Developing Charisma on Stage – Acting with Intent

You finally get to a Broadway show… and there is one actor who the audience loves and reacts to… the second they come on stage; you get excited. And you just “know” that in every role they have ever played, they have this special something that flows out of them. Charisma. Charisma is… well…. Magic on stage. Charisma is hard to define. Is it stage presence? Power? Warmth? Your passion and energy on stage? So, how do you develop it? This “je ne sais quoi”… this elusive pleasing quality?

On stage, you send subtle signals on stage that you are inviting the audience into your world. Your use of space, animation, energy, pushing or pulling a  line for just. A second. Longer Showing your thought process on the stage makes all the difference. Your animation and authentic energy speak volumes.

I was taught that “the eyes are windows to the soul”. And any opera singer or ballet dancer will share with you the importance of using warmth and thought, through the medium of the eyes, to form a bond with the audience while not breaking the wall. While not breaking character. Being present in your moment in the character arc.

Regarding stage charisma, it is so important about bringing out the push and pull of the scene. The interrelationships, conflicts, and alliances with your fellow cast members. The more you become an active scene partner and value the action and reaction of your cast, the more charisma you have radiating from you on stage.

Challenges to Percolate:

Think back to your best past scene partners. What aspects of charisma did they bring to the stage. What did they do to heighten the scene quality?

WHAT MAKES LATTE CHICAGO’S TEEN ACTING CHOICE

The LATTE Theater Acting Program stems from the conviction that Teen Actors can be trained with similar rigor and discipline as adults. As teens establish internal stage discipline (while having fun), they also are taught emotional wellness tools to allow them a healthy self-awareness as they are developing their stage characters to protect the psyche.

This acting training technique is specifically designed for young people’s personal triumph on and off the stage. The Pfluger Empathy Movement Method focuses on spherical growth in all aspects of character building, physicality and stage interrelationships , commanding voice and speech intonations, muscle activation, micro-expressions, and improvisation… all while developing personal stamina and directing skills.  Curiosity and questions are encouraged for collaborative growth. Teens are included in the dramaturgy process and given a voice from the start of the acting intensive to the final curtain call.

Coaching for healthy stage intimacy and interrelationship creates a holistic stagecraft approach where teens are not only acquainted with the core elements of acting training, but actively mentored from a cultural, historical, literary, and psychological basis. Exploration of character interrelationships allow each teen to gain healthy insight as an actor or actress – for through stage we celebrate our humanity, challenge ourselves, find comfort… create healthy opportunities to learn and make lasting memories.

For more information on our Teen Acting Program, Auditions, Acting Workshops, Summer Teen Camp, Acting School, LATTE Theater Performances, and Acting Intensives, please contact us at 708-655-0989 or email lattetheater@gmail.com.

HOW TO TEACH TEENS STAGE PRESENCE?

When you are on stage, it is easy for any beginning actor to fall into the pitfall of just smiling and being ready for your photo op. But this is not real acting. And any good director’s job is to create learning opportunities for teens to grow on stage, to deliver scenes with realness – not just a photo-op. And that realness? That’s where the best memories are made!

When you are on stage, you need to use your space, and give your body resistance to the area surrounding you. And you did this differently as your character…. And each character you create on stage will be VERY different than you, with unique personality traits, and motivations that you will represent with different animation in your acting physicality and expressions.

You have the opportunity to be a real storyteller on stage. You are taking the audience on a journey -a story arch with your scene partners. Stage presence is being PRESENT. If you “check out”, so will the audience, because the magic of theater and stage will be broken. This takes stamina and using your rehearsals to build this muscle memory allows for real transformative change and gorgeous stage presence.

Real stage presence call for each cast member to be energetic and activated, showing animation. Think of this as a forcefield that extends across the stage and into the audience. It is easy to fall into the trap of only activating part of the body or face when every part of the body is needing to be “activated” from your hair to your toes. Alive and animated, moving and attracting real and raw feedback. So create tension and release WITH your scene partners, and in doing so, you will stand out as an Acting Professional!

A Challenges to Percolate:

Do a simple mirror warmup with yourself or your scene partner. Challenge yourself to be bigger and give your muscles more resistance and realness.

Why Should Teens do Full-Length Plays in a Challenging  Environment?

It’s all about stretching. It’s more than building your stage resume, and beyond forging friendships, self-confidence, and learning how to develop as a teen player. Not only do teens learn to value how other people think and respect diversity, but in programs like LATTE where teens who take on full-length plays as acting intensives learn how to read and learn emotional tells. They develop the emotional and physical stamina to stay actively in character for 2 hours, and, in the right program, to deal with the unexpected.

Live Theater can have a plethora of things go wrong, and the show “must go on”, so you learn to trust your wits, your team, and your contingency plan. In a challenging program, you learn as I always say in LATTE, “Prepare for the worst and expect the best”.  Teens can learn healthy project management that allows them to be part of the planning process. When you involve teens in the decision-making process of developing blocking, adlibs, and looking for opportunities to use their ideas, then you get a stronger show. And when teens are empowered on stage to support other cast members as scene partners – as equals, the ego gets taken out of the equation, and what we have left is gorgeous theater worthy of standing ovations!

Challenges to Percolate for Directors … or Teens that want to be Directors:

  • Look at the blocking for a scene through different lenses. That of each of the characters. How would the blocking change depending on which character you would want to highlight at any given moment?
  • How can you strengthen the moving action of the scene?
  • What blocking can you add to make sure each character on stage gets to shine – while adding intrigue, suspense, and animation to the scene.

~ Felicia Pfluger, Pfluger Empathy Movement Method, (c) 2023