This is sort of cheating, because it isn’t actually a new post, to speak of.  Well, I may have a new post on the subject later this week, once I’ve had a chance to mull things over a bit.  But this post is mostly just a detour sign.

I happened to check the blog’s stats this morning, to see which posts have been visited the most.  And the two posts on Acting Beats are right up there.  Not a surprise.  I know a lot of actors either don’t really know what the term means, although they’ve heard it used, because I have actors who aren’t new to acting ask me what it means.  But even if you at least sort of understand the meaning of “Beat” in the context of acting, I think a lot of people are confused as to why we even care where a beat starts and ends, or what it covers.  And so beats become an English Lit discussion more than being a practical tool that you can use to improve your performance.

So I’ve tried, in some small way, to cover this issue in the various posts on both beats and verbs.  And my verb posts have gotten a bit of attention, too, but since actors don’t throw around the word “verb” quite as much as they do the word “beat” (although perhaps they should), I’m not sure that everyone realizes the two are connected.  And so people who want to read about Acting Beats find Parts I and II, but don’t necessarily find what is really Part III:  my post on “Why Playing Verbs is (Ultimately) Easier than Acting Emotions.”

So if you haven’t read that post yet — which assigns verbs to the example used in Part II, and has a few other things to say about the matter as well — you can read it by clicking here.