Experiment.

find yourself.

work on your material.

FOLLOW ANOTHER ACTING DOGMA.

A UNIQUE EXPERIMENTAL LAB, for ACTORS.

Most acting classes have a specific programmatic approach to acting: the problem is, while some people find it useful, and many others find that the adherence to a specific dogma restrictive to the very acting process they’re trying to find within themselves.

When you cling to tightly to dogma, you can—inadvertently—choke the fluid, spontaneous acting process itself.

The Actor’s Lab is built on a single premise: that creativity and acting is a process of letting go, of trusting yourself more, of being more in tune with the instincts you already have, and that you—and only you—can find your way into acting.

It’s about being a kid again; getting in tune with what’s already yours.

The Actor’s Lab isn’t a class with an approach—it’s a two-hour laboratory style experimental practice in Portland, Oregon, at Desert Island Studios—a modern-day motion picture film studio, where you:

• Experiment, play, fail, screw up with an anti-approach to creativity: the goal is to find the specific things, practices, ideas that help you do one thing, and one thing alone: let go. There’s no programmatic approach here—only suggestions to test out, and an experimental approach for yourself: you’ll bring a notebook to write down things that work for you, as well as what doesn’t.

• Bring us multiple copies of the exact screenplays you’re working on, so you don’t have to (lovingly) bother your partner or friends to practice with you—but you can practice the actual material you’re chewing on in real-life, with real actors in the film industry in Portland, Oregon.

• And if there’s no material, we’ll work on material that’s fun: screenplays from modern classics like The Social Network or The Dark Knight—and material that’s meant to expand you—think Chekov and Shakespeare.

• Think of the Actor’s Laboratory as a lab to experiment and find yourself. Not to follow someone else’s idea of how to act.

• The goal is find yourself through the process of doing; not through an intellectual construct of how an acting teacher thinks you should act.

• Most of our sessions are purely experimental sessions. For actors who sign up for six months or more, we’ll give film you using cinema equipment, in an interview setup at Desert Island, footage you can use for your reel. We’ll color-grade it, and send you the footage to use.