NEWS:
Selected to be a featured book at
ATHE
(Association for Theater in Higher Education)
conference August 2023.
NEWS:
Selected to be a featured book at
ATHE
(Association for Theater in Higher Education)
conference August 2023.
In Mythic Imagination and the Actor, Marissa Chibás draws
on over three decades of experience as a Latinx actor, writer, filmmaker, and teacher to offer an approach to acting that embraces collective imagination, archetypal work, and the mythic. In the context of Mythic Acting, the book explores
awareness work, solo performance creation, the power of
archetypes, character building exercises, creating a
body/text connection, and how to be the detective of your
own process. Written for actors and students of Acting,
American Drama, and Film and Theatre Studies, this book
provides practical exercises and prompts to unlock and
interpret an actor’s deepest creative sources.
Illustrator Makena Janssen
“This Book is a MUST READ”.
Ron Cephas Jones, Two-time Emmy award winning actor.
In Mythic Imagination and the Actor, Marissa Chibás draws
on over three decades of experience as a Latinx actor, writer, filmmaker, and teacher to offer an approach to acting that embraces collective imagination, archetypal work, and the mythic. In the context of Mythic Acting, the book explores
awareness work, solo performance creation, the power of
archetypes, character building exercises, creating a
body/text connection, and how to be the detective of your
own process. Written for actors and students of Acting,
American Drama, and Film and Theatre Studies, this book
provides practical exercises and prompts to unlock and
interpret an actor’s deepest creative sources.
Illustrator Makena Janssen
“A beautifully written exploration of the key aspects
of the actor’s craft as seen through the lense of
mythology, imagination, spirituality, and the hero’s quest.”
José Rivera, Playwright of Marisol and academy award nominee for
Motor Cycle Diaries
“This book will inform and impact the
future of acting training.”
Dawn Akemi Saito, multi-disciplinary theater artist, faculty at Fordham
University and Julliard Drama
Archetypes are fluid, not fixed; they are powerful portals to finding the specificity and dynamism of the characters we are portraying . . . because these archetypes are personas that have been around for thousands of years, and have been developed, expanded, and brought forward in stories for ages, they are known to us on a cellular level.
— Chapter 3: Archetypes
No matter where an actor works, the space they engage with needs to become sacred. Especially as rehearsal processes get more and more corporate, we need to find ways to remind ourselves of the spiritual aspect of what we do, no matter how dreary a space we may be in. There is always something to fall in love with.
— Chapter 2: Laying the Ground Work
“I cannot recommend Marissa Chibás’s book
more highly.”
Daniel Alexander Jones, award winning American performance artist,
playwright, director, essayist and educator.
“This book is filled with exercises to enliven
the imagination of the actor.”
Cynthia Santos-DeCure, actor, voice and dialect professor,
Yale School of Drama
“Marissa’s voice is so clear, inviting, and trusting.
Mythic Imagination and the Actor is a new ‘way in’
and we need it.”
Charlayne Woodard, Two time Tony award winning actor and playwright
“Sages, tricksters, femme fatales, and wrestlers
swarm the pages of this remarkable book by Ms. Chibás.
In crafting an approach to acting that is transformational,
she has achieved something even more special: a book
that is not only about to how act, but how to live.”
Octavio Solis, writer of Lydia, Mother Road and Retablos
