Yes, I am a motivational speaker now, but for over twenty-five years I was a professional card-carrying actor in film, television and on stages throughout the U.S. As an actor, it was my job to make my words sound as if I was saying them for the very first time – even when, in the case of a live stage production, it was the 100th time I’d said them. How does that happen? How do actors do that? When you, as an audience member, attend a live show, what makes you suspend your disbelief and go full tilt boogie into the world that is laid before you on the stage?
Wouldn’t you want to know how to do that? Whatever THAT is? When you have to give any kind of a presentation to any group, small or large, wouldn’t you want it to sound like you are saying those words for the very first time? As if they are occuring to you right then in that moment? Wouldn’t you want them to sound so authentic and real and engaging that the people listening are totally engaged
I found an article published recently in tdfSTAGES about the current stage production of the Pulitzer Prize winning play, Flick, by Annie Baker, that addresses this very thing. In it we learn what one of the lead actors, Matthew Maher, says he must do in order to make his performance appear so spontaneous and real. Click here to read This Play Is So Realistic, It Must Be Fake.
