A dynamic body-led technique for acting that truly lands.

The Lucid Body is a psychophysical acting class, taught by Roger Ellis, offering a tangible process for awakening responsiveness, believability, and choice through sustained practice.

This 8 week-course comprises Levels 1-2 of Lucid Body training, in which students learn a visceral language to deepen awareness of self, expand behavioral range, develop character, and collaborate with other actors. Lucid Body Basics, forms the core foundation of the work and establishes skills developed further in advanced levels.  

Distinct from text-first or solely psychological approaches, the Lucid Body invites the actor to recognize how impulse, emotion, and behavior arise through the body in real time and how to enter and exit heightened fictional circumstances with precision and agency. The emphasis is not on pushing for feeling, but on building reliable physical pathways for courageous, repeatable action that registers on stage and screen.

Roger has assisted and trained extensively with Lucid Body founder Fay Simpson (Head of Movement, NYU Grad Acting). This method has been used by actors Lupita Nyong’o, Joseph Siravo, Amanda Warren, and Winston Duke, and taught at top acting schools like Juilliard, Yale, NYU, and Northwestern. 

In this class, actors will:

• Practice a floor work sequence that builds readiness, and responsiveness to sensation

• Learn a somatic map of human behavior to expand expressive range and develop character

• Explore how attention and energy shape action

• Apply the work to improvisation and scene-based situations, with an emphasis on sustainably entering and releasing heightened fictional circumstances

If you’re able to analyze a scene but struggle to follow through on physical choices, or if you sense a gap between intention and execution, this foundational training offers a body-led next step and prepares actors for continued study in the method.