ben naylor

I believe that actors are artists and craftspeople; they must be creators, collaborators and critics; they must simultaneously embody and transcend the time.

I aim to teach actors to be inventive, resourceful and aware; to be generous in ensemble, and self-reliant in craft.

Underpinning my approach, always, is rigorous textual and dramatic analysis, while improvisation and games liberate the actor’s body and imagination: I seek to balance perspiration and inspiration.

My work draws upon the teaching and practices of a wide range of great teacher-artists – Konstantin Stanislavsky, Evgeny Vakhtangov, Rudolph Laban, Yat Malmgren, Sanford Meisner, Vsevolod Meyerhold, Jonathan Miller, Lee Strasberg, Stella Adler, Peter Brook, John Barton, Cicely Berry, Peter Hall, Declan Donnellan, Keith Johnstone, Uta Hagen, Jacques Lecoq, Philippe Gaulier and Yoshi Oida; I rely on thinkers and theorists from Socrates to Kahneman, from Jung to Harari, from John Bulwer to Geoff Beattie; and I’m inspired by the example of actors negotiating the material conditions of dramatic performance throughout history, from amphitheatres to close-ups to motion capture.

Great acting must balance the messy, human, moment-to-moment reality of character and situation, with a profound and internalised appreciation of craft and structure. As Martha Graham put it:

You have no right to go before a public without an adequate technique, just because you feel. Anything feels — a leaf feels, a storm feels — what right have you to do that? You have to have speech, and it’s a cultivated speech.

Photos by Luke Pajak