I Don't Need an Acting Class

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When Milton recently asked Gustavo Dudamel, the conductor of the Los Angeles Philharmonic, what he saw when he looked at a piece of orchestral music, he said: “I see phrases.” This is a perfect metaphor for how we need to approach text as actors: not as a group of sentences but as a sequence of thoughts. As they do in life, the words need to come out of the thought, not the other way around.

In the Summer of 1980 during the run of a regional production of Boys in the Band, Milton wrote a letter to Stella Adler asking for her guidance. She responded: “The actor in you is beginning to feel the birth pangs in acquiring the role and that is very normal. The work you do at home is done, and is in you…Let it go where it wants. That’s the impressive joy of just letting it happen instead of forcing it.” Milton’s book “I Don’t Need an Acting Class”, on which this podcast is based, was born out of the many correspondences he has shared with his current and former students over the past decade. Although email has long since replaced letter writing, the spirit of getting to the bottom of an acting concept, or clarifying an idea that has someone stuck or confused, is the same. This episode sheds light on why that has been helpful to his students as well as to Milton as a teacher.

Whether you’re auditioning for a pilot or in rehearsal for a Clifford Odets play, our jobs as actors is to launch, imaginatively, into the world of the piece, and open ourselves to its influence. But how do we build this world? By talking out one believable moment at a time and knowing we have to earn what we create. Have a question or comment? Email us at: [email protected]

As actors, most of us have had the experience of closely identifying with a character we’re playing. In this episode, Milton talks about the mistake so many of us make when we feel like we relate to a role. “The problem is,” he says, “somehow in the back of our minds we think that’s enough, that we don’t have to do any other work.” Tune in to find out how to avoid this common pitfall, and how we can turn our identification with a character into something actable. Have a question or comment? Email us at [email protected]

How did we end up studying acting in the first place? In this episode, Milton puts his teaching in context by giving us a brief history of modern acting technique; from 19th-century realism to Konstantin Stanislavky and the American teachers who adapted his principals and revolutionized the American acting landscape.

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In this episode, Milton talks about how writing and thinking are great ways for actors to avoid acting, and offers a practical technique that allows us to fully own (and earn) our character’s reality, or in other words: make a complete lie sound like the truth. Email your questions to: [email protected]

*We'll be starting in-person classes on September 15th, 2025 at The Actor Lab in NYC. Register at: theactorlab.nyc

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Contrary to popular belief, just because you can answer “who, what, why, where, when” and “what do I want?” doesn’t mean you can act. Stella Adler said: “Facts are death to the actor until they’re fed through the imagination and become the *experience* of the facts.” Tune into this episode to learn how you can allow the facts of a play to simmer within you and bring you to life.

*We'll be starting in-person classes on September 15th, 2025 at The Actor Lab in NYC. Register at: theactorlab.nyc

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In this episode, Milton reveals what he feels to be The Biggest Sin of Acting and offers solutions on how we can resist the urge to commit it. What is one of those solutions? Look at the blank canvas and think: “so many possibilities.” Email your acting questions to: [email protected]

*We'll be starting in-person classes on September 15th, 2025 at The Actor Lab in NYC. Register at: theactorlab.nyc

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⁠⁠⁠https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/actingclass/subscribe⁠⁠⁠

Have you ever worried that studying and honing a technique as an actor will destroy your natural ability? Is acting just about being "natural"? In this first episode of I Don't Need an Acting Class, Milton answers the question: "why take an acting class?"

We'll be starting in-person classes on September 15th, 2025 at The Actor Lab in NYC. Register at: theactorlab.nyc