Dinosaurs before script analysis

I audited one of the finest theatre classes on the market last week.  It was part of a program called  Classic Tales and Tunes created and taught by Jody Katz at the Arlington County Lee Center (as well as several other locations).  The student body ranged in age from 18 months to 3 years. The theme that day was dinosaurs and in 45 quick and charged minutes the class sang songs about dinosaurs, interviewed a dinosaur puppet, used blocks to create the rhythm of a dinosaur walk, ate like the dinosaurs, danced like the dinosaurs, and became dinosaurs.  All 12 of these young actors (as well as their adult companions--moms, grandparents, nannies, neighbors) were fully in the moment, fully real, and primed and ready to devour that poor cow in Jurassic Park.  They believed as only very young--and very good actors--can believe.

 When I taught high school I could pretty quickly identify the kids who were going to become believable characters onstage.  The determining factor wasn't vocal quality or comfort level or technique or study--all, of course, important but not the be all and end all.  It was the depth of imagination that really mattered..   Some very talented kids tried to fake it but you always knew when they didn't--or perhaps, couldn't-- fully believe in the world they were asked to create.  They were caught in a sort of a lie and thus unable to drop through that membrane that separates the here and now from the "some other place" and "some other time".  Some scent or aura or glint--or lack thereof--betrayed them and gave them away.   They were caught!, and, to make it worse, the audience felt bad that they were caught--we were all caught in the big lie.  The story they wanted to tell collapsed at their feet.  You could pass it off as some fault in the story or the circumstance or the day, and sometimes that was certainly the case, but often it was more serious than that.  Sometimes you just knew that the struggling actor would never be able to believe they could actually be someone other than themselves.  They just couldn't get their senses to stop sending the obvious message to their brains and replace it with a less-than-obvious or more-than-obvious message.  I'm not sure whether it's nurture or nature that gives some a brilliant imagination and others a roadblock to make-believe but I'm certain that classes in dinosaur dance are essential to good and great acting.  

If you have, for some reason, aged past that particular dance style, then begin the search for just the right move that will shake you loose from that which holds you down. The remainder of acting problems are a cinch to solve after that.