Lights Up podcast: Teaching musical actors to act

Lights Up: The High School Theater Podcast · Feb 24, 2026 · 45m

In the first 10 minutes of this week’s “Lights Up” podcast, Neil Schleifer and Tom Beck from Pelham Memorial High School in Pelham, New York, dig into the work they do to make sure that their actors create fully formed characters every time out. Schleifer says that work begins on Day One of rehearsal, with a character circle, in which each actor answers the question -- “Who am I?” -- in as many ways as they can, based on what they know from the script. The next conversation, Beck says, answers the question “What do I want?” Then, Schleifer says, the conversations go deeper. “Are they willing…