The following is the text work session taken from the full episode with Elizabeth.
In today’s episode, Elizabeth shares her approach to working on Shakespeare, which includes:
- what the number of syllables can tell you
- the thought igniter exercise
- the first question to ask, and more
Plus we chat about the difference in performing a monologue in an audition vs a show.
If you want to follow along, the speech is in Shakespeare’s Macbeth, Act 2, scene 1, around line 45: Is this a dagger which I see before me… (full text at the very bottom).
This is a great session because you hear not only how Elizabeth works as an actress but also as a teacher and audition coach. It is always amazing to hear how many opportunities and ideas come literally from the words, text, and rhythm itself.
About the guests
Elizabeth Dennehy has been acting for 30+ years, across theatre, tv, and film. She has worked with the Antaeus Theatre Company, Independent Shakespeare Co, South Coast Rep, San Diego Rep and at the Williamstown Theatre Festival, Shakespeare & Co with Tina Packer and Kristin Linklater, The New York Shakespeare Festival with Kevin Kline, the Kennedy Center, The McCarter Theatre, and is an original creator and cast member of Tony n’ Tina’s Wedding.
She has over 50 film/tv credits including Hancock, Gattaca, Masters of Sex, The Mentalist, Charmed, Seinfeld, NYPD Blue, and Star Trek the Next Generation. She has also worked as a dialogue coach on tv shows The Middle, the Goldbergs and Carol’s Second Act. Elizabeth enjoys collaborating with actors to create exciting auditions and has been an audition coach for years.
She is a graduate of Hofstra University, the London Academy of Music and Dramatic Art, and completed the Teaching Shakespeare Through Performance program at Shakespeare’s Globe in London. Elizabeth is married to actor James Lancaster; their sons Jack is an actor and William is currently a film student.
Please enjoy the text work with Elizabeth Dennehy!
Total Running Time: 15:32
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Want to hear more from Elizabeth? Check out my full talk with them here!
What was your favorite quote or lesson from this episode? Please let us know in the comments.
Show Notes
Elizabeth Dennehy around the web
Twitter | Instagram | LACHSA | Wikipedia | Film/TV | Off-Broadway | Additional Theatre | Cameo (personal message)
Highlights
- Working on a speech from Shakespeare’s Macbeth
- How the syllables in a line can inform the actor
- What she looks at and what questions she asks
- The thought igniter exercise
- Differences between monologues in auditions vs. shows
Elizabeth’s monologue from Macbeth by Shakespeare – the dagger speech
[accordion clicktoclose=”true”][accordion-item title=”+ click to view/close the monologue” id=macbeth state=closed]MACBETH
Is this a dagger which I see before me,
The handle toward my hand? Come, let me clutch thee.
I have thee not, and yet I see thee still.
Art thou not, fatal vision, sensible
To feeling as to sight? Or art thou but
A dagger of the mind, a false creation
Proceeding from the heat-oppressèd brain?
I see thee yet, in form as palpable
As this which now I draw.
Thou marshal’st me the way that I was going,
And such an instrument I was to use.
Mine eyes are made the fools o’ th’ other senses
Or else worth all the rest. I see thee still,
And, on thy blade and dudgeon, gouts of blood,
Which was not so before. There’s no such thing.
It is the bloody business which informs
Thus to mine eyes. Now o’er the one-half world
Nature seems dead, and wicked dreams abuse
The curtained sleep. Witchcraft celebrates
Pale Hecate’s off’rings, and withered murder,
Alarumed by his sentinel, the wolf,
Whose howl’s his watch, thus with his stealthy pace,
With Tarquin’s ravishing strides, towards his design
Moves like a ghost. Thou sure and firm-set earth,
Hear not my steps, which way they walk, for fear
Thy very stones prate of my whereabouts
And take the present horror from the time,
Which now suits with it. Whiles I threat, he lives.
Words to the heat of deeds too cold breath gives.
I go, and it is done. The bell invites me.
Hear it not, Duncan, for it is a knell
That summons thee to heaven or to hell.
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