David Ihrig Wants to Create the ‘Theater of Tomorrow’

Paul Hodgins
8 hours ago
5 min read

Irvine-based acting teacher and theorist will try the latest technology and his unique acting technique in a new-play festival.

Directors experiment with staging, projections and scenography on the stage at the Borland Performing Arts Center, where the plays were originally scheduled to debut. The production has since moved to another venue. From left, Collette Kwan, Annie Young and Daniel Meyers. Photo courtesy of Irvine Theater Company/David Ihrig

David Ihrig has spent years creating and honing an unusual approach to acting – so unusual that it has attracted the attention of world-famous neurologists. He calls his technique “brain-based acting.”

“It’s something that I developed in the last 10 years in collaboration with a group of scientists from UCI,” said the veteran actor and teacher, who’s the artistic director of the Irvine Theater Company. “It’s an attention-based model, as opposed to the action-based model that’s prevalent in the Stanislavski method.”

You can see Ihrig’s approach in action next week. “Disconnected: The Stories We Stand to Lose” premieres Aug. 8-9 at Canvas, a performing space in Irvine.

It’s the world’s first 10-minute play festival created using Ihrig’s brain-based acting methodology, where six actors – trained to embody their characters from the inside out – perform seven short plays written for the occasion.

So what does “from the inside out” mean in practice?

Actors learn the brain-based methodology to embody their character's experiences. Here they are brainstorming the memories that drive character behavior. From left, Andy Kim, Jenna Lee and Sarah Bielicki. Photo courtesy of Irvine Theater Company/Daniel Meyers

“We start with a character’s belief system,” Ihrig said. “We create memories around the character’s beliefs.” According to Ihrig, that approach reflects the consensus among neuroscientists that belief systems are formed from past experience. “A person's … past experience drives their response (to a given situation). This is how we look at every character. We start by embodying their belief system and identifying how that (governs their response) at any given moment.”

Ihrig’s method requires a lot of work to be done by the actor before the script is even read. For this production, it had to be done quickly – the plays were newly created and the playwrights often made adjustments to their scripts during the rehearsal process – and the actors had to first familiarize themselves with Ihrig’s method. The project began in February.

“There are seven steps to embodying a character,” Ihrig said. “Learning the lines is step six. Most of the work comes from mining the script for the relevant information.”

In 2014 Ihrig published a book, “The Actor’s Machine,” that explains his approach, and he is working on a second one, “The Actor’s Algorithm: Seven Brain-Based Steps to Embody Character.” He explained how his pedagogy is applied, choosing a well-known character, Brick from Tennessee Williams’ “Cat on a Hot Tin Roof,” as an example.

“You start with the play’s themes: deceit and lies. If you want to embody Brick’s experience in this situation, you start with his perspective and ask, ‘What does Brick believe about lies and deceit?’ You realize that he detests lies. And so you create a memory of the time that Brick first learned that he despises lies and liars.”

His technique helps to solve problems that many actors have with the character, Ihrig believes. “When you go back through those scenes, in particular the first scene, it’s problematic: Brick’s responses are quite terse. Often one word. He is trying to ignore Maggie’s discussion and trying to get drunk.

“So If you adopt the belief (about) how he hates lies and liars, you will find all these specific instances – there is a major shift in (his) behavior whenever Maggie brings up a lie. The first time he goes for a drink is when she brings up the biggest lie of his life.” His method helps an actor understand that stage direction, Ihrig said. “If you’re not looking at him in that way, you might miss that moment.”

PHOTO 1: Directors Daniel Meyers, left, and Annie Young get a first look at the technology that will be used in their production. (David Ihrig) PHOTO 2: The scenography is tested during a technical rehearsal. The creators work to refine the aspect ratios clarity, and audience perspective. (Bruce Gale) Note: a last-minute change of venue means some of these effects shown here will not be possible. Photos courtesy of Irvine Theater Company

Planning the ‘Theater of Tomorrow’

Born in Japan, Ihrig grew up in New Jersey and earned an Master of Fine Arts in theater at Northern Illinois University. Like many actors, he headed to California “and ended up doing what a lot of people do: commercials.” He ended up working for the city of Irvine as a producer for its dedicated TV channel, Irvine Community Television.

Then, in mid-career, he developed an interest in neuroscience as he explored acting methodologies. “That’s when I felt like I had a rebirth, if you will. I got very interested in how actors use their brains. I got a chance to teach that class at UCI, and I started working with some of the faculty in neuroscience. I got to collaborate with a different famous neuroscientist every week. It was this phenomenal learning experience.”

The seven plays being presented have a unifying theme, Ihrig said.

“We’re looking at the digital replacement of human experience. There is an increasing trend of people seeking shared experience, I think it's because (shared experiences are) disappearing. They’re being replaced by digital interactions. The more I looked at it, the more seismic I saw was the change in our society and culture.”

The entire project, from first meeting with the actors and the six participating playwrights to opening night, was very compressed, Ihrig said. Complicating the process, the actors were new to the brain-based method and had to learn it as they researched their characters and rehearsed brand-new scripts.

Ihrig’s interests and ambitions extend well beyond his acting method. He also hopes to build a theater that will incorporate new technological elements into theater acting.

“We’re in talks with the city of Irvine to procure a space at the Great Park to build what I call the ‘Theater of Tomorrow.’ We are planning to build a 500-seat theater that scales the technology of (Sphere Vegas) into that space. You’ll be sitting inside the set and you’ll be surrounded by sound.”

Ihrig hopes the new venue will contain massive LED screens and sound systems that incorporate field wave synthesis, which can project sound very specifically. “Those two innovations will (allow us to create) the next era of theater, incorporating digital techniques into live storytelling.”

His interests in new acting methods and new ways to present theater point to a single career-long goal, Ihring said.

“I’m hoping this type of storytelling, in this new kind of venue, invites a new audience and pulls them out from the isolating process of social media and into the community. We’re trying some of these techniques now so we can perfect them in the Theater of Tomorrow.”