The Power of Voice for Actors
In Peter Yates’ excellent 1983 film The Dresser—perhaps one of the best films about the theatre ever made—Albert Finney delivers an iconic, three word line that sums up everything you need to know about the...
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The First Thing To Do With Your Script
Where on earth does time go? I’m typing this in 2025, and yet it feels like mere moments ago I was spiralling into existential dread during a script analysis class in 2020. How times...
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Setting Goals as an Actor in 2025
It’s the most wonderful time of the year! That is, of course, unless you’re an actor staring down 2025 with little thought to what you’re going to do… December and January can be tough...
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How to Take Constructive Criticism
“How do I become a better actor?” is one of the all-time classic questions we field here at StageMilk. Every one of our team members has a slightly different answer—and if I had a...
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How to Recharge as an Actor
Actors are incredibly hard workers. They develop their craft for years, they pour time and effort into maintaining skills. The nature of the industry means that over 90% of actors in any given market...
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Side Hustles For Actors
So you have started acting. This is it! You’re gonna be a damn millionaire: starring in feature films, touring the world for press—hell yeah, you’re living the dream! Literally, the dream. Waking up from...
Acting Information and Resources
How to Audition for Vikings
Oh man, is there anything more gripping than Fever Ray’s “If I Had a Heart” thrumming along to scenes of longships battling furious wind and waves, a great heathen horde spilling onto the shores of...
Checking In: Acting and Reacting
You’ve probably heard the old saying that good acting is all about reacting. And it’s not untrue: you are at your best as a performer when you communicate with others in a scene. However, this...
Can You Teach Yourself To Become An Actor?
You may have noticed here at StageMilk that many of our articles are titled with questions: “Is acting easy?” “How to act drunk?” “Should I stay in character?” That’s because we like to try and...
The Seven Deadly Sins of Bad Acting
Abandon all hope ye who enter here… That’s certainly how it can feel to label (or be labelled) a “bad actor”. There’s something so damning, so final about the term that makes it seem like...
Iambic Pentameter for Actors
“Shall I compare thee to a summer’s day?” “Is this the face that launched a thousand ships?” “Awake, arise or be forever fallen.” Iambic pentameter has flavoured some of the greatest writing in the history...
What is Dramaturgy?
When I took my first leap into the great unknown of independent theatre, the teams usually consisted of the following: a director, a designer, the cast, a stage manager and a mysterious fifth person… They’d...
What Age do People go to Drama School?
It’s a good question to ask. It’s an interesting question, for that matter. The funny thing about a question like “What age do people go to drama school?” is that everybody has an immediate answer...
How to Stop Being Stiff as an Actor
“Yeah, that last take was fine … but can you loosen it up, a bit?” It’s a bummer of a note to get, isn’t it? Worse still is when the note comes from within: the...
What is a ‘Working Actor’?
For a whole lot of people making not a whole lot of money, actors are strangely obsessed with the lovely, horrible stuff. To some, it’s a symbol of status; to others, money signals a degree...