For more information & bookings : Understand the Method workshop this weekend.
Text & images by Kerrie Pacholli
I am not an actor, professional or otherwise nor aspire to become one. None-the-less tonight I found myself attending the first night of Peter Kalos’s weekend long acting workshop Understand the Method at the Alex Theatre.
I first met Peter Kalos a few short months ago while working with colleagues who set up shop within the Alex Theatre arts hub. I was instantly refreshed by Peter’s presence and his desire for honest connection and to cut to the chase. This I like. Among my endeavours, I create media content and as he had not long moved his acting school Actor’s Lab and theatre company Lab Theatre into the Alex, this is exactly what he wanted. We immediately had a common thread.
A couple of days later he seized the opportunity and invited me into one of his method acting classes being held in Theatre One, the biggest theatre. There were about 30 of his students draped around the theatre in various configurations. Peter was feverishly pacing up and down the aisle continuously guiding his devoted congregation. They had their eyes shut and appeared to be in their own zones. They were to enact his seemingly random and often contrary suggested scenarios. He quickly ran up the aisle to where myself and a colleague were observing and eyeballing me, a few inches from my face, said ‘watch this’. With a particularly emotive suggestion the sound of authentic and hysterical wailing women and men started filling the room. He turned to us and winked. I felt the goose bumps and immediately saw the potential of a reality show on the drawing board. I thought this guy is an ultimate trip master.
Some say the mark of a true creative is to have the ability to inspire others. Peter is a true creative.
“All the world’s a stage and all the men and women merely players.” Act-II, Scene-VII of the play As You Like It by William Shakespeare. Never truer words.
So tonight we had a similar scenario going on but in a different studio setting with the same dedication and iron clad resolve from the 20 plus students. Eyes shut, in the zone. I started doing what I do, which is welding the camera, spying on others doing what they do. I’m watching these individuals being guided to other dimensions. All the time Peter was fuelling this collective flight with his seemingly irresistible words. The allure got the better of me and I put the camera down and joined the multiverse. We were even guided to the moon at one point.
What is fuelling this incredible communion? I am not entirely sure but tonight Peter shared some very interesting stories about his personal experiences with the likes of Leonardo DiCaprio whilst working as a cameraman during the auditions for Gilbert Grape in LA, and what he witnessed on the set between Robert de Niro and Sharon Stone during the filming of Casino. Gripping and tantalising stories which are seemingly never ending.
Peter Kalos knows his business, every which way and is gifted with an insatiable ability to share it with his students. All are welcome to come along to experience the extraordinary world of Method Acting.
