Review: Leveling Up One’s Acting Through Song in MEISNER MUSICALS: OVERTURE

Last year, the acting studio Act’elier conducted an 8-session offline course of acting through song. Called MEISNER MUSICALS: OVERTURE, the program was taught by Heriska Sutapha, a Designated Meisner Teacher, with a certification in Level 1 Meisner in Music Teacher. It billed itself as a way to be a “more instinctive, confident, and compelling version of yourself” as a performer.

The team from Broadwayworld Indonesia was given an opportunity to participate in the program. Following our previous review of the first session, here is our review of the whole course.

MEISNER MUSICALS: OVERTURE is built upon the Meisner technique – a technique developed by Sanford Meisner that focuses on “the reality of doing”. Actors are encouraged to react truthfully to their scene partner – hence, imbuing actual, instinctual emotions to their words and actions.

This approach should be particularly helpful to performers who have a tendency to overthink when going on stage; the Meisner technique helps performers to be in the moment and not stuck in their head.

To accomplish this, Heriska as the teacher guides the students through several exercises.

The basic exercise is one that would be familiar to Meisner students: repetition. The students are paired up and are instructed to simply repeat back what their partner says. By simply repeating what one hears, there is no need to memorize or come up with a line. Thus, the student can focus more on their partner, observing them and reacting in a timely manner to build up a habit of reacting truthfully.

Although this form of repetition exercise sounds simple, it is harder in practice. The exercises also get more complex throughout the program, with students encouraged to point out things about one’s partner  – such as the partner’s demeanor, movements, outfit, or even inflection – whenever they feel compelled to. This hones the student’s instinct to react when they feel a natural urge to, making for a natural back-and-forth.

After building on this fundamental skill, the program teaches the students on reacting to other potential scene partners – namely, those that are not another person. As many showtunes are sung as solo numbers, this exercise helps performers to be present even with the lack of a scene partner. Said scene partners might include the surrounding environment, the music, or even physical sensations felt by the performer.

MEINER MUSICALS: OVERTURES then digs even deeper with emotional preparation. This is a technique in which the performer builds an emotion before entering the scene; the emotion can come from the performer’s actual emotional condition, or their character’s. Interestingly, the prepared emotion only serves as a starting point, and the performer should then continue reacting truthfully and naturally to what’s happening in the scene.

Throughout the 8 sessions, the students are then instructed to sing their prepared songs while making use of these different exercises and techniques. It’s truly interesting that the same song can result in a very different performance when imbued with a different emotion, or sung at a different scene partner.

MEISNER MUSICALS: OVERTURE is a well-designed program, particularly for performers looking to level up their “acting through song” skill. The exercises and techniques are taught with a surprising amount of depth; starting simple, but getting more advanced and nuanced every session. However, it should be noted that storytelling, rather than vocal technique is not the focus of the program.

For more information on future classes, visit Act’elier’s Instagram page.

Broadwayworld Indonesia is a media partner of Meisner Musicals: Overture.