What do you do with those crazy Action sides? Procedurals that seem really dense? Fantasy and sci-fi that make no sense? Comedy that may not read as funny… at all?

We get it - and we have the solution to making sense of ALL the Genre challenges. Including – ACTION, INDIES, PROCEDURALS, FANTASY/SCI-FI, STYLIZED/HISTORICAL DRAMA, and COMEDY.

We’ve created this 5 week intensive to help you dive into any Genre, to mine every scene so that you can make bold, definitive choices, to fully embody- and define- the material in order to audition in real-time from a grounded, authentic place, and to make undeniable, on-fire self-tapes that book you work. This is a new exciting workshop, led by BGB Master Teacher Sydney Walsh, giving you the tools, the structure, and the leadership to take command of any piece of material.

For 5 weeks, Sydney will take you through a series of Genres in order to find the clues to understanding what’s on the page, what’s NOT on the page, what you can do to bring yourself to the material with specificity and aliveness, AND what all the TRAPS are! Sydney will help you find your your way in, find the humanity of each Genre (which ALWAYS elevates the material and personalizes the work), get really pointy in terms of the story, relationships, circumstances, characters, and the world, and actually make it fun! And it can be fun! With this kind of practice and ownership, you will have the tools to tackle ANY Genre and make it clear, make it yours, and grab the attention of anyone watching!

We all have challenges when it comes to finding our way into the material, and we’re excited to show you how to dig deeper into every scene… to ask compelling questions, to sleuth the script for information, to go beyond what’s on the page, to rely on your instincts and imagination, and to bring it all together into actual “choices.” It’s incredibly exciting to weave together your rich emotional life, impulses, and imagination with a powerful investigation of the mysteries of any Genre, and then to organically allow it all to live inside you with trust… so that you can show up in the world of the story in real-time, fully dropped into the moment, all cylinders firing.

It’s ALL so doable and we’re excited to show you how!

A note from Syd:‍

"So Genres. There’s Action- Mission Impossible, Reacher, Liam Neeson movies anybody, there’s Cable/Indy Drama- Succession, The Queen’s Gambit- so good, The (amazing) Sopranos, there’s Network Drama and Procedurals- from This is Us to CSI, there’s Westerns-from John Ford to Star Wars to Yellowstone, there’s Fantasy/Sci-Fi- Devs, ex Machina, Star Trek, there’s Historical Drama like Downton Abbey or the amazing Bridgerton and there’s all kinds of Comedy- Sit-com, Rom-com, Bromance, Noel Coward, etc… Comedy is the one that really scares me because in my head it feels like a lot of pressure, like there’s a bunch of judgey, mean comedy folks, staring at me with angry faces, just waiting for me to make them laugh. But of course that is all in my head.‍

‍Half of the work of Genres, of any Genre, or of any of our work as actors, is understanding and internalizing “the world” of the piece, joining the consciousness of that world and that story. And, good for us, as artists, we are predisposed to loving stories and storytelling. We love to explore what is literally happening in our given circumstances, we were made to create and to have a big fat POV about our lot in life, and then to get active, to get into action about it, to live inside of a story, inside of a place, and to get in and on with the fight, the fighting through the wall for our objective, the fighting for our lives… and we know in the end, no matter what world we are in, no matter the Genre, we are always making everything about our partners, our partners in crime, our partners in love, our partners in the wild wild west, our partners on the space station to Mars… it is all about our relationships, about how and why and where we connect and it is always the day we can’t take it anymore and the time is now… whether its 2045 or 1745.‍

‍And the other half of working on Genres is showing up… showing up, no matter what. Because the great work, the sublime and effortless work we love, comes from showing up every day, to the script, whatever that script is, and to whatever Genre is contained in that bunch of paper. It is all in the showing up. The showing up to the not knowing, and to the finding out. The showing up to jump off the cliff and into the world and into the arms of your partner or partners. 

The great work, of any material, of any Genre, is always with you."