'Only what is open and searching is active and alive. You, the actor, must learn to find security in insecurity, certainty in uncertainty, to trust that this will lead to discovery and growth.'

In What Actors Do, revered theatre director Mike Alfreds explores the wellspring of the actor's craft, tracing a pathway to creative freedom through the thickets of competing methodologies and confusing paradoxes that you will face throughout your training and career.

How do you give life to a character that both is and isn't yourself? How can you be childlike and open in your work without becoming childish? How, when you know what's coming next, can you still be spontaneous?

Frank, uncompromising and full of sharply focused insights, this book will help you strip away the inhibitions and habitual thinking that can shackle our imaginations. It will show you how to generate truthful performances by trusting your inner creativity and remaining radically open, responsive and present in every moment.

Mike Alfreds has been directing plays for more than seventy years. In the 1970s he founded Shared Experience, and has since worked for the National Theatre, Shakespeare's Globe, the Royal Shakespeare Company and also extensively abroad. He is hugely respected within the profession, and is the author of two previous books, Different Every Night and Then What Happens?

'If I was allowed to train again to be an actor, but I was only allowed one teacher, it would have to be Mike Alfreds. To me he is a genius when it comes to acting and storytelling' Mark Rylance

'A window on the actor's art... endlessly quotable... an interrogation and a call-to-arms from a director whose passion for the theatre has clearly never dimmed'

'Well written... valuable advice on how to support and equip yourself in your chosen career'

Mike Alfreds has been directing plays for more than fifty years. In the 1970s he founded Shared Experience, and has since worked for the National Theatre, Shakespeare's Globe, the Royal Shakespeare Company and also extensively abroad. He is hugely respected within the profession. He is the author of Different Every Night (Nick Hern Books, 2007), Then What Happens? (Nick Hern Books, 2013) and What Actors Do (Nick Hern Books, 2023).