Back to the Body

Jean-Louis Rodrigue and Scott Weintraub, highly regarded masters of theatre and
film acting, join forces to share their craft in this book. They take young actors, as well as
established professionals, through their disciplined and explicit instruction. The book contains explorations, exercises, and examples used in films and stage productions to illustrate their lessons. Their work is a vital and needed bridge between the training of artists in preparation and the current trends of the entertainment industry.

Back to the Body: Infusing Physical Life into Characters in Theatre and Film
guides you to experience and use your body and its energy as a basic point of
departure for performance and expression. You will learn to apply your entire self in
acting with your voice, body, mind, and emotion. This integrated training is designed to
combine all these elements of yourself with your material, the environment, and other
actors through explorations and hands-on work, which you may do on your own and
with others. You will discover how to best fill the space, serve the story, and create a
unique, honest, and riveting character. When you implement the practices in Back to the
Body, your work will gain an enhanced level of performance and depth.

This book explores how actors can use their bodies, in concert with their voices and
their emotions, in a range of roles and characters in both theatre and film. This way of
working is not an abstraction, because our bodies always exist in relation to our emotions and environment.

Every story is told primarily through the use and expression of the actor's body. Close
attention to physicality is essential to extraordinary performance, telling the story, and
dealing with a character's conflicts in the most human way. The more the actor's body
relates to the story, the more the audience is able to connect to the play or the film,
because overcoming conflicts is a universal and inevitable human necessity.

Jean-Louis Rodrigue is an internationally recognized acting coach, movement director, and specialist in the application of the AlexanderTechnique to film, theatre, and television. In film, he coached actors and collaborated with directors in Passion Fish, Vice, J. Edgar, Life of Pi, W., I, Tonya, and many more. In theatre, he collaborated with director Larry Moss and playwright Pamela Gien in her Obie- and DramaDesk-award-winning one-person play, The Syringa Tree, both in New York and internationally. Jean-Louis has worked on- and off-Broadway, and at major performing arts institutions such as BerlinInternational Film Festival, Cirque du Soleil, Los AngelesPhilharmonic Institute, Getty Villa, Geffen Playhouse, Royal NationalTheatre, Piccolo Teatro di Milano, Verbier Festival, and RoyalShakespeare Company. For the past 34 years, Jean-Louis has taught at the UCLA School of Theater, Film, and Television, and the UCLAHerb Alpert School of Music.

Scott Weintraub is an actor, director, and educator. Growing up first in New York and then in Santa Barbara, California, Scott knew at an early age that theatre was his passion. He studied with Bradford Dillman, then at the Pacific Conservatory of the Performing Arts, with Michael Winters, Donovan Marley, and William Frankfather. Returning to New York, Scott played Berger in the National tour of Hair. He then became artist-in-residence at Theatre by the Sea in Portsmouth, New Hampshire. Scott's TV credits include Deadwood and Curb Your Enthusiasm. For the past 37 years, Scott has taught and directed theatre at Crossroads School for Arts and Sciences inSanta Monica.