Curriculum
Return to Craft:
Curriculum Overview
Return to Craft is a self-paced program for trained actors who want to restore discipline, precision, and emotional depth to their work.
Whether you trained last year or a decade ago, this program offers a reset. A return to fundamentals, standards, and artistic clarity.
Guided by Charlie Sandlan, Master Teacher and Artistic Director of the Maggie Flanigan Studio in NYC, Return to Craft distills over two decades of conservatory-level training into a rigorous, accessible format.
What You’ll Gain
Return to Craft does not teach tricks or shortcuts. It restores the core tools and habits of the serious actor.
1. Technique
Concentration, listening, spontaneity, truthful behavior
2. Discipline
Sustainable habits, preparation, and professional process
3. Imagination
Emotional availability, specificity, vivid inner life
4. Artistic Integrity
Responsibility to the work, the audience, and yourself
Course Format
- Self-paced video instruction
- Written exercises, reflection prompts, and script work
- Optional 1:1 private coaching
- Each course includes four structured modules with:
- Video lessons
- Actor-specific homework
- Reflection prompts
- Curated readings
Course 1: The Foundation of Truthful Acting
Restore professional and artistic standards, fundamental technique, and a disciplined process
Waiting for Lefty by Clifford Odets. Participants are responsible for obtaining assigned plays used for study.
1. Reconnect to your why
Examine your standards, embrace failure as discovery, and commit to process over results.
2. The Fundamentals of Acting
Explore Meisner-based principles: concentration, the moment, acting before thinking, spontaneity, and curiosity.
3. Emotion in Acting
Understand the ebb & flow of emotional truth; develop fluidity, ease, and a compelling presence
4. Crafting: The Essential Questions
Master Meisner’s four fundamental crafting questions: previous circumstance, emotional reality, acting relationship, objective.
Course 1 is the foundation of Return to Craft and the required entry point for actors wishing to continue through the full program.
Course 2: Crafting: Breaking Down a Script
Approach text like a serious actor, with precision, imagination, and intention
Topdog/Underdog by Suzi-Lori Parks. Participants are responsible for obtaining assigned plays used for study.
1. How to Read a Script for the First Time
Focus, annotate, and generate associations without distraction. Approach the script the way you would paint a tree.
2. Actions: The Clay of Behavior
Create a robust action list to bring specificity and life to performance.
3. Justifying Text & Creating Impulses
Work with your scene partner’s lines to implant meaning and create impulses.
4. Particularizations & The Actor’s Paraphrase
Revisit your actors toolbox and begin analyzing and embodying scripts with clarity and specificity.
Course 3: Creating Character
Build fully realized characters rooted in behavior, psychology, and imagination. PDFs Included: Laban, Chekhov, Archetypes
A Palm Tree in a Rose Garden by Meade Roberts. Participants are responsible for obtaining assigned plays used for study
1. Character Acting
Explore physical, vocal, and point-of-view adjustments; integrate archetypes, Laban, Chekhov, and animal essence
2. Physical Impediments
Use universal symptoms and physical obstacles to create truthful behavior.
3. Making Actable Choices
State things in a way so that you know exactly what to do
4. Bring the Script to Life
Using Palm Tree in a Rose Garden, let’s harness insight, instinct, imagination, and life experience to create Interesting, vivid choices
Step into the shoes of another human being, not bring the character down to you and your pedestrian, day to day behavior
Course 4: The Actor as Artist
Integrate technique, craft, and imagination into a fully personal artistic process. PDFs Included: Character Background Worksheets, Emotional & Motivation Guides
Hello From Bertha by Tennessee Williams. Participants are responsible for obtaining assigned plays used for study.
1. Paint the Tree
Tackle fundamental issues first; map beats, objectives, and actions.
2. Acting Ideas
Looking at Bertha and Goldie. Where do you begin?
3. Scene Study: Goldie & Bertha from Hello From Bertha
Scene breakdown; uncover and implant meaning, create impulses, justify text, and use actions, particularizations, as-ifs, and the actor’s paraphrase.
4. Tending to Your Artistic Soul
A Final Talk. Embrace the artist in you, feed your instrument, and curate the professional and personal relationships that will advance your artistic journey.
Approach every role with the eye, discipline, and responsibility of an artist.
Bonus Video: The Art of Emotional Preparation
- Standalone $120, or included with the full program
- A process for off-camera and off-stage self-induced emotion
- Harness your ability to daydream and fantasize to your artistic process
Package Deal
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Lorem Ipsum is simply dummy text of the printing and typesetting industry. Lorem Ipsum has been the industry’s standard dummy text ever since the 1500s, when an unknown printer took a galley of type and scrambled it to make a type specimen book. It has survived not only five centuries, but also the leap into electronic typesetting, remaining essentially unchangedLorem Ipsum is simply dummy text of the printing.
Advanced Option: Private Coaching Track
Selective, application-based mentorship for actors seeking direct guidance and deeper accountability.
Reserved for actors ready to work with vigor and accountability.
Reviews
Our Student Testimonials
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Jeff Knight
Oct 27, 2025
Lorem Ipsum is simply dummy text of the printing and typesetting industry. Lorem Ipsum has been the industry’s standard dummy text ever since the 1500
Julia Eden Dietsche
Oct 27, 2025
Lorem Ipsum is simply dummy text of the printing and typesetting industry. Lorem Ipsum has been the industry’s standard dummy text ever since the 1500
Joey Natale
Oct 27, 2025
Lorem Ipsum is simply dummy text of the printing and typesetting industry. Lorem Ipsum has been the industry’s standard dummy text ever since the 1500
Lisa Kochis
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