Craft is the practiced ability to turn an understanding of dramatic material into specific, repeatable performance. It concerns what the actor does with the available instrument: investigating a text, building relationships, choosing actions, rehearsing, responding to partners, shaping characterization, and meeting the demands of a particular form.
At Jason Bennett Actors Studio (JBAS), craft is the second of three phases. This phase includes scene work, monologues, improvisation, script analysis, objectives, obstacles, actions, characterization, and rehearsal. The distinction helps a student ask a concrete question: what part of the work needs attention now?
Eric Morris’s account similarly separates instrumental preparation from fulfilling the demands of dramatic material. The two are related areas of work rather than rival philosophies. Eric Morris, official biography.
In rehearsal
Rehearsal example: A character needs a friend to remain in the room. “Be devastated” describes a hoped-for feeling. “Get her to hear the letter before she leaves” gives the actor a particular event to pursue. Rehearsal can then investigate the letter, the friendship, what departure would mean, and the different attempts to make the friend stay.
The second formulation does not forbid feeling. It gives feeling a situation in which to matter. Nor does it settle every performance choice. A stylized comedy, an intimate film scene, and a verse tragedy may demand different relationships to language, scale, rhythm, and audience.
Craft includes testing. If an apparently clever choice makes the text harder to understand or shuts out the partner, revise it. A rehearsal discovery becomes usable when the actor can return to the conditions that support it without copying a frozen emotional result.
The six craft tools taught at JBAS are Sensory Work, Improvisation, Archetype Work, Externals, Imaging, and deep Script and Character Analysis. Voice supports all six. The tools offer different routes into preparation and performance; their usefulness depends on the actor, role and day. JBAS training approach.
Related entries
Instrument, Objective, Tactic, Acting process.
About this entry
This introduction uses JBAS teaching vocabulary and the cited account of Eric Morris’s work. Other training traditions may organize these terms differently.
