Black Box Acting is now in our second decade of training actors to Work Hard and Be Fearless.
Our training programs are:
- The ACADEMY: Five-month intensive conservatory training.
- The STUDIO: Part-time classes and workshops offered year-round.
- Melanin & Meisner: An introduction to our method for artists of color.
- Young Adult: Training for actors aged 10-18.
- National Intensives: Bootcamp-style Black Box training in cities across the country.
- Corporate Training Intensives: Highly customizable workshops which utilize acting tools to build professional skills in the workplace.
The heartbeat of all our training is The Black Box Method. This comprehensive and rigorous curriculum, based in Meisner and Viewpoints, trains actors to:
- Be in the moment and feel alive onstage
- Celebrate flaws and gifts equally
- Live fully under imagined circumstances
- Own text with honesty and integrity
- Follow physical impulses
- Work from an honest, brave, and present place… consistently
We teach the full Black Box Method in a three level curriculum — detailed below — which comprises The STUDIO Core Curriculum as well as Stage I of The ACADEMY.
B1: Human Behavior is a Meisner Technique and Viewpoints class which teaches the fundamentals of physical and emotional repetition, the activity and walking in exercises, and seven of the nine Viewpoints.
B2: Power of Imagination is the bridge to working with text. B2 uses an expanded version of Meisner’s activity and walking in exercise to introduce script elements such as relationship and truths, teaches the final two Viewpoints while reinforcing the connection between imagination work and physical work, and ends with an introduction to script work.
B3: The Professional is where all of the pieces of The Black Box Method come together. In B3, students learn the four stage Homework Process which gives them a framework for script analysis building on their B1 and B2 Meisner training, a physical approach to memorization that eliminates preplanning, and a methodology to use the vocabulary of Viewpoints to implant their prep work in their muscle memory. This last component is expanded upon in The Go Time Process, which teaches students to quickly start a scene emotionally full, to be in the moment with their scene partner, and to take adjustments with ease and integrity. Students leave B3 with a concrete process that can be applied every single time they have an audition or a booking, whether on stage or on screen.