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Everyday Astonishment and Crafting the Theatrical: Speaking with David Downs on Undergraduate Acting Training

David Downs is an emeritus professor of acting training at Northwestern University, where he taught in the School of Communications for thirty-five years. He is the author of The Actor’s Eye: Seeing and Being Seen (1995), an introduction to the craft of acting. Some of his former students include actors Zach Braff, David Schwimmer, Denis O’Hare, Harry Lennix, Mamie Gummer, and Lily Rabe; playwrights John Logan (Tony Award for Red, screenwriter for Gladiator, The Aviator, and Skyfall) and Bruce Norris (Pulitzer Prize and Tony Award for Clybourne Park); and director Mary Zimmerman. His curriculum was designed for Northwestern’s acting program in which majors began working with a teacher during their sophomore year, and typically remained with the same instructor for three years (on a quarter system). He presently resides in Los Angeles, where he occasionally teaches workshops at the Antaeus Theatre Company. He is also a playwright and painter. I was Professor Downs’s student at Northwestern, graduating in 2003. In August 2015 I interviewed him regarding his unique approach to acting training.