Have you been ‘burnt out’ by intense, emotionally demanding acting roles?
Have roles either overwhelmed you or you can’t find the energy to make the deep connection with either the character or other actors? You're not alone - at least 38% of 782 professional actors in a national survey* have experienced difficulties recovering from playing intense, violent or dysfunctional characters on stage or screen.
It's time to recover and renew that sensitivity, vitality, vulnerability and connection that empower your ability to create engaging characters – without sacrificing your personal and relational wellbeing.
*from the Actors Wellbeing Survey, conducted by Equity Foundation and The University of Sydney
What the Recover Your Acting Power course can do for you
Dr Mark Seton, PhD, Honorary Research Associate
(The University of Sydney), leading scholar and practitioner in actor wellbeing, identifies the challenges of actors that have informed the design of this online course.
The changes you need to flourish in
your acting career
As an actor, you can really enjoy the creative challenges of
creating engaging characters without lingering in their pain and struggle.
You'll confidently create complex characters for powerful stories without becoming overwhelmed, drained or numbed to the impacts on your own professional life and
people that you love and care about.
Over 8 weeks, I’ll guide you through a series of missions over 4 modules. You'll gain practical strategies to recover your capacity as a human being, and feel empowered as a professional actor in your craft.
We'll also investigate how the crisis or challenges that brought you to this course can become a springboard for your ongoing self-education and growth as a person and as an actor.
Module 1: Re-storing what slips away
You'll re-store a grounded sense of personal and relational presence, and value of who you are and why you matter, so that you know how to recall yourself to ‘home’, whenever you become disoriented in the journey of acting.
Module 2: Re-sensitising what feels numb
You'll re-sensitise and re-attune your whole self – body and mind, soul and spirit - reaching back out into the world of sensation with inquisitiveness and vulnerable openness, so that whenever you start to sense yourself withdrawing or shutting down you can choose how to negotiate necessary self-care with equally necessary self-exposure and vulnerability in your acting.
Module 3: Re-vitalising what lacks energy
You'll re-vitalise yourself – breathe in and generate energy and authority, recovering your voice so that whenever you start to sense yourself holding back or losing momentum, you can choose to expand and reclaim appropriate dynamic power in your acting profession.
Module 4: Re-connecting to your creative work
You'll re-connect with both your creative work (your acting craft) and your creative partnerships – it’s time to breathe out again and extend yourself, bringing courage to being vulnerable to connect with the text, the character, your fellow actors, your director, the audience – and negotiating trustful relationships that support the gifts you are now empowered to give again and again, in your work as a professional actor.
What you’ll get in this course
I’ve designed this course so that no matter what your learning style is
you’ll be able to connect with and apply the insights and skills
that will make a difference
Weekly
training videos
The training will consist of three online video presentations for each Module, with a PDF of the summary notes for each video available as a download. Each video will released at regular intervals to minimise the temptation to rush ahead and overwhelm your learning journey.
Weekly LIVE Q & A Webinars
You can submit any questions you have (as you watch the videos and do the skill exercises) to be answered and discussed during the live Webinar. If you can't make the LIVE events, you can email your questions which will be answered. Each Webinar will also be recorded and placed in the course for replay whenever you wish. Q&A webinars for the entire course will be scheduled in the 1st week in consultation with participants - either a Thursday, Friday, or Saturday morning by consensus (depending on time zones).
Practical skills exercises
The training will be hands-on and practical with set exercises to nurture a range of life practices to provide you with long-term support. Many of the exercises are enhanced with music tracks which you will also be able to download so you can do the exercises on a regular basis.
Meet Your Instructor
Dr Mark Seton, PhD. has worked both as a performer and in production on stage and screen. He established the Actors' Wellbeing Academy to teach savvy resilience to actors whose capacity for empathy and sensitivity is crucial to their effectiveness and success. He was awarded a Churchill Fellowship in 2009 to conduct a study tour of actor training healthcare practices in the UK. Arising from this study, the Equity Foundation, approached Mark, in collaboration with The University of Sydney, to initiate an internationally ground-breaking Actors’ Wellbeing Study (AWS) in 2013. Mark is also Vice President of the Australian Society for Performing Arts Healthcare.
Questions about this course?
Simply email me at [email protected] and I'll be happy to personally respond to your questions.
30 days Money-Back Guarantee
I believe that you’ll experience some valuable shifts and changes that will positively impact your acting lifestyle and your significant professional and personal relationships – however, I also honour that each person’s embodied experiences and life circumstances are unique.
You may find, after actively investing in the training over the first 30 days of this course that this training doesn’t work for you. If that’s the case, and you’ve clearly taking the action steps for each week without experiencing the shifts I have anticipated, then I’ll be happy to fully refund your financial investment in this course. (Let me know what didn't work for you and AND I'll improve the course for its next offering.)
Dr Mark Cariston Seton,
Educator and Consultant,
Sense Connexion 2019
DISCLAIMER
PLEASE NOTE: This course is for informational and therapeutic purposes only and is not a substitute for professional medical or mental health advice, examination, diagnosis, or treatment where that would be more appropriate. The course instructor, Dr Mark Seton, PhD. is a certified Mental Health First Aider and can direct course participants to appropriate professional medical or mental health services through various Performing Arts Medicine directories of qualified and specialist practitioners.
Recover Your Acting Power
Version 1.0
A 4 Module program, over 8 weeks, that will recover your acting power by renewing your vulnerability, your sensitivity,
your energy and your
courage -
these four qualities are invaluable
for both your acting craft and your wellbeing!
