Program has been fully sold out for the 2023/24 season. You may apply to be put on the “waiting list.”)
2- The Two Year, Part Time, Pro Performance Professional Diploma Programme
https://www.mulhollandacademy.com/2-year-part-time-professional-diploma-acting-programme/
(*Note, this program is sold out for the 2024/2025 season. You may apply to be put on the “waiting list.”
3- One Year, Part Time, International Foundational Acting Diploma Programme
https://www.mulhollandacademy.com/international-foundational-acting-diploma-programme/
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And here, for our most demanding program, an overview/description of The One Year, Full time Professional Acting Diploma Programme
In our intensive nine month, fully english speaking Professional Diploma Acting Program, the essential act techniques offered throughout the year by an international staff of mentors: Meisner Technique, Strasberg Method, Comedy Workshop, Scene Study with Act Technique, Short Play Production, Lecoq Method, Acting for the Camera, Cultivating Your Actors Voice, and Shakespeare. Our Act for Camera classes are acting classes and a means to collect footage and build your showreel. Also, there’s lots of live studio/stage performance -with published contemporary play text for invited audiences. This is a full time program. You will be in core classes at least three sessions per week, and actors must be prepared to rehearse with partners for performance projects outside of class hours. *The ability to collaborate and work with co actors is absolutely key. Mulholland Academy provides the program, the class venues, class materials, and the International mentors with world class teach backgrounds.
School year: September 2024 to June 2025
Acceptance is subject to applicants submitting:
1- Two, contrasting self-taped monologues (60-90 seconds each) The monologues should be from contemporary plays or films. You should choose something close to your own age range. 2- A “letter of motivation” for your Professional Diploma goals with us; please list any advanced academic education, and, any previous actor training. We look forward to you, as best you can, telling us about..you. 3- All candidates must schedule an on-line or in-person interview.
This program seeks applicants with some previous baseline actor training. We will consider exceptional, advanced beginners into the Professional program. Applicants must be at least 18. Students are required to manage their own housing; International students must obtain their own visa accommodation. A Professional diploma will be granted, upon completion, for the 2024/2025 school season.
As stated above We do develop and keep our eyes on applications for a “waiting list” should there be many more applicants than spots avaialable. However, there are, at times, for one reason or another, withdrawals from the program, applicants who cant come after acceptance. We will stay in very close touch with “wait list” applicants in the weeks leading up to kick for the september classes/program.
Here, just below is promotion for the 2021/2022 Professional Diploma actors. Under the direction of Alex Murphy, the 2021/22 group completed sold out performances of WHERE DO WE GO FROM HERE- three nights of short published plays and Solo stage works at The wonderHouse Boutique Theatre in Amsterdam, Netherlands. The One Year, Full time Professional Acting Diploma Programme conducts 4 to 5 Short Play productions per season.
