What Actors Do

How do you give life to a character that both is and isn't yourself?

How, when you know what's coming next, can you still be spontaneous?

In What Actors Do, revered theatre director Mike Alfreds traces a pathway to creative freedom through the thickets of methodologies and paradoxes that actors will face throughout their training and career.

Frank, uncompromising and full of sharply focused insights, this book, sub-titled Advice to the Players in Seven Paradoxes and a Manifesto, will help any actor strip away the inhibitions and habitual thinking that can shackle their imaginations.

It will show you how to generate truthful performances by trusting your creativity and be present in every moment.

Mike Alfreds has been directing plays for more than seventy years.

In the 1970s he founded Shared Experience, and has since worked for the National Theatre, Shakespeare's Globe, the Royal Shakespeare Company and also extensively abroad.

He is hugely respected within the profession,

"If I was allowed to train again to be an actor, but I was only allowed one teacher, it would have to be Mike Alfreds. To me he is a genius when it comes to acting and storytelling" ~ Mark Rylance