What Stage Coach Offers:
We'll be getting creative as to where we will work. I'm promoting inSanta Clarita Valley, Bakersfield and up in my neck of the woods,
Frazier Park. My day job is in Northridge so I'm in the LA area
frequently.
Mostly my services will be available in the evenings and on
weekends.
What it Costs:
 | Acting, monologue and scene coaching | |
| Audition coaching | |
| Writing, editing and author coaching | |
| Cold Reading and on camera coaching | |
| Theatrical production advisory and coaching | |
| Directing and production coaching and troubleshooting | |
| Stage combat training |
We'll be getting creative as to where we will work. I'm promoting in
Frazier Park. My day job is in Northridge so I'm in the LA area
frequently.
Mostly my services will be available in the evenings and on
weekends.
What it Costs:
| Solo, one-on-one coaching = $50.00 per hour | |
| Scene coaching = $30.00 each player per hour | |
| Groups of 5 plus = $15.00 each per hour | |
| Other services on a case by case basis | |
Call me at
661-245-3033
peter@peterkj.com
661-245-3033
peter@peterkj.com
Stage
Coach
Services
Coach
Services
How I work as an acting coach
The overall process
I observe where you are as an actor and ask, hopefully, the right questions. As
we work, you find some answers, try these out in very practical ways and your
work improves both in your own estimation and to the outside eye. You gain
confidence. This confidence leads to greater creativity and daring. Your work
becomes more real, funnier and engaging. Great strides can be taken in an
hour.
Why I work this way
This is how I like to be treated as an actor.
My central theory
My non-philosophical and strictly practical view is that every actor is somewhere
on an imaginary scale from the zero of complete non-communication to the
infinity of a perfect performer. The “zero” actor would be essentially invisible. The
“infinite” actor would, at will, transport the audience into laughter or tears, into
revelation or revulsion; a standing ovation, or the deep silence of the deeply
moved, would be a given. Neither extreme exists in the real world – there is no
infinitely perfect actor and even a corpse can be tripped over.
So, what I do is help to move you towards that unattainable infinity. I don’t assign
you a number or anything silly like that, I just note where you are in your
development as a performer. Some are just beginning, others are quite
advanced. The journey to move towards that great ability is what gives a career
in acting such glorious struggles and great rewards. I base your work, and mine,
on an observation of relative progress - what would be a huge breakthrough for
one actor would mean little to another. I can work with beginners or quite
advanced actors. I enjoy both.
Direction
Many actors, some with experience and some with very little, just need an
outside eye to help them find some new facets to the diamond. I specialize in
character development, blocking, finding humor and truth while communicating
vitality on stage. In the course of directing a play I do that constantly and also in
coaching monologues and scene work.
Getting stuck
Much of what an actor needs in a coach, or at times in a director, is someone to
help them remove self-imposed barriers. These can be simple physical
barriers, such as having “wandering feet,” or more complex, such as having a
thought like “I can’t laugh or cry on stage.” Many complex barriers are really just
layers of simple problems. Often all that’s required is the identification of a
situation, a decision to address it and some kind of simple solution to master it.
Practice and slight adjustments tend to unlock these “big” problems.
We all have quirks and oddities of behavior that we are both aware of and
unaware of. If you’re lucky these quirks are really cute, or thought provoking, or
they create some kind of positive effect on an audience and you can base an
entire career on them. I would never be one to try to undo one of these! But
most of these oddities are not charming and show up on camera as distractions,
or they dissipate the energy on stage.
Physical habits such as forehead wrinkling (a personal challenge!) or “wide-eyed
listening,” or awkward hands can really sabotage otherwise decent work.
Distracting postures, squinting of the eyes, odd tensions or vocal mannerisms
stand in your way. I can help you identify and gain mastery over these.
Mental habits are also big traps. Some of these are concepts of how it “should
be done” picked up by other actors and directors. Some is it is an actor’s attempt
to mimic what worked for someone else. These habits or tracks that one gets
on can be based on previous successes or failures. One can get stuck.
So, I direct and coach simultaneously. Help you to find some cool ideas and
help you to remove distractions.
About training as an actor
Actor training should not be therapy. If you come away feeling that you are
becoming a better actor that’s all the therapy you should get from it.
Entire schools of acting, and a myriad of techniques within them, exist to “unlock”
these barriers. These schools differ greatly in their practical approach but they
do have a generally shared goal which is to give the actor a “way to work.” You
come away with some kind of system of looking at a script and a role that allows
you to go from nothing to something. Every actor needs a way to work and
something is almost always better than nothing.
These schools also generally work from two distinct perspectives: Outside in or
inside out.
Both perspectives aim to free up the actor’s imagination. They attempt to arrive
at an imaginative and spontaneous actor either by a focus dominantly on
physical alterations and control of the instrument, aka the body, to attain an effect,
or they focus on “self” in some way to gain mastery of the body and the moment.
Many are hybrids that combine these two paths and recognize that they are
intimately related.
I have a smattering of formal training in some of these schools. My knowledge,
however, comes predominantly through working with hundreds of actors and
dozens of directors who have had extensive training in various disciplines. I
shopped around, so to speak, and have ended up with what I do. (And I’m still
shopping.)
What you get with me
You get personal attention to specifics. If we are working on a monologue for a
specific audition we can get you ready for that. If we are working on a scene, a
play, a role, on-camera technique, you name it, we will address the immediate
situation.
I do not have any fixed ideas about what you need but will use all the “tools” I
have to help you get better. And we won’t waste time.
The overall process
I observe where you are as an actor and ask, hopefully, the right questions. As
we work, you find some answers, try these out in very practical ways and your
work improves both in your own estimation and to the outside eye. You gain
confidence. This confidence leads to greater creativity and daring. Your work
becomes more real, funnier and engaging. Great strides can be taken in an
hour.
Why I work this way
This is how I like to be treated as an actor.
My central theory
My non-philosophical and strictly practical view is that every actor is somewhere
on an imaginary scale from the zero of complete non-communication to the
infinity of a perfect performer. The “zero” actor would be essentially invisible. The
“infinite” actor would, at will, transport the audience into laughter or tears, into
revelation or revulsion; a standing ovation, or the deep silence of the deeply
moved, would be a given. Neither extreme exists in the real world – there is no
infinitely perfect actor and even a corpse can be tripped over.
So, what I do is help to move you towards that unattainable infinity. I don’t assign
you a number or anything silly like that, I just note where you are in your
development as a performer. Some are just beginning, others are quite
advanced. The journey to move towards that great ability is what gives a career
in acting such glorious struggles and great rewards. I base your work, and mine,
on an observation of relative progress - what would be a huge breakthrough for
one actor would mean little to another. I can work with beginners or quite
advanced actors. I enjoy both.
Direction
Many actors, some with experience and some with very little, just need an
outside eye to help them find some new facets to the diamond. I specialize in
character development, blocking, finding humor and truth while communicating
vitality on stage. In the course of directing a play I do that constantly and also in
coaching monologues and scene work.
Getting stuck
Much of what an actor needs in a coach, or at times in a director, is someone to
help them remove self-imposed barriers. These can be simple physical
barriers, such as having “wandering feet,” or more complex, such as having a
thought like “I can’t laugh or cry on stage.” Many complex barriers are really just
layers of simple problems. Often all that’s required is the identification of a
situation, a decision to address it and some kind of simple solution to master it.
Practice and slight adjustments tend to unlock these “big” problems.
We all have quirks and oddities of behavior that we are both aware of and
unaware of. If you’re lucky these quirks are really cute, or thought provoking, or
they create some kind of positive effect on an audience and you can base an
entire career on them. I would never be one to try to undo one of these! But
most of these oddities are not charming and show up on camera as distractions,
or they dissipate the energy on stage.
Physical habits such as forehead wrinkling (a personal challenge!) or “wide-eyed
listening,” or awkward hands can really sabotage otherwise decent work.
Distracting postures, squinting of the eyes, odd tensions or vocal mannerisms
stand in your way. I can help you identify and gain mastery over these.
Mental habits are also big traps. Some of these are concepts of how it “should
be done” picked up by other actors and directors. Some is it is an actor’s attempt
to mimic what worked for someone else. These habits or tracks that one gets
on can be based on previous successes or failures. One can get stuck.
So, I direct and coach simultaneously. Help you to find some cool ideas and
help you to remove distractions.
About training as an actor
Actor training should not be therapy. If you come away feeling that you are
becoming a better actor that’s all the therapy you should get from it.
Entire schools of acting, and a myriad of techniques within them, exist to “unlock”
these barriers. These schools differ greatly in their practical approach but they
do have a generally shared goal which is to give the actor a “way to work.” You
come away with some kind of system of looking at a script and a role that allows
you to go from nothing to something. Every actor needs a way to work and
something is almost always better than nothing.
These schools also generally work from two distinct perspectives: Outside in or
inside out.
Both perspectives aim to free up the actor’s imagination. They attempt to arrive
at an imaginative and spontaneous actor either by a focus dominantly on
physical alterations and control of the instrument, aka the body, to attain an effect,
or they focus on “self” in some way to gain mastery of the body and the moment.
Many are hybrids that combine these two paths and recognize that they are
intimately related.
I have a smattering of formal training in some of these schools. My knowledge,
however, comes predominantly through working with hundreds of actors and
dozens of directors who have had extensive training in various disciplines. I
shopped around, so to speak, and have ended up with what I do. (And I’m still
shopping.)
What you get with me
You get personal attention to specifics. If we are working on a monologue for a
specific audition we can get you ready for that. If we are working on a scene, a
play, a role, on-camera technique, you name it, we will address the immediate
situation.
I do not have any fixed ideas about what you need but will use all the “tools” I
have to help you get better. And we won’t waste time.
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