ABSTRACT
Actors are ideological constructs, but how often is this point acknowledged? More often than not, at least in the North American context, actor training schools, conservatoires, BFA and MFA programs, and theatre-company apprenticeships tend to emphasize only three things: the exploration of one’s unique interior life (imagination, psychology, and emotional makeup); the acquisition of physical skills; and the close (d) readings of so-called representative dramatic texts situated within a vague historical context. Politics, ethical values and debates, linguistic barriers, competing ideologies, differences in race, nation, class, and gender: these and related issues are often declared too irrelevant to warrant systematic inclusion within the curriculum, or they are gradually assimilated, and ultimately effaced, by conventional pedagogical practices.2
