Watch Mastering Stage Presence: How to Present to Any Audience

Name: Mastering Stage Presence: How to Present to Any Audience
Released: 2014-08-29
Cast: Melanie Martin Long

2014
1 Season

Mastering Stage Presence: How to Present to Any Audience is a dynamic course offered by The Great Courses Signature Collection. Hosted by professional public speaker and coach Melanie Martin Long, this course focuses on the art of engaging and captivating audiences. Melanie Martin Longâs experience and expertise help learners develop effective presentation skills that leave a lasting impact on audiences of all sizes and types.

The course is structured into 24 lessons, each of which is approximately 30 minutes long. Each lesson covers a specific topic, ranging from the fundamental principles of presentation to advanced techniques for captivating audiences. The course is designed to be interactive with a mixture of lectures, exercises, and demonstrations to help learners master the skill of connecting with audiences.

The course begins with the basics of successful public speaking. Melanie Martin Long covers the importance of staying calm in front of an audience and how to overcome stage fright. She goes on to explain the value of body language, voice projection, and eye contact in creating the right impression on an audience. These simple insights are crucial for a novice speaker to build a foundation of effective presentation skills.

The subsequent lessons of the course delve deeper into the art of presentation. Learners discover how to refine their message and select an appropriate speech style that resonates with specific audiences. Through her examples, Melanie Martin Long shows how to leverage storytelling, humor, and metaphor to make a presentation more relatable and entertaining. She also shares practical tips on how to prepare materials including visual aids, slides, and handouts to keep audiences engaged during a presentation.

One of the remarkable characteristics of Mastering Stage Presence: How to Present to Any Audience is that it caters to individuals of all skill levels. The course is an excellent resource for anyone looking to enhance their presentation skills, from beginners to professionals. The lessons are practical and actionable, providing useful feedback on where to improve.

The final lessons of the course provide learners with advanced skills needed for professional or complicated presentation settings. Melanie Martin Long goes into detail about effective communication methods, including handling difficult audiences, responding to questions, and providing feedback. She also shares her tips and tricks for creating a memorable presentation that leaves the audience a lasting impression.

Overall, Mastering Stage Presence: How to Present to Any Audience is an excellent course to hone oneâs presentation skills. Possessing exceptional public speaking skills is becoming an increasingly valuable asset in todayâs society. Whether you are a student who wants to excel in class presentations, a professional who needs to pitch ideas effectively, or someone who merely wants to improve their communication skills, this course offers invaluable insights to make you a better speaker. With hours of engaging lessons and practical tips, Mastering Stage Presence: How to Present to Any Audience is a great learning experience, well worth the investment of time and money.

Mastering Stage Presence: How to Present to Any Audience is a series that is currently running and has 1 seasons (24 episodes). The series first aired on August 29, 2014.

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Seasons

24. Stage Presence - A Way of Life

August 29, 2014

Conclude by contemplating what great performers do, and how presence can be a way of life. Consider how master performers engage and question the world by reflecting what they see, telling the truth, taking risks, transforming what they receive from others into something new, and finding what gives them the greatest joy.

23. Working the Crowd with Confidence

August 29, 2014

Connecting with your audience and holding their attention is essential to an effective performance or presentation. Here, grasp three strategies for sustaining attention: learn to claim your power and set the scene; keep your structure, language, and movement simple; and engage your viewers from start to finish through variety and creativity.

22. Using Stage Fright Energy

August 29, 2014

Look closely into the phenomenon of nervous energy or stage fright. Study key principles of mental focus for performing at your best, such as putting your performance experience in perspective, subduing self-judgment, using mental images of success, focusing on your partner or audience, and pinpointing specific fears.

21. Preparing for the Performance

August 29, 2014

Building on all the work you've done, this lecture takes you through the rehearsal process step by step. For both stage performance and public speaking, begin with hands-on exploration and practice of your material in small sections, moving gradually to run-throughs and final dress rehearsals, approximating your performance conditions as completely as possible.

20. Acing the Audition

August 29, 2014

The principles of auditioning in the theatre apply equally to interviews of any kind. Learn a comprehensive approach to presenting yourself in high-stakes settings. Study each phase of the process, from entering the room and introducing yourself to doing your audition or interview, the moments after, and your exit.

19. Accents and Dialects

August 29, 2014

As performers or public speakers, we may at times need to either acquire or reduce a dialect or accent. Study the process of adopting a new way of speaking: learn to place your voice where it needs to resonate, incorporate new ways of shaping sounds, and find the intonation and rhythm of the new speech pattern.

18. Vocal Color - Pacing and Phrasing

August 29, 2014

Learn to keep your audience engaged using the rhythms of speech. Begin by studying pace, how vocal pace affects listeners, and how variety of pace aids clarity and communication. Then learn about phrasing - how you group words and punctuate your speech with pauses - and ways to improve phrasing and change limiting speech habits.

17. The Muscles of Speech

August 29, 2014

Here, exercise and strengthen the muscles we use in shaping words, an important practice for clear expression in both professional and everyday life. After warming up the breath and voice, work out your vocal articulators using combinations of consonants and vowel sounds, followed by practice phrases and tongue twisters for enunciation and clarity.

16. Clear, Energized Speech

August 29, 2014

Now study the tools that make speech clear and energized. Consider how vowels carry the feeling behind words, and practice clearly pronouncing our language's 20 vowel sounds, including pure vowels and diphthongs. Continue with consonants, both plosives and continuants, building awareness of how consonants communicate meaning and create emphasis.

15. Vocal Dynamics - Your Best Voice

August 29, 2014

What makes a voice expressive or lackluster, rich or strident? Explore the parameters of resonance (sound placement), pitch, and volume. Understand how they give your voice its overall quality, and experiment with altering them at will. Also delve into inflection and intonation, see how they convey meaning, and learn about vocal projection.

14. Your Vocal Energy

August 29, 2014

Building on our previous breath work, experiment with the range of your vocal potential, letting go of any preconceived notion of how you should sound. Using text from the Prologue to Shakespeare's Henry V, invoke the element of play in exploring tone, sustained breathing, vocal variety, and free, spontaneous vocal expression.

13. Accessing the Breath

August 29, 2014

Continue with an extended session on breath, the source of sound. Begin with a full-body warm-up to release any physical tension that may obstruct sound production. In a neutral, lying position, practice free, clear breathing, using deep, natural breath to connect with the voice and to access vocal power without creating tension.

12. The Glorious Human Voice

August 29, 2014

In this first session on vocal technique, take a tour of the physical mechanisms of sound and speech. Practice free and expansive breathing, and experiment with the principles of phonation (sound production) and resonation (sound amplification). Conclude by exploring articulation - how speech shapes sound into words.

11. Stage Movement Savvy

August 29, 2014

Discover the physical techniques that stage performers use to direct the audience's focus and maintain visual interest. Learn how to take and give focus onstage, using body position and orientation, as well as movement and stillness. Learn also to create visual variety through stage geometry, as well as the use of physical planes, balance, and rhythm.

10. Playing Status Relationships

August 29, 2014

How do our movements and gestures communicate our purpose? Study how our interactions with others are governed by our status or power position within the relationship. In life and onstage, observe how we "play" status with others through specific physical tactics, stances, and gestures that convey our intentions and further our objectives.

9. Intent, Purpose, and Character

August 29, 2014

Learn about the work of movement pioneer Rudolph Laban, who created a system for understanding and notating qualities of movement. Explore eight fundamental movement types, which describe the range of direct and indirect forms of movement we use in daily living, and consider how we can shape our physical movements to tell stories.

8. The Body Balanced in Motion

August 29, 2014

Beginning with a physical warm-up to bring freedom to the joints, experiment with vertical, horizontal, lateral, and sagittal planes of movement, and how using all the planes in performance gives visual and emotional variety. Find ways of moving through space with balance and freedom, and observe how ways of moving affect and evoke emotional states.

7. The Body Balanced at Rest

August 29, 2014

In this course, "balance" is a state of equilibrium produced by an even distribution of weight, through which we can direct our energy in the most effective ways. Begin to balance the body in a lying position, practicing small movements that create release in the connective tissue of the shoulders, hips, and joints.

6. Recovering Your Natural Alignment

August 29, 2014

Learn the principles of the Alexander Technique, a system of movement training designed to achieve natural physical alignment and freedom from unnecessary tension. Explore the relationship between the head, neck, and spine, and practice a series of exercises to bring awareness and freedom to basic movements such as sitting and standing.

5. Identifying Your Unconscious Habits

August 29, 2014

The "habitual self" is the complex of physical and vocal habits that we adopt as a response to our life experience. Through the stages of life, observe how human beings develop habitual physical patterns that may be limiting, and how awareness of these patterns serves freedom of expression and the needs of performance.

4. Analyzing Backstory and Motivation

August 29, 2014

Continuing with the Nine Questions, learn how a dramatic character's circumstances affect their behavior, and how actors use a character's obstacles and tactics to overcome them in pursuing the character's purpose onstage. Then, see how to use the Nine Questions in public speaking, using the example of a famous speech by Barbara Bush.

3. Building a Character

August 29, 2014

Now learn an effective system for clarifying and connecting with your purpose onstage, or in front of any audience. Using the characters of Blanche and Stanley from Tennessee Williams's A Streetcar Named Desire, explore acting teacher Uta Hagen's "Nine Questions," which elucidate a character's identity, given circumstances, and motivations.

2. Modern Acting Technique

August 29, 2014

Discover how modern acting technique is built around a commitment to enact a specific purpose onstage. Then explore two psychological approaches to performance: performance from the "inside out" and performance from the "outside in." Begin to look at ways to find purpose in dramatic material, and also as it applies to public speaking and presenting.

1. The Performance Triangle

August 29, 2014

Consider how people learn stage presence - a process of cultivating self-awareness and practical skills in an environment of trust and support. Begin with the three building blocks of performance technique: a "triangle" formed by mental focus, your physical life, and your speaking voice. Create a safe and comfortable physical space for the work you'll do.#Better Living

Description

Where to Watch Mastering Stage Presence: How to Present to Any Audience

Mastering Stage Presence: How to Present to Any Audience is available for streaming on the The Great Courses Signature Collection website, both individual episodes and full seasons. You can also watch Mastering Stage Presence: How to Present to Any Audience on demand at Amazon and Hoopla.