Returning to an Old Question: What Do Television Actors Do When They Act?

TY - JOUR

T1 - Returning to an Old Question

T2 - What Do Television Actors Do When They Act?

AU - Cantrell, Thomas Edward

AU - Hogg, Christopher

N1 - © The Author(s) 2016. This is an author-produced version of the published paper. Uploaded in accordance with the publisher’s self-archiving policy. Further copying may not be permitted; contact the publisher for details.

PY - 2016/11/1

Y1 - 2016/11/1

N2 - This article argues for acknowledging and exploring actors’ processes in critical considerations of television drama. Theatre Studies boasts a tradition of research privileging the actor, including a century’s worth of actor-training manuals, academic works observing rehearsals and performances, and actor accounts. However, such considerations within Television Studies are relatively nascent. Drawing upon continuing drama as a fertile case study for investigating the specificities of television acting, the article concludes that the only way to understand television acting is through the analysis of insights from actors themselves, in combination with the well-established practices of analysing the textual end-products of television acting.

AB - This article argues for acknowledging and exploring actors’ processes in critical considerations of television drama. Theatre Studies boasts a tradition of research privileging the actor, including a century’s worth of actor-training manuals, academic works observing rehearsals and performances, and actor accounts. However, such considerations within Television Studies are relatively nascent. Drawing upon continuing drama as a fertile case study for investigating the specificities of television acting, the article concludes that the only way to understand television acting is through the analysis of insights from actors themselves, in combination with the well-established practices of analysing the textual end-products of television acting.

KW - Actor training

KW - Continuing drama

KW - Soap opera

KW - Television acting

KW - Television performance

UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/record.url?scp=85028069141&partnerID=8YFLogxK

U2 - 10.1177/1749602016662430

DO - 10.1177/1749602016662430

M3 - Article

SN - 1749-6020

VL - 11

SP - 283

EP - 298

JO - Critical Studies in Television

JF - Critical Studies in Television

IS - 3

M1 - 1

ER -