Offering revolutionary new training for actors and performers, The Actor’s Secret introduces three powerful disciplines designed to transform your performance:
- The Alexander Technique – improve ease of movement through neuromuscular reeducation
- Breathing Coordination – change patterns of breathing and boost breathing capacity and awareness
- Somatic Experiencing® – resolve trauma through the process of tracking bodily sensations to restore vitality and health
Developed by Betsy Polatin, a movement and breathing specialist. She was a Master Lecturer and Assistant Professor at Boston University’s College of Fine Arts for twenty -five years. The book’s simple tools, explorations, and exercises draw on the three disciplines to help you explore your acting work, improve stage presence and vocal production, reduce performance anxiety and stress, and initiate healing and self-growth.
Many techniques and self-help books teach a new way of “doing.” The secret of this book lies in “non-doing.” By learning to first recognize and then suspend habitual patterns, you open the door to deeper artistic
Sometimes it may seem like “EXs” are randomly suggested, but in truth they are inextricably connected. There is an EX for the tongue followed by an EX for the shoulder. It is not random because there is a muscle called the omohyoid that goes from the shoulder to the hyoid bone, near the base of the tongue. And if we stay consistent with the unity and oneness point of view, our concepts merge with the image and reality of the fascial system, where everything is in fact materially and energetically connected to everything else.
“This is an indispensable book for people seriously interested in acting and is the most important book on acting I have read in a long time. The details and techniques discussed are very impressive and essential for the serious actor.
— Stewart F. Lane, acclaimed five-time Tony Award–winning Broadway producer, “War Horse” and “Top Hat”
Offering revolutionary new training for the actor, The Actor’s Secret teaches actors and performers how to incorporate the fundamentals of the Alexander Technique, Somatic Experiencing®, and Breathing Coordination in order to reduce performance anxiety and stress; improve stage presence, breathing, and vocal production; and restore well-being and healthy functioning. These three kinesthetic disciplines are designed to lead to profound change and healing through body-mind reeducation.
Praise
Praise for The Actor’s Secret
“This is an indispensable book for people seriously interested in acting and is the most important book on acting I have read in a long time. The details and techniques discussed are very impressive and essential for the serious actor.”
— Stewart F. Lane, acclaimed five-time Tony Award–winning Broadway producer, “War Horse” and “Top Hat”
“The Actor’s Secret contributes to the actor’s awareness of his or her body and voice—an approach to conditioning that awakens possibilities.”
— Olympia Dukakis, Academy Award– and Golden Globe–winning actress, “Moonstruck” and “Steel Magnolias”
“I have often puzzled at what makes an actor believable; what really lets you enter into their character’s world. Here in The Actor’s Secret, some of those very secrets are made tangible and accessible in clear descriptive prose. By learning to become embodied—in breath, in posture, and in movement—these powerful techniques are revealed, not only to the actor, but to all of us in how we live our everyday roles—whether awkwardly and inefficiently, or comfortably with grace and flow.”
— Peter A. Levine, PhD, best-selling author of “In an Unspoken Voice: How the Body Releases Trauma and Restores Goodness” and “Waking the Tiger: Healing Trauma”
Praise for The Alexander Technique
“To Betsy, The Alexander Technique does it for me!”
-Lulu, Singer, “To Sir with Love”
“I have worked with many fine Alexander teachers over the years and Betsy Polatin is far and away one of the finest. Her touch and her instincts and her knowledge are miraculous. What all the king’s horses and all the king’s men couldn’t do to put Humpty Dumpty together again, she always accomplishes when she and I work together.”
– Andre Gregory Filmmaker and Director – “My Dinner with Andre”
“I am very pleased to offer a letter of support for Betsy Polatin. I have known this woman and her practice of Alexander Technique therapy for many years. It has been my privilege to refer patients to her over these past 15 years and can state without reservation that in many cases her treatment and care has been instrumental in the improvement of the patient and the relief of their symptoms. I look forward to working with her in the future and will always consider Alexander Technique and her particular expertise as a part of my referral armamentarium.”
– Lyle J. Micheli, MD Director, Division of Sports Medicine – Children’s Hospital, Boston Former President – American College of Sports Medicine Orthopedist for the Boston Ballet.
“I recommend the study of the Alexander Technique to anyone who wants to improve the integrated use of the mind and body. Betsy Polatin’s guidance in the use of Alexander Technique has been a valuable resource for me as a performing artist.”
— Edwin Barker, Principal Double Bass, Boston Symphony Orchestra
“The work that I have done with Betsy has been an invaluable tool for me as an actor on television and film, and throughout the rest of my life. Her teachings of the Alexander Technique have helped guide me to a deeper physical and mental understanding of my body and how it can relate to the outside world.”
— Noah Bean, Actor – “Damages”, “Nikita”
“In my experience her work releases both breath and voice to the observable enhancement of both vocal technique and acting.”
— Sharon Daniels, former Director of The Opera Institute
“After a period of study with her, the awareness of self is so strengthened in the student, that the lessons she teaches become the property of the student. The mark of a Master Teacher!!”
— Kathleen Kaun, Professor of Voice, Rice University
“A short time working with Betsy was remarkably transforming. There is wisdom and art in her touch.”
— Doug Johnson, Jazz pianist, Berklee College of Music
“Betsy finds space in my body I never knew was there, and teaches me how to melt old armor that has outlived its usefulness. After I work with her, I feel taller and breathe more deeply.”
— Cindy Kleine, Filmmaker, “Phyllis and Harold”
Betsy has worked with such experts in their fields as John Denver, Christian Slater, and Rashida Jones.