The Actor’s Imagination into Practical Application
A 2 day Zoom Masterclass with Gregory ‘Berg’ Berger
from The Berg Studios L.A.
WHAT YOU’LL GET:
Gregory (Berg) will lead you on an exploration of the practical and creative application of scene study and how to translate that to your auditions and self-tapes, merging the imagination with the technical.
Gregory will help you reveal your own powerful imagination and make it palpable, visceral, and transferrable to the rigors and restrictions of creating a self-tape or audition.
Berg’s approach is twofold: first, providing the actor with tools to make provocative choices, and then leading them to find their own spontaneous behaviour. In doing so, the actor’s task shifts from self-consciously asking “What do I look like?” to examining “What do I see?”
Both days will include practical “dos and don'ts” of script analysis. You will also receive personal, detailed attention that focuses on the technical requirements for creating work that is both deeply personal and indigenous to you. The objective is to unlock the actor’s imagination through creative exercise work, and then apply that to a text. The emphasis is to illuminate rather than illustrate. Finding choices that are original and interesting rather than “correct”.
The purpose is to give you a systematic method for finding subtextual clues and then igniting them into language and physical behavior that constantly surprises you.
Acting Mastery is incredibly excited to host highly-acclaimed acting coach Gregory Berger, founder of The Berg Studios.
Award-winning teacher Gregory Berger (Berg) founded Berg Studios in L.A. in 1998, where he serves as the Master Acting Teacher. His clients have received Academy Awards, Emmy awards/nominations, and Tony awards. He is a graduate and former faculty member of the Yale School of Drama.
Gregory’s film coaching clients and students include Oscar winner Lupita Nyong’o (Us, Black Panther: Wakanda Forever, A Quiet Place: Day One), Oscar and Emmy winner Riz Ahmed (Sound of Metal, Mogul Mowgli, Encounter), and Winston Duke (Black Panther, Nine Days). He has also coached Emmy winner Aziz Ansari on Good Fortune, starring Keanu Reeves and Seth Rogen, and Emmy nominee Michaela Coel, in David Lowery’s A24 film Mother Mary. Additional students include Jonathan Majors (Emmy nominee), Yahya Abdul-Mateen II (Emmy winner), Simone Ashley (SAG Award nominee), Hasan Minhaj, and Moses Ingram (Emmy nominee).
Gregory’s recent television credits include coaching series regular leads on acclaimed and award-winning shows such as ‘The Night Agent’, ‘The Pitt’, ‘Yellowjackets’, ‘Pulse’, ‘The Residence’, ‘Nine Perfect Strangers’, ‘Gen V’, ‘Tell Me Lies’, and ‘Harlem’, as well as Scorsese-Spielberg's ‘Cape Fear’ and ‘Brothers’ featuring Matthew McConaughey and Woody Harrelson.
Berg studied with Paul Mann (who coached Sidney Poitier and Al Pacino), Earle R. Gister (Frances McDormand, Angela Bassett, Paul Giamatti, Leiv Schrieber, John Turturro), Michael Howard (Kerry Washington, Olympia Dukakis), Kim Stanley (Joanne Woodward, Jane Fonda), and Nikos Psacharopoulos (founder of Williamstown Theatre Festival).
Berg Studios has also been voted Best Acting Class, Best Classical Class, Best Monologue Coach, and Private Coach by Backstage Magazine. He teaches bi-coastally and leads various international workshops.
This 2 day Masterclass will lead you to the discovery of what is fantastic, avoiding cliches that lead you to predictability, to find and see rather than to show, to be in a suspended state of imagination rather than self doubt, to stand behind what we personally find the story to be and from there take risks and be courageous and private, as well as exploring character, relationships, environment, and how to accomplish the objective, behaviourally.
“Working with Gregory Berger has been a revelation. His approach centers around unleashing and tending to your innate imaginative capacity. He has taught me how to investigate text with specificity and how to load up my imagination, trusting that emotion follows when adequately provoked by specific imaging. His work involves investigating all senses in order to create three dimensional characters that are unique and born of the actor’s personal interests. Ultimately, my work with Berg has taught me how to trust myself, and that is invaluable!”
– LUPITA NYONG’O (Academy Award Winner)
“Gregory has helped reconnect me to my imagination as an actor and to my sense of mission as an artist. His method is both rigorous and irreverent, always pushing you to question yourself and your surroundings. By unleashing your innate sense of playfulness, he grounds you in the most active and surprising ways – allowing you to unmask your privacy.”
- RIZ AHMED, (Emmy Award Winner)
2 DAY ZOOM MASTERCLASS
Actors will be allocated scenes to perform and workshop directly with Berg.
Expect detailed, personal coaching focused on creating work that is both technically precise and deeply personal to you
DATES:
9th-10th August (AEST)
8th-9th August (PDT)
TIME:
10am-5pm (AEST)
5pm-12am (PDT)
LOCATION: Zoom
COST: $700AUD +GST (participant)
$175 AUD +GST (auditor)
