Melanie M. Long – Mastering Stage Presence: How to Present to Any Audience

Stage presence, the ability to connect powerfully and authentically with an audience, is something we often associate with performers. It seems that great actors, musicians, and public speakers all have it. This same capacity is used in many areas of life, both professional and personal.

Your success depends on more than words when you present yourself to others, whether in a speech, a public presentation, a meeting, an interview, a class, or a negotiation. The way you carry yourself, the way you speak, the way you communicate, and the way you connect with your audience all affect your ability to communicate. Your way of being and interacting with your audience is equally important in any situation where you present yourself. What? You say?

Is presence something you are born with, or are there ways to develop it? Can presence be learned?

In this illuminating and highly practical course, the answer is an unqualified yes. The skills of poise, physical ease in public, clarity of speaking, and engaging, effective communication are well understood, and can be practiced and developed in ways that will greatly improve your success in presenting yourself in any setting.

Presence is a learned skill.

You can draw on the skills and techniques used by professional actors and public speakers. Learn. cultivate self-awareness, mental focus, and the freedom of your body and voice to offer your best self to the world. Whether your goal is to act on the stage or screen, speak at a public gathering, present at a business meeting, or even to be in top form over the dinner table, expressing yourself at your very best is a practical and reachable goal.

In. Stage presence can be mastered. How to speak to an audience. Melanie Martin Long, a celebrated teacher of acting and directing, leads you in an in-depth exploration of the skills and joy of performance and self-presentation, which apply to any situation where you present yourself to others.

Learning performance technique involves building one skill on another. In the course of 24 interactive lecture/practice sessions, you will learn core principles of modern acting technique that allow you to define and express yourself. There is a purpose. For presenting. You will work to become aware of your vocal and physical habits. You will practice the techniques of freeing your body and voice.

Building on these practices will allow you to explore the process of preparing a performance or public appearance after walking through the experience of an interview. You will learn how to channel nervous energy into effective performance, how to draw your audience in, and how to keep their attention through the end of your time on stage. This course teaches you everything you need to know. What? And. How? On stage and in life, presence and self-presentation.

There is training in the skills of performance.

You will study and practice the three building blocks of performance technique in these dynamic learning sessions.

• mental focus and preparation;
• your physical life; and
• voice and speech.

This is hands-on, high-level work in which you will explore all of the mental and physical resources that go into an effective stage performance or presentation. The video sessions allow you to experience the work directly, practicing physical and vocal workouts in studio sessions with Professor Long.

What drives a successful performance is the clear pursuit of your objective, which unfolds moment by moment through specific actions.

• Using characters from Tennessee Williams’s A Streetcar Named Desire , study acting pedagogue Uta Hagen’s “Nine Questions,” which crystallize a dramatic character’s circumstances, motivations, and objectives, and see how these factors propel their behavior onstage.
• Learn how to specifically apply the principles of purpose and objectives to both dramatic scripts and public speaking, giving your performance or presentation crucial clarity and focus.

You will need to develop physical freedom and ease onstage in order to present yourself in public.

• Drawing on the discoveries of movement pioneers F. Mathias Alexander, Moshe Feldenkrais, and Rudolph Laban, practice movement exercises used by professional actors. These will help you bring your body into natural alignment, release unnecessary physical tension, and move with balance, spontaneity, and freedom.
• Stage Savvy: A core element of skillful performance and stage deportment, learn how to take focus onstage, as well as how to give focus and create visual variety through physical positioning, movement, rhythm, and balance.

Over eight lecture/practice sessions on voice and speech, you will work extensively on vocal technique, expanding and freeing your vocal resources.

• Explore each facet of vocal technique for performance, from expansive, natural breathing to sound production, resonation, and inflection, as well as how to project your voice to fill the performance space.
• Exercise and strengthen the muscles of speech, work out your vocal articulators through speaking written texts, and study pace and phrasing.

There is joy and satisfaction in performing.

Professor Long, a highly respected theatre artist and performance coach, brings deep technical knowledge as well as extraordinary insight and skill as a teacher to this unique, interactive program. She teaches performance technique as a path of self-awareness and physical freedom by demonstrating and leading you in exercises. She shows how practicing physical power stances can change your mental outlook and body chemistry, boosting testosterone and lowering the stress hormone cortisol. The course is designed for you to watch and practice over and over again.

The final sessions take you through the application of the skills you have learned.

• Auditions and Interviews: Learn a complete approach to presenting yourself in high-stakes situations, from your entrance and introduction to your self-presentation, its aftermath, and your exit.
• Preparing a performance or presentation: Explore how to systematically prepare and rehearse a stage performance or public appearance, from initial exploration and practice of your material to run-throughs and final dress/technical rehearsals.
• Dealing effectively with nerves or “stage fright”: Grasp how key principles of mental focus such as releasing self-judgment and focusing on your fellow performers or audience can make your nerves work for you ; and
• Holding your audience’s attention: Discover how claiming your power onstage, keeping your performance simple, and using variety allows you to sustain your performance from start to finish.

Stage presence can be mastered. How to speak to an audience. Taking you deep into the practical skills of performing and self-presentation will teach you each element in a highly engaging, step-by-step learning system. If you develop the skills you will, you will be able to offer your best self to the world in any setting.