I Don't Need an Acting Class — Walker Vreeland Productions

Academy Award winner and celebrated acting teacher Milton Justice invites you into his weekly acting class, and what has become an invaluable audio resource to actors across the globe. Based on his years of study with the legendary teacher Stella Adler and his forthcoming book of the same name, I Don’t Need an Acting Class is one of the few acting podcasts that delves deep into the craft of acting, breaking down the concepts, tools and techniques we have at our disposal and providing a practical road into to approaching a role.

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Latest Episodes!

Getting to Know You

In this episode, Milton draws parallels between the actor’s and writer’s process when it comes to creating a character. Both the actor and the writer have to live with a new character, talk with them, walk with them, get to know them fully, inside and out. The improvisational exercises we do as actors allow us to see how they behave, how they see the world. It’s not about getting the answer right, it’s a process of discovery that only comes from living with the character, and continually being curious about who they are. Through our contemplation, inquiry and experimentation they emerge. Every discovery we make is like another adjustment to a manual camera lens, and slowly, over time, the person comes into focus.

Big Ideas That Are a Part of Us

It’s ironic that in this present global, digital age where information travels at the speed of light, we feel so emotionally disconnected to what’s happening in our world, whether in our own country or on the other side of the globe. Perhaps our access to all of it has desensitized us. This has affected our acting because of our inability to understand big ideas. “It’s not enough to be truthful or emotionally connected to it,” Milton says. “When talking about a big idea, it must have size.” Have a question for Milton? Email him at questionsformilton@gmail.com Brought to you by weaudition.com and Anchor.fm

What Cloud Am I Under?

Welcome to Season 3! Based on Stella Adler’s work with Stanislavsky, everything we do as actors comes out of the world of the play, or the given circumstances that the writer has given us. One way into the world is understand the playwright’s world view, what they want to say. This season, as the class begins working on George Bernard Shaw, Milton asks us to begin slowly brainstorming what the world of this great writer brings to mind. “Every idea he has is challenging popular thinking,” Milton says. “He writes with a strong, intelligent well-thought-out conviction, and so it tells me, as an actor, I have to be very, very clear.” Have a question for Milton? Email him at questionsformilton@gmail.com Brought to you by weaudition.com

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Milton Justice is an Academy and Emmy Award winning producer who began his career as an assistant director at the New York Shakespeare Festival and has moved between film, television and theatre throughout his career. On Broadway he produced Tennessee Williams’ Vieux Carre,. Off Broadway he produced Jack Heifner’s Vanities (which became the longest running play in off-Bway history and co-starred the then unknown Kathy Bates) and Das Luscitania Songspiel (written by and starring Sigourney Weaver and Christopher Durang) which was selected as one of the 10 best plays of 1981 by the New York Times. He received an Academy Award for producing the HBO documentary, Down and Out in America and an Emmy Award for Wanted: The Perfect Guy, starring Madeline Kahn and Ben Afflect. Milton was mentored by the legendary Stella Adler and when she opened her Conservatory in Los Angeles she selected him to be Artistic Director of the Stella Adler Theater Company. The Company’s efforts were rewarded with seventeen local critics’ awards. In addition he has taught at NYU, Yale, Unitec in Auckland, New Zealand, as well as giving master classes in London, Prague, Sydney and Seoul. As an acting teacher he has had the privilege of coaching and teaching a wide range of actors including Mark Ruffalo, Margo Martindale, Bryce Dallas Howard, Sean Astin, Kyra Sedgwick, Chris Carmack, Maura Tierney, and Patrick Stewart. His most recent film producing venture, Losing Chase (directed by Kevin Bacon and starring Helen Mirren and Kyra Sedgwick), premiered at the Sundance Film Festival and won a Golden Globe Award for Helen Mirren. His podcast, I Don’t Need An Acting Class, is in its second season and a book based on the series will be publish by Applause Books in 2021.