We recently connected with Aidan Bristow and have shared our conversation below.

Aidan, thanks for taking the time to share your stories with us today One of the things we most admire about small businesses is their ability to diverge from the corporate/industry standard. Is there something that you or your brand do that differs from the industry standard? We’d love to hear about it as well as any stories you might have that illustrate how or why this difference matters.

First take acting Studios uses a different methodology than any Acting Studio I’ve ever heard of or taken a class from. We believe that the idea of writing out your backstory or meditating on your backstory is as antiquated as sitting in a classroom and trying to learn from an instructor who solely uses chalk and a blackboard. Of course this still happens in school systems every single day, but that doesn’t mean it’s effective. At our Studio we believe that GenZ and Millennials are more visual in how they experience the world around them. So we created a technique which allows artists to fully explore characters through a lived experience that helps them embody their characters. We focus on imagination solely. But we bring that imagination to life.

I personally like to type up my backstory, I love meditating on my characters before we meet them in the script. But I also remember a time before there were cell phones. Most people in their late teens and 20s need a more visual/tangible process to fully embody another human being. Writing exercises and guided meditation won’t work in the same way for adults in their 20’s as it does for me. In our technique we identify key moments in a character’s past that has contributed to their value systems. Then we improvise scenes to make those moments come alive. We do multiple takes of each improvised scene until they become fully three-dimensional and have an emotional value. We find that this process allows actors to have a more visceral connection with the experiences that has shaped their character’s identity.

For example, You no longer have to write out what arguments led to your character getting a divorce before the start of the play. In our class we will map out those arguments, assign roles with other actors in your class, and you will fully live out various arguments that led to your character getting divorced.

By living your backstory in this way, we have seen actors have deeper emotional connections with the dialogue in the scenes that they get assigned. If a pivotal moment is referenced in your script we explore that moment by talking about it, fleshing it out and then living it on the stage until it gestates into an authentic emotional value.

Aidan, love having you share your insights with us. Before we ask you more questions, maybe you can take a moment to introduce yourself to our readers who might have missed our earlier conversations?

Prior to opening my own studio (with my partner, Guy Nardulli) I had a lot of experience volunteer tutoring elementary school students. During that time I gained a new appreciation for how important it was to understand how different generations consume information. This directly affects how people learn in an academic setting. My tutoring experience became very useful as I went on to coach actors privately and in a class setting.

I’ve been lucky to study under people who directly learned from Stella Adler and Sandy Meisner. Although their methods were useful for me, it’s clear to me that a younger generation needs to learn the craft in a different manner. I was an adult before the existence of smartphones. Most of my academic life utilized pen, paper, and chalkboard. Gen Z and younger millennials have had a much different academic experience than I did. They’re more visual and consume Information more visually. It’s no one‘s fault, it’s just reality.

I’ve been fortunate to work on dozens of network shows and over 30 feature films. I’ve have the privilege of working with Emmy, Tony, and Oscar winning actors and directors. Through my professional work experience I’ve gained a knowledge of what philosophies in an acting class will best prepare actors for real world experiences. I’ve always done my best to try and simplify and crystalize lessons from my own working life into meaningful classes for others to gain perspective from.

In my audition coaching I would experiment with different methods to try and find a more effective way to teach generations younger than myself. It was through this experimentation that I created the technique that became the catalyst for 1st Take Acting Studios.

What’s a lesson you had to unlearn and what’s the backstory?

I learned early on that if you want to help someone learn you can’t force them to learn the way you did. That’s a core mistake of most educators in my experience. Just because you yourself gained knowledge effectively one way it doesn’t mean others will learn it effectively in the same way. The key to being an effective educator is to learn about who it is your teaching. The same way an actor researches the socioeconomic background of a character they’re playing, an acting teacher needs to do the same for the pupils they’re teaching.

In our class we have students who range in age from 19 all the way to 56. We don’t believe a cookie cutter approach should apply to all students. So we customize our lesson plan based on who the student is and we try to meet them where they’re at in regard to how they learn best and what they want to work on.

I learned this lesson teaching while teaching kids at Toluca Lake Elementary School. I’ve always found math to be easy, and learned quickly that the way I learned multiplication (using my fingers or tally marks) didn’t apply to a younger generation who found that foreign. I had to visualize the numbers 3 dimensionally. I couldn’t use my fingers, I had to have little legos or have drawings of dogs to demonstrate how numbers multiply. Fingers and tally marks seemed like hieroglyphics to a 5th grader. I had to meet the students where they were at. I had to learn how they experienced the world, and find a way to teach within those boundaries. I’ve used this approach with how I’ve developed the acting technique at 1st Take Acting Studios.

Can you tell us the story behind how you met your business partner?

Guy Nardulli is an in demand actor in his own right. Currently a series regular on the show Tulsa King on CBS. He and I took class together at a few different acting studios. And we can honestly say we’ve been fortunate to have taken classes from some of the most generous and knowledgeable teachers out there. We both have horror stories too! But thankfully we’ve had way more good than bad.

Guy was teaching at a studio before we started working together, and I substituted for him when he was on location for jobs. It was then that we began talking about a different way to teach kids in their 20’s. We both realized what worked for us wasn’t translating and so we began our brainstorming of how we can meet students where they are in their learning process. We don’t think a lot of acting teachers in LA do this enough and stubbornly preach what worked for them over and over again.

Me and Guy have been practicing our (different) approach for over a year now, and have found a home at The Sherry Theater in North Hollywood and teach there twice a week on Tuesday and Wednesday nights at 7 PM.

Contact Info:

• Website: https://1sttakeactingstudios.wixsite.com/first-take-acting-st
• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/1sttakeactingstudios?igsh=OGQ5ZDc2ODk2ZA%3D%3D&utm_source=qr