Different Every Night: Freeing the Actor

by Mike Alfreds

Different Every Night is the culmination of a lifetime of work in the theater, the most complete rehearsal methodology in print since Stanislavsky. It offers a vital master class for actors and directors, full of sound practical advice and guidance, and is packed with techniques for bringing the text to life and keeping it alive, both in rehearsal and performance.

Genres: Theatre, Nonfiction, Shakespeare, Plays

384 pages, Paperback

First published April 1, 2008

Reviews

[Mac · Rating 2 out of 5]

I should get my own biases out of the way up front: I work almost exclusively in a very niche kind of theatre: small-scale popup "punk Shakespeare" heavily influenced by Original Practices performance theory, meaning that my theatre company produces shows with small casts and minimal rehearsal time and doesn't use directors, or sets, or stage managers, or designers.

So, a how-to guide for directing large-scale productions over a long rehearsal period is just not the toolbox I need in my artistic life. So, I acknowledge that I am about as far from the intended audience for this book as one can possibly be.

But, as well-articulated and interesting as Mike Alfreds's ideas are, a how-to guide is only as good as the tools it teaches are useful, and these tools are...woo boy they're really something. The moment he talked about hiring a physical therapist to attend rehearsals to ensure his ensemble didn't develop back problems from the raked stage he insisted on having for a show I realized that the people with the resources and clout to actually implement his advice are folks already so well-established in their careers as to not need advice.

There are some ideas and concepts that Alfreds voices in this book that I think are spot on, but most of the book is tedious Cliff Notes of Chekhov plays, self-satisfied philosophizing, and details of how he structures his extravagantly long rehearsal processes. The last I imagine would be helpful if you'd been in one of his shows and wanted to recreate the process, but in the same way that no amount of meticulously-written instructions would teach you how to, for example, play the trumpet if you'd never picked one up before, all the ink Alfreds expends on details about his process can only give you a rough idea of what it would actually be like to work through his process.

Undoubtedly Mike Alfreds is a very smart and very talented director who has justified the demands he makes. And there are moments of real pleasure in listening to an S-tier artist talk inside baseball, but mostly I was put off by the tone, which often felt more like self-congratulatory memoir than a book interested in teaching you anything.

Overall, I came away wishing that it had actually just been a memoir rather than an attempt at a directing manual.

FFO: Chekhov, improv, walking around a room and noticing something about it that you've never noticed before.

[Liquidlasagna · Rating 4 out of 5]

“Different Every Night” by Mike Alfreds
In five words: It’s all in the title.

An acclaimed director and drama school teacher, and lauded by Sir Ian McKellan as one of the top directors in the U.K., Alfreds’ approach to acting and stagecraft is built for theatre but also contains ideas and practice applicable for screen work. Built from a lifetime of making theatre that is responsive and unpredictable, Alfreds’ book is a guide for how come alive as an actor. For those who find Stanislavski a little dry and lifeless this how-to from rehearsal to final performance should blow the cobwebs out. It’s a playful and passionate book that will make you think again about how to make theatre.

The legendary Mark Rylance has said, “If I was allowed to train again to be an actor, but I was only allowed one teacher, it would have to be Mike Alfreds. To me he is a genius when it comes to acting and storytelling.”

Laurence Cook

[Salli]

Nice and practical handbook without too much reliance on any one theory of acting. He has worked at the Globe and that is always a good thing for me

[alfred · Rating 5 out of 5]

One to keep coming back to.

[Matt Masino · Rating 4 out of 5]

I couldn't disagree more on the theory, but the argument for an unstructured and naturally occurring theatre has me thinking. Lots of great exercises and explanations in this book. Will definitely be returning to it's pages again soon.

[Michael · Rating 5 out of 5]

Any actor who works primarily with texts where the aesthetic is behavioral will benefit from reading, closely, Alfreds's text. Even a doddering Shakespearean, like, me, comes away with new ways of thinking about and embodying text that frees the actor for the weight of expectation. I'm now re-reading DIFFERENT EVERY NIGHT, largely because the lessons, particularly the detailed manner by which one approaches given circumstances, promises to re-align the ways which I have read and embodied text and the techniques I have shared with students.

Alfreds is required reading, to my mind, for the contemporary actor.

[Dillon Harris · Rating 4 out of 5]

A detailed, unique perspective of theatre, what makes practitioner Mike Alfreds’ book unique is his honesty. Unlike any other acting or director book I’ve read, he does not present himself as a ‘god-like superhuman that can do no wrong’, but instead recounts his own failings, his own misbehavior, and what he learned from that.

This, to me, is what makes this far more inspired than any other theatre book I’ve read to date, it’s personal, he clearly isn’t lying.

[Joe · Rating 5 out of 5]

Found this really hard going when I read it a few years ago but rereading it again with more experience of working with actors, I think it's one of the best books I've read on acting and lots clicked. Parts are very detailed (perhaps too detailed) but it is very thorough and practical. Would definitely recommend.

[Tamara · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is a great guide for new directors, who are looking for a steady structure to guide them through rehearsals. The concepts are fairly straight forward and provide the reader with concepts that can be used throughout the rehearsal process to gently guide actors, instead of telling them what to do. Can absolutely recommend!

[Kate Ly Johnston · Rating 4 out of 5]

Good observations, not the most practical acting book I’ve read but still informative