Your Child Is Gifted!: Excellent Tips, Advice, and Techniques for Parents Who Want to Secure Acting Roles for Their Children

By Dr. C. Marcellus Griffin

With its inspirational foreword, this book is a great reminder to parents that each child is very special, and that we have an obligation to cultivate the innate gifts of our children, instead of simply hoping the public school system will yield a desirable end-product in them. Therefore, the aim of the book is to inspire parents to invest time and energy into their children, so that their children may grow into confident, well-adjusted adults, who feel that they have gifts to offer to the world.

Additionally, this book is an actors guide for learning to audition and win roles in theatre, movies, and film. Filled with reflections and insights from Dr. Griffins personal experiences in the entertainment history, Your Child is Gifted gives the reader insider tips that many performers usually pay thousands of dollars to learn. Thus, the reader gets a relatively inexpensive, crash course on how to win acting roles.

Finally, Your Child is Gifted defines important industry terms and provides vivid illustrations, in an effort to ensure the readers understand the application of the given terms. The strategies Dr. Griffin provides are practical, priceless, and, if they are executed in the prescribed manner, they serve as powerful indicators of your childs success in the industry.

• Language: English
• Publisher: iUniverse
• Release date: Jan 6, 2015
• ISBN: 9781491755259

Dr. C. Marcellus Griffin

With a doctorate degree in Educational Leadership from California State University, Fresno, Dr. Griffin recalls being active in the performing arts since he was a young child, performing self-directed skits and plays for family members at his home in Central Florida. Years later, after two years of college and much soul-searching, he changed his major from Pharmacy to Theatre, because the lure of the theater was too great for him to resist. As a theatre major at Florida A&M University, he was an active member of the University’s traveling performance troupe, The FAMU Connection, which travelled the Southern States with the University’s President to help recruit talented scholars to the University. Upon college graduation and moving his family to California, Dr. Griffin studied the crafts of acting and writing for television and film, while acting and performing stand-up throughout Los Angeles. As an English teacher and Drama Club advisor within California’s public school system, he has mentored several young performers in the craft, whenever he is not performing. Naturally, Dr. Griffin has helped his own children gain an appreciation for the arts and education; his children continue to work in community theatre, as well as in television and film.

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YOUR CHILD IS GIFTED!

EXCELLENT TIPS, ADVICE, AND TECHNIQUES FOR PARENTS WHO WANT TO SECURE ACTING ROLES FOR THEIR CHILDREN

Copyright © 2015 Dr. C. Marcellus Griffin.

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be used or reproduced by any means, graphic, electronic, or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, taping or by any information storage retrieval system without the written permission of the publisher except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles and reviews.

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Any people depicted in stock imagery provided by Thinkstock are models, and such images are being used for illustrative purposes only.

Certain stock imagery © Thinkstock.

ISBN: 978-1-4917-5524-2 (sc)

ISBN: 978-1-4917-5525-9 (e)

Library of Congress Control Number: 2014922007

iUniverse rev. date: 12/30/2014

Cover Photography by Raquel Krell

Contents

Acknowledgements

Preface

Introduction

Chapter One Preparing For An Audition

Chapter Two Analyzing The Script

Chapter Three Delivering Your Lines/Vocal Variety

Chapter Four TCB- Taking Care Of Business

Chapter Five Add Your Culture To Your Character

Chapter Six Add Different Tempos/Speed To Your Emotions

Chapter Seven Use All Your Talents

Chapter Eight Other Stuff

Chapter Nine Practice, Practice, And Practice!

Glossary

References

The talents of disadvantaged and minority students have been especially neglected. Students in the arts are offered few challenging experiences anywhere in the United States. Although there are some school districts that offer special arts programming, such opportunities are not widely available, especially in poorer school districts.

- Zimmerman, E. Arts Education Policy Review

There is a link between music activities and improved academic performance, self-concept and social inclusion.

-Professor Graham Welch

The absence of valid and reliable assessment processes in the arts and the decreasing availability of arts instruction often lead teachers and parents to overlook the creative and artistic abilities of their children.

- Oreck, Owen, & Baum, 2003

Acknowledgements

I dedicate this book to my loving wife, Tarsha, and to our four wonderful children, Dieu-Donne’, Bonte’, Angelique, and Justice, each of whom is gifted in his or her own special way. My children were kind enough to provide the illustrations for this book.

Heavenly Father,

Thank you for helping me to make sense of my life. You have ordered my steps from the foster homes of New Jersey to the most meaningful points of my life: high school graduation, college graduations, my wedding, and the births and baptisms of my children. You have never forsaken me.

Surely, you are my Father. Thank you for sending your Son, my Savior, Jesus Christ. Hallelujah!

Thank you Raquel Krell for the beautiful headshots. You rock!!

Preface

I decided to write this book because I have worked in public education for many years, and I have seen students consistently earn failing grades in their core classes, leaving their parents doubting whether their students have any redeemable attributes. By contrast, I have also witnessed students