Their ACTOR’S CRAFT – What Speakers need to know.

In an Actors’ Studio interview, Ralph Fiennes said that in his audition for RADA he was told not to make it happen but to let it happen. And that that advice changed his work.

• Here are many ways of saying it, so it might sink in. Because when I first heard “get out of your own way”, “leave yourself alone” at the American Academy of Dramatic Arts in New York, I didn’t get it.

What does it really mean? How do you go about learning to do this?

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LET IT HAPPEN. Don’t make it happen.

• All your attention has to be on the person/audience you are speaking to – totally. Making eye communication – not eye contact – is what matters here. That means listening to what you are getting from your partner/audience and adjusting accordingly.

• You have to give yourself over to revealing yourself (it communicates your humanity and what you and the audience have in common).

GIVE UP ON PERFECTION – It is the enemy of great.

• You really have to STOP directing yourself. You need to stop anticipating, judging, watching, and comparing.

And it can’t be stressed enough. YOU NEED TO BE VERY PRESENT – much more than you are in every day life. Ask any actor or athlete. If they wander for a second from the “scene” or the “ball” and what is happening around them, they miss a beat and the audience, fellow players/actors know and everything is way off.

• TRUST, trust, trust yourself and your instincts, no matter how “wrong” they seem in your mind. Your judgmental mind doesn’t belong in the scene. Your intuition, heart and instincts belong there. Marlon Brando in “Last Tango in Paris” laughs when his father dies. It makes complete sense when you see it. TRUST.

• AND MOST IMPORTANT – Remember it’s not about you – it’s about the story, the gift you are giving, the audience you are giving it to.

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Frank Langella, Theatre and Film Star

“I do what works. I believe that acting is a wilderness and that just as you reach a clearing, feeling safe and secure, it’s time to march back into the wilderness. I subscribe to no method, no school, no approach. Providing an actor can speak, move, read English, and memorize, the rest is up for grabs.

There are, of course, certain basics. You must own your lines as you own your own toes. You must know what they mean and you must mean them when you say them. But, that done, the mystery of acting will remain your lifetime companion.

I have learned most from audiences, too often ignored by actors, as if somehow doing it for them is contrary to the truth of their art. Audiences have to hear you, they have to understand you, and they must be moved to laughter or tears by what you do. It is their comfort actors must consider – their pleasure. Actors send life across the footlights and audiences send back the reward.

It is, of course, not as simple as all that. If it were, anyone could do it, and anyone can’t. You need breath, stamina, skill and talent. The first three you can acquire, the latter you can’t. If you are blessed with talent, respect it and cherish it.

Young actors should, early on, rid themselves of the notion that there is a “right” way to act. There is only what works and, in order to come close to what works each night, an actor cannot burden himself with anything that does not result in the truth of the moment, and in the communication of that truth to his audience.

There is much to learn from the investigation of all theories, all styles of acting, and all approaches. But after he absorbs all he needs, the actor must be ready to forget it. He must take a deep breath, call upon his stamina and skill, trust in his talent and go out there and be.

All else is a wilderness in which the actor must happily wander.”

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TWO ACTORS AND THE MOON

From The Invisible Actor by Yoshi Oida

“In the Kabuki theatre, there is a gesture which indicates ‘looking at the moon’, where the actor points into the sky with his index finger. One actor, who was very talented, performed this gesture with grace and elegance. The audience thought: “Oh, his movement is so beautiful!” They enjoyed the beauty of his performance, and the technical mastery he displayed.

Another actor made the same gesture, pointing at the moon. The audience didn’t notice whether or not he moved elegantly; they simple saw the moon.”

Your audience wants to see the moon, the message, the experience, not you.

* * *

Barbara Kite is an executive speaking and professional acting coach, director and actress in Portland Oregon. www.barbarakite.com

Where To Start ?

You want to make major advances in your Speaking or Acting or in your Life.

Where do you start?

With ACTING SKILLS.  Seriously.  I want to share something special I do with all my clients.

The Comfortable Exercise below is the first major step towards Great Speaking and Acting Skills and Great Living that I give to everyone of my speaking clients and actors.

You must experience this process for yourself to truly understand what it takes to be even better in what you do and who you are.  It is the minimum required for interacting, connecting, reaching and empathizing with others.

I’ve had people say “Oh, I do that every day in my job any way.”  And then they make a lame attempt at it.

It truly is important to commit to this process completely.

So I say to you, – you have NEVER done THIS before!   Not the way you need to in order to soak it into your body, your soul and your emotions.

Because it requires full and total concentration and focus – the kind you’ve never used before and you’ll only be able to cover a fraction of it on this first attempt. You see, it requires a life time of practice to really understand.

For example, the “PRESENT” you have to BE is not the casual kind where you give only part of your attention to something. It has to be ALL OF YOU in THIS MOMENT, in your physical surroundings, in your body, in your senses, in your breath.

So I give you this assignment hoping you understand that it requires a depth of commitment and being you’ve never entered before. Because if you have, you would already be well on your way to being an amazing actor or speaker or artist. Because if you have, you’ll be grateful for this opportunity to do this again and again and again.

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The Comfortable Exercise

For 24 HOURS make EVERYONE you come in contact with, feel “comfortable” – not happy – but comfortable. Be clear about what that means.

You must be clear what “comfortable” means to you and to them.

Therefore, keep close watch to see that what you are saying and doing is making people comfortable. If it is not making them “comfortable”, try something different.

You must be PRESENT, FOCUSED, LISTENING ON ALL LEVELS OF YOUR BEING, ADJUSTING TO WHAT YOU RECEIVE FROM THE PERSON, TAKING YOUR TIME AND PUTTING YOURSELF IN THEIR SHOES.

This is your objective for 24 hours. You may not tell them what you are doing.

AND WHEN YOU FINISH THIS ASSIGNMENT, I HAVE ONLY ONE QUESTION. WHAT DID YOU LEARN?

ENERGY & COMMUNICATION SKILLS

ENERGY AND COMMUNICATING

The very first impression an audience receives, and judges, from an actor or a speaker comes from the body.

• Is the body tense?
• Is the movement flowing or rigid?
• Are the hands hidden?
• Are the eyes down?
• Is the circle of energy this body produces small or filling the whole room?

An audience immediately responds on a subliminal level, – liking the person or not, trusting the person or not, fearing the person or not – depending on what energy the body is transmitting.

I often ask my actors to do their monologues without words.  It is surprising to see the amount of energy that is suppressed when we rely just on words.

What should we know about the body and the energy emitted?

Are you rooted in the ground like a confident tree? (See EXERCISE below.)

Is your energy filling the space and moving from you to each person you speak to?  Are you willingly receiving the energy flowing back to you?

Do you know how to soothe – (float energy out over the audience), command attention (radiate energy out), and embrace (radiate energy by surrounding the audience with it)?  Energy is something every actor and speaker must learn to master effectively in order to fully realize the extraordinary communicator within.

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Patsy Rodenberg speaking of energy in

Three Circles of Energy

First Circle is the Circle of Self and Withdrawal and although useful at times for moments of introspection and reflection, if you live mainly in this circle you will be limited, your passion for life will be dulled and you are shy.  You will also tend to absorb other people’s energy to try and compensate and therefore you will be rather a draining person to deal with – I can think of several of my students who are like this and if I am not careful they can wipe me out by the end of the lesson!  First Circle energy will also not be enough for a performer to be effective.

Third Circle is the Circle of Bluff and Force where energy is outward moving and non-specific – people who operate mainly in this circle are self-centered but in a different way.  They want to be the centre of attention – we have all come across people like this at parties and all that energy which they push out has the effect of making us switch off.  Third Circle operators are in fact using this way of behavior as a shield to protect themselves.  They do not receive any energy from the world as they are alone, fighting to control life and perceived by people around them as arrogant and over-bearing.  In singing these performers tend to push the voice out there using too much energy and the audience hit by this barrage of sound does not listen with rapt attention.  In teaching, these are the students who march into the room with an over-inflated sense of self-confidence and do not listen.  Again these people are exhausting to deal with.

Second Circle is The Energy of Connecting.  People who operate in this circle have real presence.  People who operate in this circle give out energy but also receive it back.  These are the performers who literally change our lives when we listen to them.  You feel they are connecting directly with you personally even although you may be one of a very large audience.  They connect.  These students are the ones who give back energy to you and we emerge from our studio feeling as if we have not been working at all.  If only all our students could be like that, we say.

EXERCISE:

Grounding yourself in your breath, in your body.

Place one or two hands against a wall, and then exert a little pressure on the wall.  Keep your shoulders and upper chest free and unlocked, with your weight on the balls of your feet and your heels on the ground.

Maintain this pushing pressure and breathe in and out calmly.  The breath should be low and you will feel a synchronized breath and support as your push.

In this way you will feel when you are losing support and need to inhale.  This inhalation will come easily if the breath is silent and low in the body.

When you come away from the wall, you will feel more connected to your breath, yourself, and the world.

This free and flexible breath places you in the moment and can then serve your physical, emotional, and intellectual needs.  The more you breathe naturally, the more present you will be.

Barbara Kite is a professional Acting Coach and Executive Speaking Coach as well as Keynot Speaker in Portland Oregon.

www.barbarakite.com

From the Desk of …

In this posting I’m giving it over to a top voice talent and vocal  coach in Portland, Oregon.

Of course there is so much more to proper speaking but this is a BIG ONE.  Mostly I want actors and speakers to know that “speaking on the breath” is an important technique to master in order to be heard and understood. Two attributes necessary for your story/message/intent to get across to the audience.

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From the Desk of MaryMac, Dialect Coach

Hello All,

Recently a discussion about “vocal fry” (also called “glottal fry”) came up on the international dialect coach listserve I hang out on. This is a sound I often hear in actors, especially younger ones.  I thought the comments on the list were worth repeating, so I’m passing them to you here unedited.  I find this stuff fascinating… hope you find it interesting, too!

Happy Sunday,

Mary McDonald-Lewis
Dialect Coach
mary@marymac.com

PS  For an hilarious example of vocal fry, among other modern communication failures, go here at the 1:00 mark if you don’t want to watch the first bit: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pJ51BNYXbV4 (Caveat: It’s the work of the fabulous Louis CK so be forewarned that it is fecund humor at the front end).

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COMMENTS ON VOCAL FRY FROM THE COUNTRIES’ LEADING DIALECT COACHES.

quick fixes – fry

(1) refill breath more often
(2) use slightly higher average pitch, [ teacher’s cue: “stay above the gravel zone”]

My quickest demo is to start at normal conversational level, explaining:

glottal fry occurs when one runs out of energy but then keeps talking and talking on empty and then it kinda makes sense to drop energy further in order to keep going and pretty soon I’m out of breath completely but as you see I haven’t refilled yet and I’m into glottal fry by now but I could really keep going for quite a while….

Improvise your own text you get the idea and you’ll get a laugh or two but I’m gonna go breathe now

+++++

Just add some more words to the sentence.

I’m going to the stor…rrrrrgghhhhhhhhhhhh

becomes:

 I’m going to the store to get some apples and cheese

and then they hear themselves fully saying the final word and can then delete the extra words.

+++++

I’m not keen on asking people to listen to themselves, but I think that many chronic fryers have no idea how much they are doing it. By recording and listening back they might notice. Also, with a partner, have the partner merely lift a finger every time their partner drops into the fry-zone. This also works with uptalk? So people can notice that they’re doing it?

I think that a little knowledge about the need for breath in order for there to be “flow phonation” can be helpful ”that there is value in letting breath in because it gives “breath energy”, “gas in your tank” that you can speak on.

I suspect that many young women (typically with “soprano” speaking voices) use vocal fry because they don’t want to sound “strident” (or some other negative judgment of their higher than average voice), but don’t have many low notes in their range to access for the end of their thoughts. So the combination of uptalk (which allows them to stay in modal vibration) and fry (which allows them to go lower than they are currently capable of doing) “works” for them. To bastardize Maya Angelou: They do what they do when they know what they know. Our job is to help them know better, so they can do better.

+++++

Interesting hypotheses!

My speculation on the phenomenon has been that young women know they’re supposed to sound powerful/authoritative, but absent any real connection with body/resonance/expressive-range/belly-power, and with severe self-perceived pressure to keep tummy empty/small, best they can find is very low pitch skating @ edge of fry.

For young men with similar sound, I wonder if low-energy voice signals cool/unaggressive/ version of modern masculinity—a vocal “slouch” showing membership in the we-don’t-take-ourselves-too-seriously-even-when-depressed fellowship.

Or, those might have been the sociolinguistic processes 10-20 years ago; by now the low pitch + inner emptiness (rib-squeeze, in Catherine Fitzmaurice’s parlance) is simply the normal accent of a generation. As others have said, there is zero awareness of fry as abnormal or unhealthy, even when they’ve come to see me because of muscle fatigue!

+++++

What they need is more breath support to avoid vocal fry. The fry happens because their is not enough airflow, so the vocal folds meet at irregular intervals, making the sound more “choppy” as they descend below their phonation threshold – below the amount of energy needed to vocalize at that pitch. We need more breath support at lower pitches, which is why we go into fry at the end of a phrase (especially true for American speakers with the line-ending drop that is so very American!)

Adding words at the end of their current phrasing tends to extend their support, as someone already mentioned. (I tend to use “, okay?” as my old standby.)

You can also add more support at the end of the phrase itself. If they know what support is, maybe you can just give that note, but if they don’t get the concept yet, try adding a physical action that causes more support: bend the knees towards a squat, press down on something, lift something heavy, press against the wall, etc.Be careful about having them start at a slightly higher pitch because they may not hear the “slightly” part and start pitching up overall. What they really need to do is to fill out the low end of their range with support!

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Barbara Kite is a professional acting coach and an executive speaking coach based in Portland Oregon. www.barbarakite.com

 

GREAT SPEAKERS KNOW THE CHILD WITHIN

Child Within?

What does that have to do with public speaking? Great Speakers have an abundance of imagination, passion, authenticity, focus, commitment, joy and heart. And that it is directly connected to their ability to tap into the child within.

The other night, I conducted another amazing Acting Class and it reminds me of the skills public speakers need in order to be great.

Be A Five Year Old.

Everyone found a spot on the floor and began imagining their five year old space and whatever popped up was then worked on; tying shoes, waiting for Dad to come home after being bad, setting up toys like soldiers, ballerinas, etc., waiting for a friend to come over and play, hitting someone who took their toy away and on and on.

Everyone learned that they restrict themselves as adults and the excitement is squelched because we are grown ups who are not allowed to express our feelings in an authentic way. What a pity. Our heads guide us toward what is acceptable, safe and ordinary. And as years go by we make the rules more and more rigid and the child is no longer heard.

The passion, the joy, the commitment, the imagination, the excitement of the child is so necessary in great public speaking. Have you lost touch with yours? Where do you go to re-learn to be authentic, to see anew, and to play again, engaging others in the excitement of life?

I ask for 10 minutes of your time. Because you can’t THINK what it was like to be a child and try to re-capture it. You can’t IMITATE your childhood phrases or actions or words and expect to re-capture the child within. You have to get down and dirty JUST LIKE ACTORS DO.

You have to put it into the present time and be the child. That means you set some time aside – 10 to 15 minutes. Find a quite place. Yes, I know, that doesn’t really exist, but think of the rewards.

Focus and concentrate (another important aspect of public speaking) on your task and nothing else. Now start imagining your surroundings. You don’t have to be exact, just go with whatever pops into your head (the subconscious is where your creativity lives). If the colors in your room can’t be remembered, just toss in whatever comes up, because it will be there for a good reason. It can be a different age, 10 or 2. It doesn’t matter.

Now start to play. Don’t force, just let it come to you. If it’s difficult and you start thinking – DON’T. Just pick up a toy and start playing and talking to yourself out loud IN THE PRESENT, as if it’s happening right now.

Be brave. Be adventurous. Be silly. Be amazed. Commitment, Focus, Imagination, Letting Go, letting it happen to you instead of making it happen, freedom, authenticity, seeing for the first time and being present (absolutely important for public speakers) are just some of the rewards.

Without releasing the child, you will continue bringing your head, and not your heart, to your communication.

 Barbara Kite is an Acting Coach and Speaking Coach in Portland Oregon as well as an actress and director.

www.barbarakite.com

*Fixes for anxiety

(information primarily gathered from Great Speaking Ezine with additions and edits from me)

My very favorite is turning it into excitement.  After all both feel the same.  I just replace “I’m scared” with “I’m excited” when the feeling comes up and inevitably other sentences supporting my “excitement” follow.  And in minutes I have myself on the road to excitement.

But not everyone reacts the same and there is no universal fix. Don’t try to use all these fixes at once. Pick out items from this list and try them out until you find the right combination for you.

Visualization strategies that can be used anytime

• Concentrate on how good you are at public speaking.
• Pretend you are just chatting with a group of friends.
• Close your eyes and imagine the audience listening, laughing, and applauding.
• Remember happy moments from your past.
• Think about your love for and desire to help the audience.
• Picture the audience in their underwear.

Strategies in advance of program

• Be extremely well prepared.
• Find a  acting class.
• Get individual or group public speaking coaching.
• Listen to music.
• Read a poem.
• Anticipate hard and easy questions.
• Organize your speaking notes.
• Absolutely memorize your opening statement so you can recite it on autopilot if you have to.
• Practice, practice, practice. Especially practice bits so you can spit out a few minutes of your program no matter how nervous you are.
• Get in shape. I don’t know why it helps stage fright, but it does.

Strategies just before the program Remember Stage fright usually goes away after you start. The tricky time is before you start.

• Be in the room at least an hour early if possible to triple check the public address system and everything else on your checklist. You can also schmooze with participants arriving early.
• Notice and think about things around you to be present.
• Concentrate on searching for current and immediate things that are happening at the event that you can mention during your speech (especially in the opening).
• Get into conversation with people near you. Be very intent on what they are saying.
• Yawn to relax your throat.
• Doodle.
• Draw sketches of a new car you would like to have.
• Look at your notes.
• Put pictures of your kids/grandkids, dog, etc., in your notes.
• Build a cushion of time in the day so you are not rushed, but not too much time. You don’t want to have extra time to worry.
• If your legs are trembling, lean on a table, sit down, or shift your legs.
• Take a quick walk.
• Take quick drinks of tepid water.
• Double check your A/V equipment including the public address system, projectors, etc..
• Don’t drink alcohol or coffee or tea with caffeine.
• Concentrate on your speaking ideas and how they will benefit the listeners.
• Concentrate on your audience.
• Listen to music.
• Read a poem.
• Do isometrics that tighten and release muscles.
• Shake hands and smile with attendees before the program.
• Go somewhere private and warm up your voice, muscles, etc.
• Use eye communication.
• Go to a mirror and check out how you look.
• Breathe deeply with your diaphragm, evenly, and slowly for several minutes.
• Don’t eat if you don’t want to and never take tranquilizers or other such drugs. You may think you will do better, but you will probably do worse and not know it.
• Open your arms wide, in private, and imagine your eneregry filling the room and covering every listener.  Imagine radiation sunshine from your chest, fingers, etc.

Strategies when the program begins

• If  legs are trembling, lean on lectern /table or shift legs or move
• Try not to hold the microphone by hand in the first minute.
• Don’t hold notes. The audience can see them shake. Use three-by-five cards instead.
• Take quick drinks of tepid water.
• Use eye contact. It will make you feel less isolated.
• Look at the friendliest faces in the audience.
• Joke about your nervousness. What’s the right wine to go with fingernails?

Remember nervousness doesn’t show one-tenth as much as it feels. Before each speaking engagement make a short list of the items you think will make you feel better. Don’t be afraid to experiment with different combinations. You never know which ones will work best until you try. Rewrite them on a separate sheet and keep the sheet with you at all times so you can refer to it quickly when the need arises.

When speaking in public use these steps to control stage fright so it doesn’t control you.

Barbara Kite is a professional Acting Coach and Executive Speaking Coach as well as Keynot Speaker in Portland Oregon.

www.barbarakite.com

Summary of “What valuable piece of advice (looking back) would you pass on to the younger members of the groups?”

125 people replied to the question posted on linkedin

 “What valuable piece of advice (looking back) would you pass on to the younger members of the groups?   Patience would be mine.”

As promised I have done my very best to summarize and put it all in my blog

because someone said:

“Within a forum like this, it is equivalent to having a knowledge base at your finger tips, in a “cliff notes” form. We all benefit from the thinking of many which may help clarify our own thoughts, bring new insight to us, and give us an opportunity to learn tools and techniques of others to benefit our business and performance.

What we have available here you can’t pay for, the words and wisdom of many all with the same interests. This is powerful.”

 MARKETING:

This is a truism I can testify to from more than three decades as a professional speaker: you are in the marketing business. If that works out, your reward is the privilege of speaking in front of audiences all over the world.

You must be willing to spend at least a few hours a day calling, writing, and connecting with potential clients (and communicating with previous clients.) The business of the speaking business is as vital to your on-going success as developing “your voice” and refining your skills in the “art of speaking.”

You should spend 50% of your time marketing–EVEN when you’re booked solid!

 Keep your eyes open to new opportunities and be willing to let go of old patterns of behavior and thinking. Be willing to try new ideas.

What is your mission? Define your goals. And remember Integrity and Tenacity.

AUTHENTICITY AND STORIES:

The personal is powerful.

Be authentic. The audience really connects to you when you are authentic and committed to them and their needs.

Being authentic brings an emotional connection that bonds you and your listeners.

I agree with the authenticity comments but you must be a true professional who an audience can respect as someone with exceptional platform skills while at the same time being so down to earth that they feel they can relate to you. They may be motivated temporarily by a slick canned message, but the lasting impact will come from the person who they feel truly “gets” where they are and has possibly even been there too. Hours of preparation for each individual audience, makes this appear “natural” and makes a speech become a conversation with each person in their own mind.

 Engage your audience with a story or example to which they will personally relate. It will draw them in and keep them interested.

Audiences respond to emotion. You can intrigue them with statistics and logic…but you can only MOVE them with emotions.

You are only as good as your stories. Develop your stories and learn to tell them. Listen to great storytellers and develop an understanding of why you like them as storytellers. Learn by doing.

Learn how to interact with your audience, make eye contact, improvise, and go off on tangents as appropriate. 

Never speak AT an audience. : converse with your audience; invite reactions, even if the audience is too big to be able to allow people to speak

LISTENING, and much more:

Practice extreme listening.

Validate the questioner when a question is asked.

When others see you take the risk for the right reasons, it provides support and “permission” for them to take the risk with you.

Always start preparations by asking, how can I serve this audience?

Approach each presentation as if for the first time.

 Focus, focus and focus again.

Live in the Moment and Be in the Moment.

Enunciate clearly Collaborate!

You learn much quicker and have way more fun working together with like-minded people. I wish someone had told me that sooner.

Remember that everyone you meet is your client: the drive through clerk at the fast food restaurant, your bellman at the hotel, the janitor at the convention center. Everyone is your client

“Whether you think can or think you can’t, you’re right.”  HenryFord.

Barbara Kite is an Executive Speaking Coach, a Professional Acting Coach and a keynote  speaker who resides in Portland, Oregon www.barbarakite.com

*NEGLECTED AND VERY IMPORTANT VOCAL WORK

Vocal Work is so neglected with speakers and so important and makes such a huge difference when the voice is trained and used properly.  So appealing,  So attractive.  So soothing.  So entrancing.  But most speakers think THEY DON’T NEED VOCAL WORK.  THEY ARE SO WRONG.

I am currently a third of the way through a 18 week course in Vocal Work  for Actors (not singing – speaking) and it is amazing.   I am reminded of the huge importance of the speaking voice and  I have been reflecting on how many of my clients need this kind of work.

Y0u want people to be attracted to your voice so they will listen to what you have to say.  And I find so many speakers with shrill voices teaching speakers to speak but I never hear of them teaching vocal work.  There are so few good teachers in that area.  We happen to be very lucky in Portland Oregon where Devon Allen who was taught by Ceciley Berry of the Royal Shakespeare Company and has years of experience teaching and using these methods in her work as a director and actress.  She taught workshops in New  York to lawyers, improving their vocal quality, as well as actors in Londong and New York.

Breathing and daily exercising the diaphragm and speaking on the breath and  ennunciating using all the muscles, in your face and so much more, are part of our work.

What a difference it makes to speak with diaphgramatic support instead of  from the upper chest where it is shallow and quite and thin.  The difference of unpleasant and appealing. 

I’ll be sending information in the next couple of months about a very special workshop just for public speakers.

For the time being let’s hear about your vocal challenges and maybe they can be addressed in this blog.

Barbara Kite is an Executive Speaking Coach and a Professional Acting Coach who resides in Portland, Oregon www.barbarakite.com

*Great Speakers and Acting Skills Workshop Portland Oregon Nov 6, 2009

GREAT SPEAKERS AND ACTING SKILLS WORKSHOP

 

SPECIAL GUEST SPEAKER, DEVON ALLEN,

 

 EXPERT VOCAL COACH WILL BE TALKING ABOUT THE IMPORTANCE OF YOUR VOICE AND HOW TO BEST USE IT.

 

Speakers with Authenticity and Acting Skills always have the EDGE.

  SPEAKING   is like a  performance –   

                      you need heightened energy,

             authenticity

                                                      and   great story telling skills

*************************************

 I challenge you to try something distinctly NEW and more fully embrace untapped areas of your IMAGINATION, creativity, authenticity and power through COMMUNICATION coaching (media/public speaking/ presentation) BY AN EXPERT(30 yrs of training and experience) IN HER FIELD WHO GUARANTEES RESULTS.After over 30  years of experience teaching acting, I have learned a truth -you are far more creative, COURAGEOUS and capable than you can possibly imagine, and I can prove it.bmkite@aol.com  503-423-7437

 ************************************ 

GREAT SPEAKERS AND ACTING SKILLS WORKSHOP

 

 

FIVE HOURS

 

 WORK ON SPEECHES,

 

INTRODUCTION TO ACTING SKILLS

NEEDED FOR PUBLIC SPEAKING SUCCESS.

 

 

FRIDAY, November 6, 2009

 

 

10 am to 4 pm (1/2 hr break)

 

 

300.00 PER  PARTICIPANT

 

 

LIMITED TO 6 PARTICIPANTS ONLY!!

 

 

PERSONAL ATTENTION TO YOUR NEEDS WILL BE EMPHASIZED!

 

 (see www.barbarakite.com for more information)

 

 

UNSOLICITED TESTIMONIAL

 

 

September 7, 2009

 

 

 You can learn a lot about the fine art of public speaking from Barbara Kite.

 

In doing my LinkedIn research on the topic, I came across Barbara’s website and blog. Her blending of acting techniques into the coaching mix is a piece that I found intriguing.

 

I walked away from our initial telephone conversation with some practical tips that I could apply immediately to my keynote preparation.      

 

  She is a highly skilled orator and well-studied thespian with keen insight into the process of engaging an audience.       I recommend Barbara to anyone wishing to take their public speaking and their communication in general to the next level.”

J.D. Gershbein

 

Barbara Kite is an Executive Speaking Coach and Professional Acting Coach as well as  Keynote Speaker in Portland Oregon www.barbarakite.com

*The basis of all good speaking – EASE

David Mamet’s famous dictum offers us a great way to discover ease in our work. “invent nothing, deny nothing, accept everything”.

Do not push, do not try to hard, do not invent.

 But be open, be vulnerable, be willing to see and seize opportunities that arise, do not deny what happens or what you feel.

Denying will lead to inner stress and outer manifestations of tension.

Go with The Flow.

Lastly accept everything, decide what is within your control and what is not. Focus on those things that you have power to change and influence and you will be happier and more at ease with yourself.

from Mark Westbrook’s Acting Blog http://acting-blog.com/

Barbara Kite is an executive speaking coach and a professional acting coach in Portland ORegon.