About the Journey and My Concepts

Everything we do, even the slightest thing we do, can have a ripple effect and repercussions that emanate. If you throw a pebble into the water on one side of the ocean, it can create a tidal wave on the other side.

Victor Webster

Combining Art & Science Since 2002

 The Actors Training Ground and the teaching called “The Immersion Experience” is a project that I started in 2002, combining the sciences of human behavior, communication, and psychology with the teachings of the Master teachers of acting past and present. This journey started when I was a student in a professional class of acting in Los Angeles. At that time I was looking for a foundation to my acting; principles that would join my personal life to the characters that I was working on in the theater and my professional life in Los Angeles. The Immersion Experience is the result of that research and experimentation that I’ve conducted over these past 20 years working in private and semi-private sessions with actors. The journey that I took on this research started with my master teacher Milton Katselas.  From this starting point, I backwards engineer his work to teachers he was in contact with his the past and continue backwards engineering those teachers until I got back to the Moscow Arts Theater, Stanislavski and beyond.  This is my gift to my acting community.  I am in hopes that it will give the actor some clarity in approaching his work and craft.

Otis Bell

What is the Immersion Experience?

The definition of immersion is a) An act of plunging into a substance.

  1. b) The submersion in water for the purpose of baptism.
  1. c) To engross the attention of; engage deeply: absorb.

The definition of experience is a) Something personally encountered, under gone or lived through.

  1. b) Something by which one is stimulated or moved.

For me, it is a training that teaches the actor to pull the essential elements from life and art.  Which will result in a complete experience in there performance:  A birthing of a human soul in the form of Art.

Sanford Meisner had a saying on his wall that hit home for me, it read: “I wish the stage were as narrow as the wire of a tightrope dancer, so that no incompetent would dare step upon It.” it was written by J. W. Von Goethe.

The Mission

  • To give the actor a solid foundation for thier Intellect (Mind), Instrument (body) and the Soul (The combination of Intellect, willpower and Emotional Flexability).
  • To instill in the actor a ethical and social responsibilty to serve the community.
  • To give the actor a set of tools and a vocabulary that can translate directions from other acting approaches into doable actions with certainty

It has been said that an actor will fail from one of three things.

  • Mis-Information
  • Missing Information
  • Attitude about ones on self

My mission is to remove these “No’s” That will cost you your career.

Otis