Become an Actor

With Studios in Mumbai and New Delhi, BARRY JOHN ACTING STUDIO is India’s most sought-after destination for professional acting training. The courses are rigorous and intensive, demanding a high degree of commitment, energy and perseverance.

Devoid of academic theory and jargon, Barry John’s system is a progressive series of exercises and projects that are practical and experiential. The courses are carefully designed to equip students with a mature level of physical, mental and emotional skills to meet the demands of professional engagements with film, television and theatre.

‘It’s about picking up on the energy and uninhibitedness of childhood play, deconstructing the negative aspects of school and social conditioning, and knowing who you really are.’

Barry John

Diploma in Film Acting

A 16-week, full-time program:Monday to Friday,9.00 am to 5.00 pm

The BJAS Diploma in Film Acting Course is the most intense and comprehensive training for beginning actors in the country, facilitated by its most respected teacher. It covers all aspects of the actor’s craft through practical exercises and performance projects, culminating in film acting modules and student film-making assignments.

Our signature Diploma Course is the 16- and 24-week Diploma in Film Acting Course which includes a wide range of advanced acting exercises, scene work and acting for the camera projects and filmmaking assignments. This BJAS DFA Course is India’s gold standard for acting courses.

Beyond the wide range of physical and vocal exercises that enhance flexibility and control, the major projects in the course are:

• Childhood Memories as material for the devising of children’s plays.

• Dance Drama: telling a story without words.

• The Primitive Ritual: exploring the roots of drama using gibberish.

• Masks and mime

• Street Play: devising and performing a play on a contemporary socio-political issue in ‘nukkad natak’ form.

• The Status Exercise: performance of a script that distinguishes social status and animal status.

• Script Reading and Scene Work: the analysis of text and the graphing of the characters.

• Film Acting: a 7-week module which includes basic film theory and hands-on camera work. Students are involved in three filmed projects and a number of advanced film acting exercises before producing their own short films. Project work involves screenwriting, storyboarding and directing. Students work as a production company with defined responsibilities for ensuring their film’s successful completion. This demanding work prepares the student for the real world of film and television acting.

“It’s not just a matter of giving tips or polishing. It’s about turning actors inside-out so that even they are shocked by what they can perform. The worst thing actors can be is boring and predictable.”

The Certificate in Acting course is a three-month, part-time weekend program offering basic training in key aspects of the actor’s craft. It is useful for beginning actors and for those who are working.

The Certificate course is carefully designed to equip students with a mature level of physical, vocal, mental and emotional skills which lay a firm foundation for work in film, television and theatre, using a wide range of physical and vocal exercises that enhance flexibility and control.

Course projects are documented on video, and each student receives a digital show reel at the end of the course.

‘Even if you discover that you are not the world’s greatest actor, you will not have wasted your time, for you will have grown, developed, expanded your mind and thoroughly enjoyed yourself. It’s magical!’

Certificate in Acting

In BJAS Young Actors Club and TIE programs we use drama for the healthy development of the child.Through energetic drama activities and theatre games, opportunities are created for children to be themselves, to perform and to play. Children are connected naturally to the process through involvement with the characters they create and play. Children expand their mental ability by analysing problems, then seek their own individual solutions.

The carefully planned sequence of drama games, role-plays and activities focuses on key areas including Breathing & Voicing, Imagination & Creativity, Movement, Performance Skills, Mime, Language Development and Script-writing. Ice-Breaking and Trust exercises improve the students’ ability to cooperate on creative projects.

The Young Actors Club is for ages 8 to 16. Sessions are on weekend afternoons at schools, clubs or community centres. Every Summer the YAC offers workshops at venues throughout Delhi NCR.

The in-school Theatre-in-Education program places a drama instructor in the school and are tailored for each school’s needs.

Young Actors Club& Theatre-in-Education

The corporate business world has realised that the training of actors and directors bears considerable resemblance to its own objectives in management and staff training. Key issues such as effective leadership, team building communication skills, creativity and personal growth are common to both, but the theatre world has developed ways and means that are more effective and more enjoyable.

BJAS offers its expertise in customised workshops and projects to address the needs of companies in these key human resource areas. The workshops may be of a few hours’ duration, a few days or a few weeks, according to the company’s convenience. Long-term projects may extend over several months and culminate in a full-scale theatrical performance suitable for a company event.

Company Theatre

FilmmakingGroupsOur Filmmaking Groups are for graduates of BJAS Diploma and Certificate courses. We help the members form “production companies” to write, produce, act in, direct and edit short films of their own devising. With BJAS as the executive producer, we help complete the films and prepare them for entry in festivals and competitions.

FOR FILM AND TELEVISION PRODUCTIONS

Specially designed workshops of variable duration for the bonding of a team of actors, honing of skills, explorations of themes, characters, relationships and action of a given script prior to the commencement of shooting. Workshops are conducted by Mr Barry John and BJAS senior teachers, and are by appointment only.

CustomisedFilm Workshops

Sessions for the advanced course are divided into two: first, a focus on an improvisational approach to technique and to confronting character. Second, deep work on the Meisner technique, which involves a complete disregard of ‘character’ as an issue. The two approaches offer both contrasting and complementary techniques for students to choose from, and both are rigorously applied to scene work on a variety of scripts.

Students build on their ability to customize technique that is aligned with their own individual personalities and strengths. They are empowered to confront roles that they never imagined they could.

Advanced Work

The Body

The actor’s primary instrument is the body. It houses other vital instruments: the mind, the breath, the voice, the feelings and the senses. Together, they are the actor’s media of expression and communication.

Students experience a process of physical development that leads to greater self-awareness, flexibility, control and coordination. Lazy, mechanical modes of moving and behaving are identified and made transformable. Whatever the body’s size, weight and shape, it is primed to be technically proficient in skills such as trust, balance, neutrality, rhythm, grace and expressiveness. The body in its interactions with other bodies, with objects, with costumes, adornment, and make-up are also explored.

The training of the body is accomplished through a progressive series of games, exercises, mime and mask studies, creative dance, gymnastics, clowning techniques, martial arts elements and yoga asanas.

The Voice

Students are trained to breathe more efficiently, to gain control of breathing technique and enhance their capacities.

The voice travels on the breath, and students learn how this synergy can create a wide range of effective communication. Voices are enriched, made strong, resonant, flexible and expressive; they become the instruments to effectively convey all subtle distinctions of meaning and feeling in characterful ways. Students are helped to ‘find’ their voice, and then to develop its range, pitch, timbre, and to place it in different registers, through a sequence of exercises.

The work on the voice extends into the workshop on speech, which aims to develop greater clarity through corrected pronunciation and sensitivity to intonation, stress and rhythm. A module on phonetics is taught at this stage.

Voice and speech training is accomplished through a carefully designed series of exercises, story-telling, news-

reading, script-reading, gibberish improvisations, singing, chanting, word-games, radio plays, interviews, and the performance projects.

The Mind

Training the mind is challenging, but if it is transacted through concrete experiences and practical activities, rather than wordy lectures and abstract philosophy, then significant development is achievable over four months. Students learn that the mind is not a singular muscle but a repository of multiple intelligences, operations and awarenesses, many of which remained inactive during conventional education. Often, they have been repressed or abused.

Students undergo exercises that have the purpose of activating dormant or desensitized areas and operations of the mind, and learn, as actors must, to have them operating in concert, synchronously.

The key operations and skills that are developed are: concentration & focus, belief, curiosity & questioning, creativity & imagination, making choices and decisions, spontaneity & intuition, reflection and memory, spatial awareness, and interpersonal skills.

Sense perception is developed both as real and imagined experience. Students learn that the senses are the fertilizer of the imagination and are infused in all aspects of the actor’s work. Sense perception also breeds sensitivity, which in turn fosters sensibility; the ability to appreciate and respond to complex emotional, aesthetic stimuli.

Students are also led into an exploration of mood and emotion through a variety of approaches and methods. Each student is encouraged to search for the means to connect with feelings and behaviors that are authentic and truthful rather than contrived.

Men, especially, are induced to overcome the gender conditioning that prohibits the public expression of emotion. Problems of sustaining a mood, and of continuity, especially in film production, are also addressed.

The course aims to facilitate the fullest flowering of each

student’s mind and abilities; the mind of an artist, aware of its role and place in society, its responsibilities and possibilities, its quest for enlightenment.

The Self

It is said that whole purpose of education, and of life itself, is to know yourself. It is certainly a crucial project for an actor; one that is never completed. For as we grow, we change.

Particularly at the beginning of the course, but sustained through it, students embark on an analysis of themselves, and of course, each other person in the group. A progressive series of exercises, improvisations and assignments stimulate an exploration of the ‘luggage’ that they carry with them: memories of childhood and youth, beliefs, attitudes, aspirations, fears, and dreams.

It is not psychotherapy, but a search to bring to consciousness the reasons for being the way we are. Importantly, this lays the foundations for the work on character building. Certain aspects of the self may be carried over into a role, other aspects may have to be transformed or neutralized. Students confront the challenging paradox of acting: it is me, but at the same time it is not me.

To the extent that students are aware of the complexities and contradictions of the self, it is invested and reflected in the characters that they create and perform. Work on the self lies at the heart of all the training, for it generates the faith and confidence in oneself that are vital in pursuing a successful career in the media.

Improvisation/Acting

Improvising for the actor is the ability to think and create on one’s feet. It is a fundamental and compulsory skill for actors who wish to be innovative and riveting. It develops the crucial qualities of spontaneity and transparency, of living in the moment, which accomplished actors achieve even when negotiating a rehearsed text.

Students learn that improvisation is a major tool with many applications, with or without a given text. It may imply a journey into the unknown, a quest to discover things such as one’s identity, activity, emotional response and progression. It may be an exercise to flesh out the bare bones of a story, idea or theme. It may be an exploration of style or genre. It may be an imaginative devising of scenes that are not in the script, that are back-story or subtext. It may allow actors to change roles and experience a story from a different perspective. It may be simply a game to

The Barry John Method

exercise the skills of rapid decision-taking and visceral responses.

Acting is doing. During the course, students are challenged with numerous acting exercises and scene work, simulated television programmes, and actual film-shooting experience. All the skills developed in exercises and improvisations are fed into major acting projects, many of which are performed publicly. Performances with and without dialogue, both for theatrical spaces and for the camera, become the ultimate tests of the students’ abilities.

Students are taught to delineate the inner and outer traits of character, to graph the main lines of their action and to detail behaviour and gesture for every moment, as well as vocal and speech characteristics. Students learn to play off each other, to give and take, to act and react, in the establishment and development of relationships. They are led to search for the essential meaning and purpose of their characters in a story, and to convincingly bare their souls.

The self-study modules are applied to character studies, as students learn to develop complete biodata for their characters. A location-based environmental and character study project is a key aspect of this training, which teaches students the ability to draw on life for knowledge and inspiration.

All in all, students are thoroughly in the awareness of what their responsibilities as actors are. They become disciplined in the preparation and execution of roles, and learn to work with integrity and courage, even when a director is lax about these demands. They are programmed to work hard and skillfully, always aiming for the highest artistic standards.

Performance Projects

The performance projects are developed to a high level of professionalism and then filmed for purposes of documentation and analysis. The Street Play is performed in an outdoor public space, while the Children’s Play is usually performed in a school. On-camera performances followed by critiques enable the optimising of strengths and the elimination of weaknesses in the students’ work.

Film Acting

The final weeks of the course are dedicated to the rigours

of filmmaking processes. Key concepts in acting for the camera are explored and practised and a module of advanced acting techniques has been added.

Students learn the basics of how films are made including shooting and post-production procedures. They get to know the camera by using it and continuity is instilled through practical exercises and demonstrations.

The understanding from the camera work is then fed into the students’ film acting projects. In these, they confront the challenges of ‘scaling’ a performance in accord with the frame of the shot, learning to control movement, gesture, voice levels, emotional intensity and energy levels. They become familiar with ‘hitting the mark’, ‘catching the light’, ‘cheating’, and other technicalities. Important projects include:

• Revelations: the devising, scripting and shooting of 10-minute videos in groups, which are then professionally edited.

• Students’ Film Projects: The students undertake the production of their own short films, being responsible for all aspects of it apart from the editing.

Students are also trained in the handling of film auditions and screen tests.

The Workbook

One of the ironic consequences of the current education system is that many students never wish to read a book or indulge in any serious writing once they have left school or college. But a serious actor sustains both activities.

The reading and writing recommended in the course are important aspects of the students’ growth and development as actors and artists.

The workbook that students maintain during (and after) the course has several objectives and functions:

• It functions as a logbook of all the exercises, activities, improvisations and discussions that occur in the course.

• At a more personal level, it is used to record the students’ responses to the work and their own views on their progress.

• The workbook is used to record the students’ creative writing assignments: recollections of personal experience, stories, poems, and scripts.• It is illustrated by the students’ own art work and

‘doodles’: character sketches, images cut from newspapers, magazines, or any other source.• It is used to critique the work of other actors, teachers, guest speakers, as well as books, plays and films.• It is used to articulate ideas, opinions and feeling responses to anything in their immediate environment, in the country and in the world.

The workbook becomes a self-authored record of each student’s development during the course. It constitutes evidence of a student’s ability to value life and experience, to reflect, to analyse, to understand, to question, and to honestly articulate ideas and opinions.

The Professional Career

Beyond all the technical and aesthetic aspects of an actor’s education, the course syllabus includes modules that enlighten and instruct students in the launching and building of their careers as actors. The faculty and guest speakers from the worlds of film, television, radio, theatre and advertising share their experience of how these businesses operate and what is expected of an actor.

Related issues of resumtés, portfolios, showreels, industry personnel and terminology, interviews, auditions, screen tests, casting agents, contracts, payments, insurance, and even positive unemployment between jobs, are addressed.

After the course, the BJAS Casting Service sustains the concern that our students find employment with continuing guidance and assistance. The Service makes recommendations to prospective employers and safeguards the actors’ working conditions and financial arrangements.

BARRY JOHN ACTING STUDIO teaches its students that they, their personalities and their talent together constitute a product. It needs controlled, creative and efficient business management if it is to be successfully marketed and become a popular brand. An actor has to develop skills and talent, but also the ability to manage and maintain a successful career.

Barry John is an internationally renowned actor, director, designer, writer and teacher. Born and educated in the U.K., he has lived and worked in India since 1968.

He was the Founder-Director of Theatre Action Group (1973-99), Delhi’s most acclaimed company, and was instrumental in the success of many of its members: Siddharth Basu, Mira Nair, Lillette Dubey, Divya Seth, Pamela Rooks, Shah Rukh Khan and Manoj Bajpai, most notably.

Barry John was a great support…Barry is a great teacher and above all, he is a great human being. I have learnt so much from him both on stage and off. I have always remained indebted …to Barry, who will always have a special place in my life.

Shah Rukh Khan

I learned theatre from Barry John at Barry’s drama school. I can never forget the contribution … in making me what I am. All what I’ve learnt in acting, the way I sit, walk and talk is all from what I learned in Delhi.

Manoj Bajpai

Barry John He was on the faculty of the National School of Drama (1977-80), teaching and directing young actors including Anupam Kher, Pankaj Kapoor, Anu Kapoor, Surekha Sikri and Manohar Singh. He was also Founder-Director of the NSD’s Theatre in Education Company (1989-92).

As a trained teacher of Drama, he has been a pioneer in the establishment of Drama and Theatre Studies at the school level, and has been involved in forging a syllabus for these subjects for the NCERT. He has also pioneered the movement towards an acceptance of Drama Therapy in working with differently abled and deprived people.

Mr John has conducted training workshops in many parts of the country for numerous theatre companies and institutions, including the FTII Pune, and for the films SALAAM BOMBAY (Mira Nair), MOHABATTEIN (Aditya Chopra), DREAMING LHASA (Tenzing Sonam) and TEEN PATTI (Leena Yadav).

He himself has acted in the films SHATRANJ KE KHILADI (Satyajit Ray), MASSEY SAHIB (Pradip Krishan), GANDHI (Richard Attenborough), TAMAS (Govind Nihalani), MISS BEATTY’S CHILDREN (Pamela Rooks), SHAHEED UDHAM SINGH (Chitrath), IN

OTHELLO (Roysten Abel), THE LAST VICEROY (Carl Hindmarch), THE FRONTIER GANDHI (Teri McLuhan), THE GREAT INDIAN BUTTERFLY (Sarthak Dasgupta), THANKS MAA (Irfan Kamal), TEEN PATTI (Leena Yadav), TERE BIN LADEN (Abhishek Sharma), and CHITTAGONG (Bedabrata Pain).

He has a national award from the Sangeet Natak Akademi, and awards from the Sahitya Kala Parishad and the Delhi Natya Sangh. His book Playing for Real, a handbook of games and exercises for actors, has been published by Macmillan.

Sanjay SujitabhSanjay Sujitabh, BJAS Executive Director, is the renowned and much sought-after director of SETMAKERS, the company which has been in the forefront of innovative and trend-setting design and fabrication of television settings and studios for the last 20 years. SETMAKERS projects, among many others, include:

MASTERMIND INDIAFAMILY FORTUNESSTUMPED!A QUESTION OF ANSWERSAO GUESS KARENKUDRATNAMAEUREKA!KHUBSURATSUMMIT QUIZTERRA QUIZ (TERI)ABP NEWS CHANDIGARHHM TV - HYDERABAD

MANCH MASALAINDIA QUIZAKSHER MELAJANNE KYA TUNE KAHIKISSA KURSI KAMATCH MAKERSA QUESTION OF CRICKETSTAR TALKBOOGIE WOOGIEESPN SCHOOL QUIZGADGET GURU QUIZMAHAA TV - HYDERABAD

AAJ TAKSAHARA NEWSTIMES NOW BUDGETCRICKET CRAZYLOCKER ROOMKING OF CAROMESPN COLLEGE QUIZFOODISTANHARSHA ON LINESTAR NEWSIBN 7 NEWSSUVARNA NEWS

Sanjay’s training-ground was in theatre. He has acted, stage-managed and been a production assistant in plays from 1983 to 1990: AGNES OF GOD, THE IMPORTANCE OF BEING EARNEST, SUNO RE KISSA, EQUUS, BAGDAD KA GULAM and ROUGH CROSSING, to name a few. He designed and fabricated the stage décor for many theatre productions in Delhi, including Imago Theatre Group’s “THE HONEY TRILOGY”. He directed several plays for Nukkad Centre for Street and Working Children.

Sanjay has also undertaken the design and staging of events such as rock shows, fashion shows and trade fair exhibitions, as well as commercial and domestic interior design and fabrication. SETMAKERS has designed, fabricated and installed studios for news channels in Kolkata, Chandigarh, Bangalore, Hyderabad, Bhubaneshwar, Guwahati and other regional centres.

Sanjay was art director on the British production of the international release DEAD 2 - INDIA and has a number of projects for Barry John Films under way, for which he is producer and/or art director.

Shahrukh KhanActor-Producer

Jaqueline FernandezActor

Roysten AbelActor, Writer, Director

Lillete DubeyTheatre Actor-Director

Sanjoy RoyActor-Director-Producer

Freida PintoActor

Ranu DagubattiActor-Producer-VFX

Divya SethTheatre-TV Actor

Arjun Kapoor Actor

Shoojit SircarDirector

Manoj BajpaiActor

Mira NairProducer-Actor

Richa ChaddaActor

Kunal KapoorActor

Amrit MagheraModel - Actor

Vivek MansukhaniActor

IrrfanActor

Anita Kaur BasuActor - Producer

Varun DhawanActor

Ritu Raj SinghActor

Siddharth BasuTV Producer-Actor

Diya MirzaActor

Sushant Singh Rajput Actor

Pamela RooksTheatre Actor

Lynne FernandezActor - Director

Through the years, Barry John has trained, directed and worked with leading actors, directors and producers in theatre, films and television. Some have performed with TAG, some were students in courses at BJAS or Imago Acting School, others have collaborated on theatre and film projects. Below are just a few of the many successful people who have been part of “greater BJAS.”

Founded in 1973 by Barry John, along with Di Moore and Rajiv Mehrotra, amongst others, Delhi’s Theatre Action Group grew in its twenty-five-year run to become one of the most prolific and innovative companies in India. TAG presented over 150 plays in English and Hindi, touring many of them throughout India, and provided a springboard to success for many of its actors, producers, directors and writers. Above all, TAG served the Delhi community, creating theatre with schools, colleges, and agencies for differently-abled and disadvantaged groups.

Alumni and Associates Theatre Action Group

Our Program and Marketing Director is Brian Herwood. Along with managing the Delhi Studio, Brian coordinates the admissions process, organises the Young Actors Club programs and creates all of our marketing - brochures, print ads, web site and Facebook page. He is also writing screenplays for Barry John Films, working with CBSE on a national Theatre Studies program, preparing proposals for the upcoming Barry John Film School and working on BJAS branches overseas Born in Hollywood, California, Brian has lived in Asia for 30 years, working as a writer, furniture designer, web designer & content creator, English teacher and school administrator.

Mumbai Studio New Delhi Studio

Brian Herwood, Administration & Marketing Director

The BJAS Mumbai Studio opened in 2006 and moved to its current location in 2007. It now offers The Diploma in Film Acting and Certificate in Acting Courses, and is the venue for most Custom Film Workshops and Advanced courses. The Mumbai Studio is also the main office for Barry John Films.

The BJAS New Delhi Studio opened in 2012. It offers the Diploma in Film Acting and Certificate in Acting Courses, and is the centre for Young Actors Club and Filmmaking Groups. The Delhi Studio is also the office for Young Actors Club Summer Workshops, held in ten venues in NCR, Chandigarh and other cities.

BARRY JOHN ACTING STUDIO32 Ring Road, Lajpat Nagar IVNew Delhi 110024 +91 9716114466, +91 9999704455 + 91 011-40578451

BARRY JOHN ACTING STUDIO301 Nanak Chambers, Opp. Fun RepublicNew Link Road, Andheri West, Mumbai 400053 +91 9967977966 / 67+91 22-26742192

facebook.com/barryjohnactingstudio enquiries@bjas.in www.bjas.in

Professional Acting TrainingMumbai - New Delhi