In the Owning the Stage series, our aim is to bring you tips, tricks, and techniques that will help you to increase your confidence, power, and presence when performing. The very best tips, however, are the ones that can be applied not only to theatre performances or presentations, but to life in general. After all, when Shakespeare wrote the famous line "All the world's a stage," various versions of the phrase, all with the same meaning and connotations, had already seen wide use. We are all actors, presenting a different face or aspect of ourselves to different people, and are often put into positions where we need to perform for fun, profit, or necessity. We strive to put forth the best face that we can, and there has been many a self-help book written to help us do just that.
All we really need, though, is a few acting lessons and the willingness to broaden our scope of vision, applying the transferable skills we learn there to increase our confidence, ability to articulate, and overall performance in life, the theatre, and everything. In this particular instalment of Owning the Stage, we address how to keep your audience listening, especially in the face of lengthy monologues and speeches -- such as the one you just read...
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