The Four Keys: A Simple Guide to Authentic Acting - Paperback

by E. Katherine Kerr (Author)

This book organizes authentic acting into four basic keys: Commit, Be Present, Relax, and Communicate. While they are simple and organic to brilliant acting, they are not easily achieved. This small book delineates them, explains them, and gives vital tips on how to achieve them. As an acting technique and teaching tool, they are unique. E. Katherine Kerr, an award-winning actress, brought 30 years of experience on the stage, film, and television to a creation of classes and workshops unlike anything known before. The book is as personal, humorous, and full of compassion as Kerr is. Mike Nichols called her "...a brilliant actress. It is not surprising that her method of teaching acting is as alive and plugged into human behavior as are her portrayals of characters you would swear have just been brought into the room from their real lives. It is very rare to find a great teacher of acting who both has the gift and the craft to be able to pass it on."

Author Biography

E. Katherine Kerr won an Obie, a Villager Award, and a Drama Desk nomination in New York City for her portrayal of three characters in CLOUD 9 Off B'way. She was nominated again for a Drama Desk award for playing all the women in Christopher Durang's LAUGHING WILD. Also at Playwrights Horizons she played two characters in David Greenspan's SHE STOOPS TO COMEDY, and in a rare single role, appeared as Tess in Keith Bunin's THE CREDEAUX CANVAS. Perhaps the greatest number of roles she played in one play were the 14 characters in Jane Wagner's SIGNS OF INTELLIGENT LIFE IN THE UNIVERSE at the Hanger Theatre in Ithaca, NY. No stranger to multiple roles in life as well as on stage, Kerr is not only an actress, director, and author; she is an acting teacher and seminar leader. She has taught at Sarah Lawrence, Yale, NYU Tisch School of the Arts, Playwright's Horizons Theatre School, and at the International Centre at the Herstmonceux Castle in England. Expanding on the four principles Kerr developed for teaching acting, she created a two day seminar entitled THE CREATIVE EXPLOSION. This powerful workshop applies these same principles she teaches in acting for self-empowerment. The workshop has been ongoing four or five times a year in Connecticut for the last 30 years. It is the basis for her book THE FOUR PRINCIPLES: APPLYING THE FOUR KEYS OF AUTHENTIC ACTING TO LIFE. As a writer, Kerr's play, JUNO'S SWANS, a comedy about sisters, was produced at Second Stage in New York City. Combining writing with directing, Kerr staged a workshop of her play INTELLIGENT DEZYNE: A DIVINE COMEDY at the Fairfield Theater Company in 2007. She wrote and starred in her comedy, THE EDGE OF CHAOS presented at the Playhouse on the Green in Bridgeport, Connecticut. Her one-woman show, ON THE ZIP LINE was performed at the Harold Clurman Theatre in New York City and in Kingston, Canada at Queen's College. As an actress, Kerr's film roles include Harriet Tollman in SONGCATCHER, the Attorney General in THE SIEGE, Congresswoman Grace Comisky in SUSPECT, Gilda Schultz in SILKWOOD, Mary Lee Ochs in CHILDREN OF A LESSER GOD, Irene Furman in POWER, and Lucille Haxby in REUBED, REUBED, among others. She has appeared many times on LAW AND ORDER and in recurring roles on GUIDING LIGHT, ONE LIFE TO LIVE, and ALL MY CHILDREN. On Broadway, her leading roles include Dee Jacobson, in NO PLACE TO BE SOMEBODY, Blanche Cooke in NIGHT WATCH, and Nell, opposite Frank Langella in PASSION.