Paid episode

The full episode is only available to paid subscribers of Acting Class Daily

Rehearsal Playground

Week #2: The Gift of Nellie Clark

Happy Saturday, friends. Welcome to EA’s Rehearsal Playground. Each week we’ll celebrate our Mainstage material and capture graveyard echoes emanating from EA’s Spoon River.

Paid members have an ALL NEW Weekly Character Challenge + March’s Mainstage Rehearsal Project waiting beyond the paywall below!



Graveyard Echoes

The Spoon River Anthology (Edgar Lee Masters)

Nellie Clark

I was only eight years old;
And before I grew up and knew what it meant
I had no words for it, except
That I was frightened and told my
Mother; And that my Father got a pistol
And would have killed Charlie, who was a big boy,
Fifteen years old, except for his Mother.
Nevertheless the story clung to me.
But the man who married me, a widower of thirty-five,
Was a newcomer and never heard it
’Till two years after we were married.
Then he considered himself cheated,
And the village agreed that I was not really a virgin.
Well, he deserted me, and I died
The following winter.


Ready to make Nellie Clark your own exclusive character?

Become A Member Today


Cinema Elysium Presents

The Gift of the Magi (1958)

Directed by: George Schaefer
Run Time: 25 minutes

READ THE SHORT STORY BY O. HENRY


Weekly Character Challenges

How It Works

The first three Saturdays of each month deliver weekly character rehearsal challenges straight to your inbox. Something dynamic, something experimental, something transformational.

Something to push the boundaries of truth in character.

The last Saturday of the month features a video rehearsal (also later available on-demand) where we … well, we go a little nuts. We set free our solo work in exciting, experimental ways - evolving, enhancing, and challenging our work.

March through July: EA’s Spoon River
August - November: Anton Chekhov’s Plays

Monthly Mainstage Rehearsal Project

How It Works

On the first Saturday of the month, our MainStage rehearsal project gets posted exclusively for members to play with all month long. Your posted material always receives feedback taking your creative work further.

Each project builds out an array of rehearsal tools, applying them to work you’ll remember forever. The stuff that makes acting worth investing in. Worth believing in.

The monthly projects are tailored to move at your pace - and are available anytime you’d like to revisit them. The work is timeless. Apply your discoveries to any new character, any new world that finds you in your training and professional life.

March through May: O. Henry
June through August: Oz
September through November: Stravinsky’s A Soldier’s Tale

It’s about your creative potential taking you where no one has gone before. Let’s roar.

Become A Member Today


Watch with a 7-day free trial

Subscribe to Acting Class Daily to watch this video and get 7 days of free access to the full post archives.

Acting Class Daily
Saturdays
Easy access to all our 2023 character challenges and mainstage projects.
Authors
Aaron Ganz