Grok Acting Studio

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Grok Acting Studio In person & Online Classes
Acting Technique
Scene Study
Dramatic Improv
Audition Technique
Directors Sessions

06/02/2024

Grok Acting Studio is forever grateful for the time with revered and respected teacher Alan Langdon who profoundly contributed and shared his gifts with young and eager artists. Alan was a unique and one of a kind individual. He was always understanding, gentle, and gracious with his students. He never coerced, forced, or demanded the artist do anything other than commit their all. He could often confuse inquisitive actors in response to their seeking answers with, “I don’t know.” He encouraged the actor to find their own answer, their own truth in which one would have to go inwards and not arms outstretched to be fed what may be true for someone else but not necessarily true for one’s self. The actor learned to work for themselves.

Alan left his mark at Circle in the Square Theater in New York, dedicating himself fully to his students and to the theater; he was the embodiment of theater really. He navigated and was versed in all attributes of the art but was never forward or boastful, but instead: gentle, humble and giving. Alan was an admirer of Stanislavsky and studied with Russian American actress and teacher Mira Rostova.

Alan flew to Los Angeles in 2018 and 2019 to conduct a 4 day workshop.

In her autobiography, Viola Davis said of her acting teachers and training, “Alan Langdon to have been the best of them all.”

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How do we reconnect with our talent and our art when we feel so disrupted by conditions out of our control?The pandemic ...
02/05/2024

How do we reconnect with our talent and our art when we feel so disrupted by conditions out of our control?
The pandemic created separation from one another, from our own routine, ambitions, momentum. Shortly thereafter, SAG endured a long strike, and returning to normal has been an uphill battle for many.

harbors resentments, frustrations, anxieties, or feeling trapped while we internally plead for some sort of luck to occur to align our intentions. Maybe some of you chant, pray, meditate, or simply sit in traffic and hope.

It demands sheer commitment to take these emotional toxins and allow them to be the lifeline to your talent rather than a death sentence of our art. We might feel trapped, stuck, lost in the abyss of not knowing how to move forward. But if we know how to go inwards, to be brave and courageous to admit our fears, rejections, resentments, then we thereby free ourselves which gives way to all of the freedom, beauty, talent, intelligence, and all of the natural gifts you own to light your way.

In class, we have hundreds of exercises for this very reason where the actor works individually on their own unique instrument so that they are always using their talent instead of denying or silencing it. We are often under a significant misunderstanding: that our low energy, lack of care, enthusiasm, or the passion that seems to have been evicted from our souls is a permanent situation. Whereas in reality, it is the very emotions mentioned above that are holding the passion and talent hostage, but only temporarily.

Our subconscious actually believes it is protecting us by tiring us, subduing our mood and energy so that we cannot confront these emotional enemies; or emotional antigens as if they were a disease infiltrating our emotional immune system. But if we actually do feel these emotions their full capacity, we exorcise and cast them out until they arrive again from the next crisis, the next person who goes off the grid, the next person who did not text you back, the job that is sometimes intolerable, or in any range of conditions that will offset our emotional equilibrium.

Scream into a pillow, throw a tantrum on the floor, journal your deepest fears and regrets or whatever is on your mind to the fullest extent. In class we have the stage to provide opportunities for actors to release these demons, and what manifests out of this is a class of students witnessing the talent that each artists uniquely possesses.

There is no way around life, there is no way around confronting where we are in reality, because it is reality. Or we can continue to sift through the abyss clinging to hope but without action. Relying only on the forces of nature may take a very long time for some sort of goodwill-catalyst to strike lightning to shake someone out of artistic starvation. But others are being starved then of your talents and a precious part of you within is begging you to share this talent with others; for it is the foundation of human connection.

It is very necessary but all too uncommon that actors do not get to work on themselves enough in classes, the instrument. This is why Stanislavsky’s first book was called An Actor’s work on himself/herself, later translated to An Actor Prepares.

It is crucial to always have a safe and supportive venue to always be you, but also continue to enhance what it means to be you with the encouragement, support, and growth that occurs on stage and on set. We must continue to be heard, but not only to be heard by others but to hear ourselves so that the artist within never falls on deaf ears. Even expressing your thoughts, feelings, views, in a group such as this can be so conducive because it allows us to share and express and thereby building the habit of speaking up, being seen, revealing, being courageous to stand behind our thoughts or to even have them challenged. The common theme is vulnerability, it is from here we truly allow ourselves to be seen. So much of this art is how allowing will you be to allow yourself to be seen?

10/06/2023

Delve into the depths of the subconscious mind, where the art of acting becomes a journey of truth and inspiration. Jake Gyllenhall reminds us of the value held within. 🎭✨

I wanted to share with you some great words often echoed in our sessions, a quote by the great director Elia Kazan. Also...
09/12/2023

I wanted to share with you some great words often echoed in our sessions, a quote by the great director Elia Kazan. Also, with the current state of the industry with SAGAFTRA and WGA still on strike, perhaps these words need to be echoed in the current times more than ever; that artists must fight for their art NOW and allow their voices to be heard.

It is once we become too accustomed to inaction, saying or doing nothing, of not speaking up that we then go silent on the inside as well. So, we have to ask ourselves how we are speaking up, for ourselves, for art, for others. And if the answer is if not, we must ask, why not?

This is why it is crucial to always have a safe and supportive venue to always be you, but also continue to enhance what it means to be you with the encouragement, support, and growth that occurs on stage and on set. We must continue to be heard, but not only to be heard by others, but to hear ourselves so that the artist within does not ever fall on deaf ears.

We hope that all artists who wish to honor their gifts join us for our October sessions soon. Please ALWAYS feel welcome to reach out with any questions to the studio [email protected]

The Actor’s Vow
By Elia Kazan

So much of this art, of life, of relationships with others is born in the forging of connection; and then maintaining th...
08/31/2023

So much of this art, of life, of relationships with others is born in the forging of connection; and then maintaining this connection.
It’s becoming more and more routine to be disconnected: Work remotely. Text instead of call. Watch a device instead of interact and make eye contact.

And because we are disconnected we often overlook where all this disconnection comes from. Though this technology may be new, disconnection is not, nor are distractions which distract us because they are a means for us to disconnect from that which could… connect us.

If we cannot connect to ourselves then how can we connect to our art or with others in our lives? Stanislavsky called this connection communion, and its being threatened now more than ever.

But if we don’t even want to connect with ourselves because the process and journey of connecting means traversing through the experience of undesired feelings or the stack of bills we haven’t looked at, the email clutter, the things that need to be dealt with or the things that have gone unsaid that finally need to be said, then we’ll constantly run from connection.

We’ll even avoid others connecting with us for fear we are not in any condition to be connected with, and so we avoid eye contact, mumble, evade, or look at our feet when on stage. But our true potential lies in unearthing the lies we continue to tell ourselves.

Because it is from this place that we confront reality and therefore can respond to reality; rather than dance around the ideas and lies we tell ourselves to evade reality so that we never have to do anything about it, other than despair in disconnection.
Connection demands energy, effort, the willingness to move from the space we are in and into the space being asked of us by the character, by the bill collector, by your partner. But once we are connected we can then deal truthfully to what needs to be dealt with and we move forward, expand, connect. It’s so much easier to retreat and abandon what’s on the other side of connection and all of the discomfort that exists in the space between.

If you think about it, many modern western doctors are prescribing disconnection in the form of pills, medicines. It’s becoming the way we function. And this is the death of connection and the death of art. Artificial Intelligence now wants the most human parts of you. Not your ability to crunch numbers or type words quickly, but to commandeer your emotional life, to steal our connection and therefore steal us away from one another. If audiences know that AI is the new art that reflects life then eventually life will then reflect this art, perpetuating disconnection and encouraging an emotional dystopia.
So the only way to maintain connection is to fight, fight within where connection lives. We often fight discomfort.
When you feel discomfort you are fighting the creative process, that’s okay.

If you felt completely comfortable in the crying or anger then what would be the point of the crying or being angry?
Allow the creative process to take over. Resistance is fighting the creative process but it is also a part of the creative process I believe.

The less effort to be truthful, the better. The more consistent you are at being in your truth then the less effort that will be required to make contact with your truth. As actors we may be doing our own scene, but our scene partner is also doing their own scene, two separate realities that never quite grasp the other hand that are two truths reaching out to be confronted.

From truth, reality, we connect. And sometimes our truths are so strong, so relatable, we force others out of their disconnection and invite them into a divine room of their truth, our truth, the conjoined truths, where connection is born.

Why do any of us become separated from our emotions, as actors or as people in life? We must not avoid or deny these que...
05/19/2023

Why do any of us become separated from our emotions, as actors or as people in life? We must not avoid or deny these questions because they hold the key to why we are the way we are and if we are to grow then we must be brave enough to understand ourselves and others. We insulate ourselves from our emotions once they begin to become routinely painful or overwhelming to deal with. If a person was raised in a way that they experienced an abundance of painful or hurtful emotions it is understandable that they could as a result distance themselves from their emotions, or worse, set fire to the bridge and ensure never returning to certain unwanted feelings. 
CONTINUED IN COMMENTS 👇🎭

We cannot lie professionally until we’ve learned to tell the truth. We are all liars. We lie when we put on a more upbea...
05/02/2023

We cannot lie professionally until we’ve learned to tell the truth. We are all liars. We lie when we put on a more upbeat tone of voice when someone calls and the truth is we aren’t feeling well, when we go to the market and the cashier says how is your day and we say, “Oh really great thanks” and we are incredibly stressed or anxious so we say what will get us out of there quickly. People lie with their body when they suddenly shift their posture in the crosswalk or how they exude themselves when walking by someone they find attractive. We are always disguising, hiding, concealing. As actors we must reveal why we hide, and then through the character lie all over again.

As actors, we have to relearn how to tell the truth and then we can lie through the character, as we do in life. When the actor learns to tell the truth they can then lie to manipulate, hide or conceal that truth. Otherwise there is no reason to lie if there is nothing to cover up to begin with.

When you come to class, yes, you are learning to encourage and embrace emotion and truth of what you feel. But as you grow, and this can take years, you have to then learn to hide those truths through the character, as we do in life. Yes, we have to reveal, but not by showing but by lying. The actor cannot just come into class a liar and remain that way. They have to learn to reveal all over again, before we learned to cover up earlier on in life.
Continued in comment 👇🎭

2020. All theaters and businesses completely closed. Many theaters never returned. We would not return to in person agai...
02/01/2023

2020. All theaters and businesses completely closed. Many theaters never returned. We would not return to in person again for over two years. One word that comes to me was one of the pinnacles of Stanislavski’s work, Communion. Ironically, we often aren’t communing when we are together let alone social distancing through computer screens. This deprivation of connection has been the catalyst for many previous actors wandering back to the stage, wondering, would the stage welcome them back? Always. Commune 🎭

If our stresses, fears, worries and concerns are contained within our tension, it is natural that when we begin to free ...
12/23/2022

If our stresses, fears, worries and concerns are contained within our tension, it is natural that when we begin to free ourselves of this tension that we will also free these same fears, insecurities, worries and issues that are contained within that tension. So it is natural that the actor, or really any person who practices relaxation will begin to feel the discomfort that accompanies these tensions once they begin to relax.

As we become physically more relaxed, we can become emotionally uncomfortable. Often, actors prefer to feel physical discomfort rather than emotional discomfort actually, which is also mostly true of life. Most people do not have a routine throughout their day to relax and deal with their inner life. But more and more people are practicing yoga and meditation, techniques that have been around for hundreds of years. Do not shy away from the discomfort but instead work with and deal with it. Some of the most successful entrepreneurs, athletes, and performers incorporate these practices into their daily lives so why shouldn’t you?

There is so much responsibility in being present. When we are present, we feel the weight and responsibility of all the ...
11/09/2022

There is so much responsibility in being present. When we are present, we feel the weight and responsibility of all the many afflictions that pull us out of being in the moment; the weight is too great to bear, if it’s too emotionally hot in the kitchen we mentally check out. So when we get to that space of presence, living in our truth can feel like a great burden. So we have to practice creating space within that feeling, within feeling confined by everything that is responsible for pulling us out of that space every day. I guess the question is, how long can we stay in the kitchen when it gets too hot? How do we create space within the discomfort?

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West Hollywood, CA
90038

Opening Hours

Tuesday 6:30pm - 11pm
Wednesday 7pm - 10pm
Thursday 9am - 5pm

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+18185799910

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