Jason Pugatch recently visited ECLA as a guest faculty member. For two weeks he co-taught David Levine’s Performance class, introducing students to the acting techniques of Constantin Stanislavsky. After a general warm-up based on the Stanislavsky Acting System and a discussion on what good acting entails, the class worked with Chekhov’s Three Sisters to explore notions of Given Circumstance, Action, Character, and script analysis. Etudes–small improvisations in which the students placed themselves as characters in the play independent of the text–were performed, and in the final class, students presented scenes from the play.
Pugatch also gave three additional acting workshops, one based in David Mamet’s Practical Aesthetics, and two others in the Stanislavsky system, including explorations of imagination, observation, physical awareness, spatial awareness, stage pictures, and kinesthetic response.
Pugatch received his Master of Fine Arts degree from the Moscow Art Theater/American Repertory Theater Conservatory. He acts professionally in New York, and is the author of a forthcoming book on acting and the acting industry.