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Audio file of Character Work

  click here Vivian Rubio finding Noam Chomsky's voice before the performance.
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Written Text VS. Spoken Text

WRITTEN   is organized by punctuation and the visual arrangement of words on a page. SPOKEN  is governed by time ( rhythm, phrasing and pauses) and by melody ( pitch, intonation and inflection ). ELEMENTS OF WRITTEN ENGLISH ARE SEEN  l etters of the alphabet  words  sentences ELEMENTS OF SPOKEN ENGLISH ARE HEARD vowel, diphthong, and consonant sounds  syllables  phrases or rhythmic thought groups. The individual speech sounds of any language are defined by how the breath, whether voiced or voiceless, is used in making the sound. A voiced sound is produced with vibration of the vocal folds; a voiceless sound is produced without vibration. In Spoken English : A Vowel Sound • Is made with an open, uninterrupted flow of air, the breath flowing through the mouth only: an oral sound. French, by contrast, contains four vowel sounds made with the breath flowing through the mouth and the nose simultaneously: nasalized vowels. • Is a single sound, involvin...

Another IPA Chart... the CONSONANT CHART

 Skinner, Edith. Speak with Distinction . Rowman & Littlefield, 2000.

More on IPA The Vowel Chart

Skinner, Edith. Speak with Distinction . Rowman & Littlefield, 2000. 

International Phonetic Alphabet (IPA) Vowels

IPA was first published in 1888. It notates the sounds of the world's languages so that anyone can be taught to speak a language accurately regardless of the alphabet or characters of a language's written form.    Skinner, Edith. Speak with Distinction. Rowman & Littlefield, 2000.

ACTIONS OBJECTIVES 101

  CREATING AN ACTION   Having narrowed the focus of wants to the choice of specific verbs, let us take the first of two steps in refinement. An adequate expression of the want is a verb by itself.  A superior, more subtle, and certainly more actable expression of the want will include the person to whom the want is directed   and the response sought from that person  so that a first-class actor expressing an individual want of the character would include all three elements:                                   VERB                 RECEIVER + RESPONSE I want               to WIN              Gloria's  admiration.   I want              to AWAKEN       my father's enthusiasm.   I want  ...

WANTS WANTS WANTS VERBS ACTIONS

Wants. Wants. Wants. Wants are what create drama. Wants are what give life to the character. Wants are what the waking individual is never without. Wants are perpetual. Wants cause action. Wants create conflict. Wants are the very energy man's life and the   System of Wants  is the aspect of character to which the actor gives his relentless and obsessive attention. The actor tracks down the wants. Everything else is classified as a condition. The golden key is the character's system of wants. And after I have studied and structured and tested and assumed the character's system of wants, then, and only then, am I permitted to occupy their inner life and express their personality. Of all the questions I ask the character about themselves. the overwhelming majority have to do with their wants: "What do you want?" "What do you want now?" "What is your ultimate want?" "What do you want from the other person?" "What do you want in the ...