Actions: The Actor's Thesaurus Book

A vital companion for actors in rehearsal - a thesaurus of action-words to revitalise performance Actors need actions. They cannot 'act' adjectives they need verbs: they need an aim to achieve an action to perform. 'Actions' are active verbs. 'I tempt you.' 'You taunt me.' In order to perform an action truthfully and therefore convincingly an actor needs to find exactly the right action to suit that particular situation and that particular line. That is where this book comes in...It is a thesaurus of active verbs with which the actor can refine the action-word until s/he hits exactly the right one to help make the action come alive. It looks like this: taunt insult tease torment provoke ridicule mock poke needle tempt influence attract entice cajole coax seduce lure fascinate It is well known in the acting community that random lists of action-words circulate rehearsal rooms in dog-eared photocopies - as a sort of actor's crib. This book makes them available for the first time in an organised and comprehensive form.

Marina Caldarone, Maggie Lloyd-Williams, Terry Johnson (Foreword)