by Caroline Fraissinet

Created on: May 05, 2010

Working with amateur actors (sometimes called "non-actors") can be very rewarding.  They often do not have big egos, can give earnest and unpretentious performances and may be an untapped well of moving talent.  However, it can be challenging to work with amateur actors if you have little experience directing them.  Therefore, it is important to keep several ideas in mind when working with amateur actors.  Here is a guide to some strategies and tips in directing amateur actors:

1) Give adjustments - adjustments are great for both amateur and professional actors.  Adjustments are statements or questions that can lead an actor towards a performance without necessarily directly stating it.  They usually start with things like, "what if," "it's like when," or "it's as if."  For example, say you wanted your actor to give a more frustrated, angry delivery of a line.  You might say, "For this line, say it as if you just locked your keys in your car."  Keep them simple and universal.  Chances are, an adjustment you give will help the actor understand more of what you're looking for and they can easily draw on personal experience, even if they have very little acting-specific experience.

2) Don't give line readings - it can be tempting to just flat out say how you want an amateur actor to act by demonstrating how it should be said.  Never do this.  First off, it tends to anger professional actors, so if you end up working with professionals down the line, you might start off on the wrong foot.  Second, it can lead to an affected performance.  Actors will simply imitate you doing the imitation of how you want it done, which 99% of the time won't be what you wanted.  As tempting as it can be to just tell an actor, "Say it like this!" do not do it.  Acting is about finding a character, and this is taking what is for someone who truly loves the process of acting the most fun part of their job away.

3) Be general - with professional actors, you're more likely to get away with strategies and use specific keywords that could help them to get the performance you want because they have enough training and experience to understand what you're talking about.  However, with amateurs, this strategy of suggesting certain well-known traditional acting techniques is eliminated.  Therefore, you should be general in your examples.  Stick to analogies that everyone can relate to (sadness over a pet dying, happiness over finding $20 in your pocket, ect.) rather than grandiose descriptions. However, you should also...

4) Be specific - you should avoid being too vague with your directions.  It's more helpful to say something along the lines of "It's like someone you've loved from afar for years tells you that they've loved you back all along" than it is to say something like, "Say it as if it's the happiest day of your life."

With these tips and tricks, you should be able to avoid the problem of amateur performances from your amateur actors.  The results have the potential to be great by using non-actors.  All that you as a director should remember is that communicating ideas may need to take a different approach to have the same effectiveness.

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