Acting
Acting is an activity in which a story is told by means of its enactment by an actor or actress who adopts a character—in theatre, television, film, radio, or any other medium that makes use of the mimetic mode.

Acting involves a broad range of skills, including a well-developed imagination, emotional facility, physical expressivity, vocal projection, clarity of speech, and the ability to interpret drama. Acting also demands an ability to employ dialects, accents, improvisation, observation and emulation, mime, and stage combat.
Many actors train at length in specialist programs or colleges to develop these skills. The vast majority of professional actors have undergone extensive training. Actors and actresses will often have many instructors and teachers for a full range of training involving singing, scene-work, audition techniques, and acting for camera.

Most early sources in the West that examine the art of acting (Greek: ὑπόκρισις, hypokrisis) discuss it as part of rhetoric.

History

One of the first known actors was an ancient Greek called Thespis of Icaria in Athens. Writing two centuries after the event, Aristotle in his Poetics (c. 335 BCE) suggests that Thespis stepped out of the dithyrambic chorus and addressed it as a separate character. Before Thespis, the chorus narrated (for example, "Dionysus did this, Dionysus said that"). When Thespis stepped out from the chorus, he spoke as if he were the character (for example, "I am Dionysus, I did this"). To distinguish between these different modes of storytelling—enactment and narration

—Aristotle uses the terms "mimesis" (via enactment) and "diegesis" (via narration). From Thespis' name derives the word "thespian".

Training

Conservatories and drama schools typically offer two- to four-year training on all aspects of acting. Universities mostly offer three- to four-year programs, in which a student is often able to choose to focus on acting, whilst continuing to learn about other aspects of theatre. Schools vary in their approach, but in North America the most popular method taught derives from the 'system' of Konstantin Stanislavski, which was developed and popularised in America as method acting by Lee Strasberg, Stella Adler, Sanford Meisner, and others.

Other approaches may include a more physically based orientation, such as that promoted by theatre practitioners as diverse as Anne Bogart, Jacques Lecoq, Jerzy Grotowski, or Vsevolod Meyerhold. Classes may also include psychotechnique, mask work, physical theatre, improvisation, and acting for camera.

Regardless of a school's approach, students should expect intensive training in textual interpretation, voice, and movement. Applications to drama programmes and conservatories usually involve extensive auditions. Anybody over the age of 18 can usually apply. Training may also start at a very young age. Acting classes and professional schools targeted at under-18s are widespread. These classes introduce young actors to different aspects of acting and theatre, including scene study.

Increased training and exposure to public speaking allows humans to maintain calmer and more relaxed physiologically. By measuring a public speaker's heart rate maybe one of the easiest ways to judge shifts in stress as the heart rate increases with anxiety . As actors increase performances, heart rate and other evidence of stress can decrease. This is very important in training for actors, as adaptive strategies gained from increased exposure to public speaking can regulate implicit and explicit anxiety. By attending an institution with a specialization in acting, increased opportunity to act will lead to more relaxed physiology and decrease in stress and its effects on the body.
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