The expertise of an actor: Script reading, performance planning, and actual performance

In this study, we examined the expertise of actors, for which few studies have so far been conducted. Participants for the study, all male, were ten novice actors with less than one year experience, ten intermediate actors with experience of one to five years, and ten junior expert actors with more than five years of acting. The process of acting in a play was divided into three phases; script reading, performance planning, and actual performance. We asked some questions of participants in each phases, and analyzed video recording of their actual performance. Results suggested that novice actors had some difficulties in understanding the ‘written’ in the script. It was also suggested that in planning performance, the longer experience the actor had, the more things he could take into account, and the longer he spent for the preparation. Therefore, performance of junior expert actors was more diversified. Our findings also indicated that junior expert actors were more adept at expressing what they wanted to without being consciously aware of what they had actually to do.