Work in Progress - Getting in and out of role

Presented by Julia Grieshofer

About

What does the aesthetic work of acting entail and is resilience a central factor in the actor’s ability to perform?

This webinar will be a psychological and psychoanalytic excursion into the performing arts. Attendees of this webinar will have the opportunity to explore mental health issues in actors and how these are correlating with actor’s resilience. This will be done by using the conceptual framework stemming from a literature review and narrative analysis of papers on mental health in actors combined with the first results from a PhD research project.

In regard to the literature review, I will address common struggles that actors do frequently face, such as power discrepancies, financial difficulties, mental health issues and constant uncertainty. While the research focuses on the exploration of correlations between resilience and other factors in the actors’ lives, such as mental health, physical health, reflective capacities, empathising and fantasising capacities etc.

The aim is to determine (a) whether resilience and other factors play a role in the aesthetic and creative work of the actor (e.g. role creation, getting into and out of role) and (b) whether resilience does influence the actor’s capacity to perform (e.g. what impact working within the profession has on the actor and whether predictors of longevity in the profession can be identified). I would be pleased to have you join me on this excursion into the performing arts to explore the craft of acting in more detail.