Does your preparation make the scene more available when the other person responds?
The Intent to Live, by Larry Moss.
What the book addresses
Moss brings his work as an actor, director and teacher to the relationship between detailed preparation and a living performance. Read the developed exercises in the complete book before attempting them as instructions.
How to read it
Follow the particular problem a preparation is meant to solve. An actor can accumulate notes without making the role more immediate. Notice where a choice clarifies circumstances, relationship or need, and where it becomes an additional demand to perform an idea of the character.
An original rehearsal investigation
Prepare a short scene and choose one question that remains unresolved. Test a specific adjustment in rehearsal. Afterwards, describe a moment of actual change rather than grading the whole run. Keep the useful discovery and reconsider the preparation that did not help.
Connections and distinctions
Compare Moss with Morris, Hagen and Adler as distinct accounts of preparation and performance. Jason Bennett's approach trains self-assessment and the ability to choose among tools. Reading becomes part of that independence when you can say what a choice changed and what remains uncertain.
This is an original JBAS reading guide with an attributed overview and study questions. Read the complete book for the author's developed argument and exercise instructions.
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