Having a personal acting practice is one of the most important things an actor can do. There will inevitably be periods of time as an actor in which you are not working, and you do not have a specific role to work on. However, having a personal acting practice can make sure you are always prepared to do your best work whenever a role does come along. But how do you build one?

That’s where I’m here to help. I have put together a handy guide of various exercises you can include in your personal acting practice. In this post, I have attempted to cover all the different areas you will need to keep on top of as an actor. I know this can all seem pretty overwhelming, but don’t worry! This is supposed to be a practice that works for you, so you can build it however you want. Check out the first section to take a bit of that worry away.

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How Often Should I Do My Personal Acting Practice?

You may hear people say you have to practice acting a certain number of hours every single day if you ever want to improve. And, of course, the more practice you get, the more skilled you may become. However, do you know what will be the most detrimental thing to your craft? Burn out and overwhelm.

Here’s the thing. I don’t know your life. No acting teacher does, really. Maybe you’re working to cover your rent. Or maybe you have kids to take care of. Maybe you have a disability or chronic illness. And guess what? The acting industry needs people like you in it too! So, my first piece of advice is to take control of your personal acting practice and do what works for you, no matter what anyone says.

If you’re a professional actor full time, then doing 2-4 hours in a day is a great idea – or even more, if you want! You have the time and it will keep you on top of your craft. However, maybe that’s not your situation. Take into account the time and energy you actually have. If you want to push yourself, that’s great and admirable. But we don’t all have the same capabilities. Also take into account whether you’ve ever had a personal acting practice before. It can be really difficult to go from 0-100 and you may get overwhelmed and quit altogether if you try to do this. In this case, start off small and build up your practice as you go.

So, what if you need to fit your personal acting practice around other commitments or requirements? The first thing I would say is to make time for every section on this list. Give all the exercises a go, although you may have favourites you come back to. Then schedule in time to work on each section. This may be daily, every other day, biweekly, weekly, or fortnightly. It’s up to you. You may work on certain sections or exercises more often than others but do try to include them all. This way you will be able to cover all the skills you need and balance them out in a way that means you will actually do them and stick to it!

So, what should you put on your schedule? Here are some ideas for what to include in your personal acting practice

Physical Practice

Physical practice will make sure you’re in touch with your body and movement. This can help you build up stamina for stage work, and help you become aware of the way your body works, its limitations, and how you can move it when it comes to creating characters physically. You can do your physical practice every day, or schedule it in for a few times a week.

Yoga

Yoga is an excellent form of exercise for actors who are looking to improve their personal acting practice. Practising yoga regularly can lead to significant improvements in flexibility, strength, and overall body awareness. This can help actors to better understand their physicality and move more confidently on stage or in front of the camera. Additionally, yoga can be a great way to relieve stress and anxiety, which are common challenges that actors face. By incorporating yoga into their daily routine, actors can also improve their mental focus and concentration. These skills can be invaluable for actors who need to stay present and engaged while performing. This is a great choice for actors because it is accessible to everyone and you and tweak everything according to your needs overall or day-by-day. You can join a local studio, or follow along with videos on youtube from the comfort of your own room.

Here is a great Yoga For Actors video to start you off.

Movement for Neutral

As an actor, it is crucial to have a solid understanding of neutral and why it is so important. Neutral is the state of being emotionally and physically balanced, calm, and free from any preconceived notions or intentions. This state allows actors to be present in the moment and react authentically to their surroundings and scene partners. By incorporating neutral into their personal acting practice, actors can enhance their ability to connect with their characters on a deeper level and deliver more authentic performances. Physically, we think of neutral as a blank slate. We get rid of all your habits and quirks, so you are able to achieve neutral and work from there to achieve a character.

I have put together a guide to a series of movements you can do to achieve neutral. This will get you in touch with how your body works and expand its range of movement. These exercises are designed for actors’ movement and are often used daily in drama school, so this is a great professional practice to become accustomed to.

Read my guide to achieving neutral with movement HERE.

Creating Characters

Creating characters physically is one of the main skills for an actor to develop. It can be a tricky thing to do comfortably, especially when you first start out. This means practising it in your own time can make it a lot easier when you have to do it for a role or job. There are a couple of ways you can go about this.

Firstly, you could choose a character from a play, monologue or book – or even make one up in your head. Then you could go through the process using physical character creation techniques to create this character’s physicality.

Another option is to just explore character physicality exercises and see what you find within them. You could explore moving with Laban Efforts, elements, or choose an animal to explore the physicality of and see what you discover when practising these techniques.

If you’re new to creating character with movements are you aren’t sure what exercises and tools you can use to do this, go and check out my guide HERE to see what kinds of things you can be practising.

Vocal Practice

Vocal practice is an extremely important part of your personal acting practice. This is because it’s one of your major tools, and can easily get out of shape if you don’t exercise it often. However, the good news is that even 5-10 minutes a day can help keep your voice in shape so it’s easy to fit into your daily routine. You can do a full 20 minutes if you want, but even 5 minutes, spending a couple of minutes on each of the following areas will do you the world of good.

Breath Work

As an actor, your personal acting practice is essential to your growth and development as a performer. One aspect of this practice that you may not have considered is breathwork. Engaging in breathwork exercises can help you to access deeper emotions, increase your vocal range, and improve your overall performance. By focusing on your breath, you can become more present in the moment and connect more fully with your character. There are many different breath work techniques to try, such as:

• Diaphragmatic Breathing
• Panting
• Deep Belly Breathing

Incorporating breathwork into your personal acting practice may take some time and experimentation, but the benefits are well worth it. You may find that you feel more grounded, centred, and connected to your body and your character.

Projection

This is especially important for theatre actors, as we need to make sure your voice reaches the back of the theatre! Always do these exercises after some breathwork to make sure your voice is supported. Some exercises you can do include:

• Taking quick breaths and letting out loud “HA!” sounds on the exhalations.
• Starting to let your breath out on a hum and opening it to a long “Ahhh” sound.
• Hum and try to get your hum to vibrate in different areas of the body – the belly, the chest, the nose, the top of the head. Then speak a line of text, still trying to make your voice resonate in this spot.

These exercises will help you develop the support, sustainment and resonance of your voice so it has a better sound quality and is easier to project.

Articulators

All of this work means nothing if you can’t be understood! So, you need to work on your articulators. This means getting your tongue, lips, and teeth moving in order to be able to pronounce your lines clearly. Some exercises you can do are:

• Tongue Twisters. A classic for getting your articulators working.
• Sticking your tongue out as far as it will go and pointing it in all directions as well as making big circles with it.
• Pretending to chew a large ball of chewing gum
• Massaging your jaw, cheeks and lips.
• Lip trills – blowing air out of your lips like a horse

Accents

This may take a bit more time than vocal warm-up exercises, but it is a great thing for actors to practice. It can help you get cast in more roles, and you can put these on your CV to help casting directors find you and your skills more easily. Pick one accent at a time to work on if you’re new to it, and once you have a few built up you can practice these regularly. Some methods for practising accents are:

• Listen to native speakers. Try and replicate the things they say and the way they say them.
• Learn the phonetics of a certain accent. This is learning the separate sounds that make up the basis of each accent.
• Listen to audiobooks such as these to be taught the basics of specific accents.
• Get a book on accents and work your way through it, combined with these other methods. How To Do Accents by Edda Sharpe is a great option.

Text Work

Working with text is an important part of any actor’s job. It can be daunting for a lot of us to get used to, especially if we have trouble with reading or if we are dyslexic. It can be a great idea to practice it in the privacy of your bedroom before having to do it in an audition of rehearsal room. Here are a couple of ways to practice this skill.

Sight Reading

This is a great skill for auditions. Sometimes for an audition, you will be given a text that you haven’t seen before and asked to perform it. While you will be able to hold onto your lines, you don’t want reading them to get in the way of your performance. This can also be useful in rehearsal when you haven’t learnt your lines yet and you still want to be able to connect with your scene partner

Sight reading is where you look down, grab a line off the page, and then look up and deliver it. Then you look back down quickly, get another line and look back up to deliver that one, and so on and so forth. To practice this, simply get a piece of text and it can be anything you like – a script, a novel, a newspaper article. Then practice the process of lifting each line or sentence of the page (or part of a sentence if it’s a long one) and speaking it aloud.

This is an easy exercise to do for 10 minutes every day, but feel free to schedule it however you see fit.

Monologue Work

This is a great exercise to keep you engaged with the process of working on a text, as well as keeping your catalogue of monologues expanding. In fact, I recommend you put any monologue you work on in a folder so you can easily refer to them if you ever need one. For this exercise simply pick a monologue from a play – preferably one you could play someday in case you want to use it for an audition! However, it doesn’t have to be and you can challenge yourself by choosing a character that’s completely different to yourself if you like. Then, work on the text as you would a script. Note the punctuation, and the significant words used. Think of your objectives, beats and actions.

If you’re not sure what I mean, or you’ve never worked on a script in depth before, go and check out my post HERE. It will tell you everything you need to know.

This will keep you in practice for when the time comes for you to work on a script. You could just do a little monologue work every day, or you could decide to prepare one full monologue every week or every couple of weeks.

Emotional Connection

I would say emotional connection is a very important skill to keep in regular practice. There are two reasons for this. The first is because the society we live in tries to condition us to shut off or hide our emotions, and this conditioning is happening to us all the time. This means we have to be regularly doing things to combat this conditioning – something which takes time and practice. Secondly, because it is not something we can do for a specific role. We have to already be open and emotionally available before we approach a role so we can connect with it fully. Here are some exercises you should do multiple times a week in order to achieve this.

Freewriting

Freewriting is a writing exercise that involves putting pen to paper and letting your thoughts flow without any editing or filtering. It is an excellent personal acting practice that can help you achieve emotional openness and self-awareness. When you give yourself permission to write without any restrictions, you allow your subconscious to express itself freely, leading to a deeper understanding of your emotions and innermost thoughts. By practising freewriting regularly, you can also improve your writing skills and gain confidence in expressing yourself creatively. So, if you want to explore your emotions and become more self-aware, give freewriting a try. You might be surprised by what you discover about yourself!

To do this, simply set a timer for 10 minutes, and write continuously for the entire time about whatever comes to mind. You can choose a specific topic to write on or you can let your mind run wild. It can turn into nonsense, just do not pause for the entire 10 minutes.

Instinctive Sound And Movement

Instinctive sound and movement is a great way to tap into your feelings and your instincts. Often, our brains can get in the way of ourselves and we can begin to overthink things. This can cause us to be “stuck in our head” as it’s known in the acting world, rather than focusing on the scene and reacting instinctively. Here are the steps to practice instinctive sound and movement to help you develop in this area.

1. Stand in an area where you have lots of space.
2. Start to move each part of your body separately. From the top of your head, right down to your toes, roll, wriggle or move each part of your body. Notice where there is tension. You don’t have to get rid of it, just notice it.
3. Once you have done this to your entire body, start to move. Don’t decide on a movement, just let your body move.
4. These can be small or big movements, it doesn’t matter. Just let your body decide. If it wants to repeat a movement, let it. If it wants to move on, let it. Don’t decide for yourself, just let your body move. Don’t try to be creative or interesting, just let your body do its thing.
5. This can take a bit of practice to get used to, as we are so used to being in control, but after some time it should feel like you can take a back seat and allow the body to do what it wants.
6. You should also incorporate the voice. Let the voice do what it wants. If it wants to shout, let it. If it wants to hum, make funny noises, or growl, let it. Don’t decide or control it. Just make let your voice make noise if it wants or needs to.
7. You are now in touch with your instinct! This is one of your most valuable tools as an actor.
8. If you have a text to work on, feel free to speak your text as you move. As you have made instinctive noises before, allow your lines to come out instinctively. Don’t decide how to say them, just let them come out. Let however you’re feeling drive you, no matter what that is.

This is a great exercise to do as a warm-up before any work that you may do on a text or character, as it really gets you connected with yourself.

Tapping

This is a bit of a variation on the last one, and it is inspired by EFT – emotional freedom technique. It is designed to get you in touch with what you’re feeling in that moment and develop emotional connection for actors. This is a great exercise to get in touch with your own feelings, helping you to acknowledge and therefore express them. It is a wonderful tool that helps you to undo the conditioning that what you feel is dangerous in some way. You can do this sitting down or standing up.

1. The first thing to do is decide a specific thing you’re going to tap about. Maybe you’re struggling with something in particular. It could be something like “I don’t have enough time to learn my lines” or “I can’t connect to my character” or “My boyfriend doesn’t understand me.” Something acting-related is great, but it doesn’t have to be that. Just pick the thing that’s bothering you most at the moment.
2. Now we are going to tap specific areas of our body in a sequence. Use both hands to do both sides of your body at once. With your fingers tap these specific areas in this order. :
   • Inner eyebrows
   • Outside corner of the eye socket and temples
   • Underneath eyes
   • Cheekbones.
   • Beneath nose
   • Chin
   • Collarbones
   • Ribcage under arms (lift your arms up and do this one by one)
   • Top of the head.
   • The outer edge of the hands
3. The first time you go through this sequence say the reason you are struggling and follow it with the phrase “and I completely love and accept myself”. So, it could be “I can’t connect to my character and I completely love and accept myself.” Repeat the phrase each time you tap a different area.
4. Once you have done one cycle of the sequence, what we say will change. Now, each time you tap somewhere you are going to say how you feel. You can also make statements such as “I can’t cope” or “I feel stupid” if things like that feel appropriate. But you must try and express your inner experience in that moment. They don’t have to be negative! Just be honest.
5. Change your statement each time you tap somewhere else. Say something else you feel or think. You can even express how you feel about the last statement you made. So if you said “I feel stupid” your next statement could express how you feel about that.
6. Try turning your “I feel” statements into “I am” statements, such as “I am sad” or “I am stupid” or “I am brave”. You can return to your “I feel” statements if you get stuck.
7. Keep going over and over the tapping sequence. Some big emotions may start to come up and that’s okay, just keep saying how you feel or what you are and how you feel about it.
8. At some point, you should start to feel as though you’ve worked through your feelings and come out the other side. At this point I want you to make one last round of tapping. This time I want you to say positive things about yourself. Each new place you tap, say a different thing about yourself that is positive. And know that they are true! It takes a lot of courage and strength to do this exercise, so that’s a good thing to include amongst all the other wonderful things about you.

Somatic Breathing

This one involves manipulating our breathing in a certain way in order to get in touch with our nervous system. If you suffer from anything that affects your lungs and breathing, I would recommend going about this exercise gently and carefully. If you don’t feel comfortable with it, then give this one a miss altogether. Your comfort, safety and boundaries always come first. However, for those of us that want to give it a try, this can be a really powerful exercise to bring powerful emotions forwards.

1. Lie on your back – this can be done on your bed! Just make sure you’re comfortable and close your eyes.
2. Take a few long deep breaths.
3. Now I want you to separate your breathing into three parts. Place a hand on your belly and a hand on your chest. For the first part of your inhale, breathe into your belly until it expands. On the second part of your inhale, breathe into your chest until it expands. Then push all that air out on the exhale.
4. Now keep that cycle going – in, in, out. In, in, out. In, in, out.
5. Now I want you to breathe like this in a fairly fast rhythm. If you want something to keep time with you can set a metronome to 90 BMP with the inhales on the first two counts and the exhale on the last two. You can even speed up if you feel comfortable doing so, but you certainly don’t have to. If this feels too much, start of slowly and go at your own pace.
6. Keep breathing like this. You may start to feel tingly or sweaty and that is totally normal.
7. You may feel some strong emotions come up. If this happens I encourage you to move and make sound – do whatever you have to do. Thrash around, hit the ground beneath you, shout. Let all those emotions out.
8. You can do this for as long or as short as you feel comfortable. It can be a challenging experience so make sure to listen to your body and what you need.
9. When you are finished, take some deep breaths, focusing on doing a long exhale. Feel your body and your emotions. Give yourself a hug if you need to.

Scanner

This is a good exercise to help us confront any emotions we feel may be getting in the way of our work or holding us back. It can also be a good exercise in which to explore feelings we have difficulty expressing or dealing with.

1. Lie down on the floor or your bed and close your eyes.
2. Scan your body slowly from head to toe. Make note of the strongest sensation you have in your body. It may be a headache, tingling hands, or muscle tension. Just make a note of it.
3. Rate how strong the sensation is from a scale of 1-10, 10 being the strongest it’s ever felt.
4. Now I want you to try to recall the first time you ever remember feeling this sensation. Try not to overthink it too much, just go with your instincts and whatever first pops into your head.
5. Play out the scene of what happened the first time you had this sensation. What happened and how did it make you feel?
6. Now I want you to replay that scene in your head and I want to imagine yourself reacting the way you really wanted to react at the time. Did you really want to cry? Hug someone? Scream and shout? Dance? Jump up and down? Talk to someone about how you were feeling? Try and listen to whatever your instinct says. Play the whole scene out again and allow the imaginary you to react that way in the moment.
7. When you’re finished return to the physical sensation in your body. Rate it again from 1-10. A lot of times, the sensation will be slightly lower than it was before.
8. You can leave it here, or you can rescan your body and do the same thing with the physical sensation that is most strong now. It may still be the same as before, but that’s fine, just repeat the process. It may be something new for you to explore.

Concentration

Concentration is one of the most important parts of acting. It is the key to being in character and being able to live truthfully in the moment. I would argue that without concentration, all the work you do on everything else will go to waste!

It’s so important I made a whole post about why it’s so important and how it helps us as actors.

Concentration is like a muscle. It gets stronger the more you train it. Think of these exercises as going to the gym for your mind. That means you should add them to your schedule as regularly as you can. The great news is, these exercises are also all great for your mental health. So, you’re training your acting tool and doing self-care at the same time! Can’t go far wrong with these.

Mindfulness Meditation

Mindfulness meditation is a practice that involves focusing one’s attention on the present moment, without judgment or distraction. It can be a powerful tool for improving concentration, as it trains the mind to stay focused on one task at a time. By practicing mindfulness meditation regularly, you can develop a greater awareness of your thoughts and feelings, and learn to let go of distractions that might otherwise pull you away from your work. This personal acting practice can also help reduce stress and anxiety, allowing you to approach your tasks with a clear and calm mind. Here is how to practice it.

1. Sit in a chair or on the floor in a relaxed position. Try not to do this lying down – you may fall asleep!
2. Now, scan your body from head to toe. Notice any sensations in the body – any tension or discomfort. You don’t have to try and change them, just notice they are there.
3. Now turn your attention to your breathing. You don’t have to try and change it or make it slower or deeper. Just notice how you are breathing at the moment. A good way to focus on it is to focus on your belly expanding, or the sensation of the air moving through your nostrils.
4. Try to rest your attention gently on your breath. At some point, your mind will drift off. This is natural, normal and to be expected. It’s what minds do! When you have noticed that your mind has drifted off, just bring your attention to rest softly on your breath again.
5. Keep doing the process over and over. Your mind will keep drifting off, and all you need to do is bring your attention back to your breath. The task is not to keep your mind on your breath as long as possible but to notice when the mind has drifted off and bring it back. So, you haven’t done it wrong when you lose focus, you simply have the opportunity to practice the most important part of the exercise – refocusing your mind.
6. Feel free to do this as long as you like. Set a timer before you begin. When you first start out, start small. Ten minutes can feel like an age. When you’ve had more practice you can start doing it for 15, 20, even 30 minutes!

Relaxation

Strasberg’s Relaxation exercise is perfect for concentration. This exercise encourages concentration and awareness of tension in the body. It encourages the same type of gentle awareness that we use in mindfulness meditation. This is a great exercise to do at the start of your personal acting practice session as it combines concentration with releasing physical tension. Here is how to do it:

• Sit in a straight-backed chair with no arms. Relax into the chair as much as possible.
• Raise your arm in the air. Slowly move the fingers one by one and try to see if you find any tension there. If you do, simply will the muscle release until it relaxes. Once you have relaxed the muscles in your fingers you can move on to the next body parts.
• Rotate the wrist and relax the muscles in the hand. Move the elbow and release the forearm. Then move the shoulder and release the tension here. This may be a very tense area so feel free to take your time. Then repeat it on the other side.
• Then move on to the legs. Move and release tension in the toes, feet, ankles, calves, knees, thighs and hips. Make slow movements, stretches and circles with all the body parts.
• Lift the pelvis of the seat and circle it. Notice where the tension is and release it.
• Lean forward in your chair until you’re slumped over. Stretch and move your back to release tension here and roll back up.
• Roll your neck and release the tension here.
• Now for the face. Stick the tongue in and out. Purse the lips and stretch them wide in a smile. Raise the eyebrows up and down. Frown and raise your eyebrows. Then use your fingers to massage all over the face and will the muscles there to relax.
• When you have made a full rotation of releasing tension, sit in the chair and observe your body. Notice if any tension has returned anywhere. If so, return to this body part and rerelease the tension there. Keep doing this every time you notice any tension.
• Feel free too make “ahhh” noises as you move – this prevents tension from being held in the vocal cords too.

You can do this for however long you like! 20 minutes is a great place to start, but some people say that an hour is a great length of time to do this exercise for. I know it seems like a while, but it will really train your focus and awareness to the best it can be. You may need to sustain those things for the entire length of a play in future! It all depends on you and what you decide, but even doing it for a short time can help you out a lot.

Sensory Exploration

This exercise is generally done directly after the Relaxation exercise. It was also created by Strasberg and was intended to help actors improve concentration and sensory awareness in order to prepare for sense memory exercises. This is a great exercise for developing focus and noticing specific things about the world around you – both really important things for keeping your performance fresh and in the moment when acting.

1. Find something to explore with your sense. Most people start with a cup of coffee. However, you could pick anything you can think of. Taking a shower. Sitting in the sun. Biting a lemon. Try to pick something with strong and distinct sensory features. For example, a lemon does not have a subtle smell or flavour – it is very strong and distinct. You can move on to more subtle things the better you get at the exercise.
2. Take whatever experience you’ve chosen. Now spend a period of time exploring it with every single one of your senses. Touch it, smell it, taste it. Yes, really! Even if it seems silly. Listen to it. Even if it seems like a silent object, you may be surprised at what you hear. Notice as many specific visual details as you can about the object or experience you’ve chosen.
3. When you’ve spent some time with your object or experience, put it to one side or remove yourself from it. Now your job is to go through each of your senses and build that experience for yourself again. Recall as many details as you can about what you noticed. If you did the coffee cup, hold it in your hands. Feel the weight of it and the texture. Take a sip. Smell the coffee. Paint a picture of it in your mind’s eye. Your job is to re-experience your object or situation as closely as possible.
4. The more you practice this the better you will get at recreating sensory experiences. Over time, when you come to recreating the smell of an object you may be able to really smell it as though it was right in front of you!
5. Keep returning to your object each session you do until you can recreate it really clearly. At first, re-explore your object or experience each time before recreating it. Eventually, you should be able to recreate it straight away without having to explore the real object first.

As you can imagine, this can be a really useful exercise for creating imaginary worlds on stage or creating sense memories.

If you want to know more about sense memory, go and read my post on it HERE.

It’s a good idea to set aside a fair bit of time to do this exercise so you can fully explore your object and delve into your imagination fully. You will not be able to rush this process, so take your time.

Education

I remember having a conversation with one of my favourite actors and I asked what his best acting advice was. He told me that everything he knew was stolen from someone better. At first, I thought he was being modest, but now I understand it. You do not need to reinvent the wheel. Acting techniques have been developed by professionals over years and years. There have been books written by actors and teachers and the end of their life to pass on all the knowledge they have learnt over the last 70 years. And then someone else has built on that. I don’t know about you, but I certainly don’t proclaim to know more than they do.

This means that the fastest way to improve is to learn from others and put your new knowledge into practice. And yes that does include reading this blog! My goal here is to collate information in a practical and clear way so that as many people as possible have access to it. However, everything posted here is based on techniques created by someone else. If you find something on here that you want to know more about, shoot me a message and I can send you in the direction of books and courses to develop that skill.

In the meantime, here are the best things you can do to improve your acting education as part of your personal acting practice.

Reading Plays

Reading plays is one of the best things you can do to improve as an actor. First of all, it will give you an insight into the industry you’re working in. It will allow you to see the plays of history that have influenced theatre today and the plays that are being put on now. It can help you find new monologues and discover the types of characters you may be able to play. Most crucially it will allow you to compare plays and formulate opinions on them. This means when you receive a script for an audition or job, you will be able to create a unique perspective on it and create original work. That is your true value as an actor – your perspective. So, you should regularly read plays to develop this.

• Head to your local library. Look out for classics such as Chekhov, Strindberg, Ibsen, Mamet, Tenessee Williams, Harold Pinter and the Greek Tragedies. These, along with Shakespeare, are your theatrical bread a butter.
• If you’re in London, head to the National Theatre or the Royal Court to find a wide range of plays, including plays that are currently on in the city.
• Check out https://www.dramaonlinelibrary.com/ . They have a large collection of plays available to read online. They have many available for free. If you are at college at university, you may be able to access the other content through a subscription with your institution.
• Head to https://www.perlego.com/ and get a subscription. It’s like Netflix for books, and they have a wide number of plays available, both classical and modern.

Plays take less time to read than novels so you can probably get through them quite quickly. You could go for one or two a week, or one every couple of weeks.

Reading Practitioner Books

A great idea is to read books by or about different acting practitioners as part of your personal acting practice. This will help you to understand the craft and by reading what the masters of developing this craft had to say you will receive some of the best guidance of your entire career.

https://www.perlego.com/ also has a fair few practitioner books too so this is a great place to start.

Some practitioners I recommend reading about include:

• Konstanin Stanislavski (known as The Godfather of Modern Acting!)
• Sandford Meisner
• Lee Strasberg
• Stella Adler
• Uta Hagen
• Rudolf Laban
• Jaques Lecoq
• Patsy Rodenburg

You are bound to come across these practitioners at some point in your career, so you may as well get a head start!

Watching Plays And Films

Keeping up to date with what’s being made in the industry is a great way to stay ahead of the game. It means you can start to have an idea of where you may fit in and what kind of casting you may have. Not only that, it can give you an idea of what kind of work you want to make yourself and therefore where to focus your efforts when it comes to training, learning and networking. Also, remember, the best actors steal. So, watch as much good work as you can. You may as well steal from the best!

So, the theatre is expensive. Trust me, I know. So, if possible you can try and budget for it. Try and put aside £20-30 a month and see what you can see. If you’re in London, check out places such as the Hampstead Theatre and the Royal Exchange, as they often have £10 tickets available. Also, look at todaytix.com for theatre discounts and lotteries. If none of this is possible get a ntathome.com subscription and watch recorded theatre from your own home.

Films are arguably the most accessible option, and very important if you want to be a film actor. We all have access to streaming services, including the free ones available that are linked to TV networks. Work your way through the films on these platforms. Another great idea is to head to film festivals – especially ones local to you. This gives you the opportunity to see films made by local filmmakers, and maybe even network with them too. You can also watch independent films at mubi.com . As a new actor, you will most likely work on independent films first, so it’s good to know who you might be working alongside.

Classes and Workshops

Attending classes and workshops is the number one way to improve your acting. It will allow you to work with a teacher who can give you personal direction to help you improve. You can also get to know other actors and start to build your community and network. You have a few options here:

• Look for a coach in your area. This can be expensive but is great for intensive individual work, such as working on a monologue.
• Look for local theatre schools, drama schools and courses. Especially if you live in a big city, you will likely have a school that offers evening classes or short courses. Take a look!
• Specific skill classes. Often there will be experts in certain areas that run classes you can attend. This can be a great way to excel in the specific things that you really want to do. Have a look for film acting classes, Meisner workshops, Laban workshops and audition technique workshops.
• Improv groups. These are often informal groups that get together and play improv games and create short improvised performances. They are quite common, lots of fun, and improv practice will really improve your general acting work.
• Online acting schools. Whilst not meeting in person isn’t ideal, this is often a more affordable option and great for those who live in locations that don’t have much on offer. There are some really great online schools where you can keep up to date on your acting skills so definitely consider these as an option.

Self Care

Save the best (and most important) until last! Acting can be an intense and demanding profession that requires a lot of energy and emotional investment. This is why it’s crucial for actors to make self-care a priority. Without proper self-care, an actor’s mental, physical, and emotional health can suffer. This profession demands a lot out of us. It’s unreliable, it demands our emotional availability and can be very tiring.

That’s why self-care is the absolute most important thing for actors to include in their personal acting practice – because without it, you may get too burnt out to be able to do the rest of the work at all. It is absolutely crucial to include this in your personal acting practice. Actors who take care of themselves are more likely to be successful in the long run and are better equipped to handle the challenges that come with their profession.

There are lots of different things you can do, but here are a few ideas.

Journaling

Journaling is an excellent form of self-care that allows you to tune into your thoughts, feelings, and personal experiences. Taking time to write down your thoughts can be a powerful tool for increasing self-awareness and promoting mental well-being. Through journaling, you can gain insights into your inner world and develop a deeper understanding of yourself. As actors, we offer a lot of our internal and private experience to our characters and share them with our audience. That means it’s extra important to have a private space in which to express our feelings that we don’t want to share. Something just for us. By regularly journaling, you can create a safe space for yourself to reflect on your emotions, track your progress, and identify areas for growth. So grab a pen and paper and start journaling today!

Rest

As we’ve established, acting can be really taxing – emotionally, mentally and physically. Not only that, but days on set or in rehearsal can be really long. While you may not be acting the entire time, still having to be “switched on” can be really tiring. Not only that but there can be pressure in our society to be constantly busy. Well, once again, you can’t work well if you’re burnt out. So, you need to make time to rest. Seriously, put it on your schedule. Have a bubble bath. Go for a massage. Have a nap. Just take some time out for yourself to reset.

Hobbies

Make time for your hobbies that have nothing to do with acting. It can be really tempting to put all our energies into our profession, especially when it’s something we love. But you need to make time for your other interests too. Sometimes, when our passion is our work, it becomes a bit hard to treat it as simply fun. But we need fun in our lives. It will allow us to approach our creative craft with enthusiasm and a fresh perspective. So, play sport. Do some photography. Draw. Learn a language. Crochet. Set time aside to do something just because you enjoy it.

Eat well

Your health comes first. You need your strength to be an actor. Eating well makes you strong, improves your memory and focus, and helps you keep your mood and energy up. All important for acting! I’ll say it again. Your health comes first. So put aside time to make nutritious and filling meals. Get some fruit in the house – or take it to set or the theatre. Plan meal prep if you need to. Plan your meals for the week and make sure they are nutritious, filling and – most importantly – delicious!

Conclusion

Now you have all the tools you need in order to have a professional personal acting practice. This will help you to become a skilled and talented actor. Do you know the best thing about it? It feels help you develop more confidence in yourself as an actor. When you know you’ve been working hard and improving your craft, you can always know that you are doing your best.

So, never fear! Whether you’re in between jobs, just getting into the craft, or about to graduate drama school, you now have the tools you need in order to develop yourself as an actor and take control of your personal acting practice.

Thank you so much for reading this post, I hope you’ve found it helpful. Please feel free to message me if you have any questions.