Bill Esper's successful first book, The Actor's Art and Craft, presented the basics taught in his famous first-year acting class. This sequel--which can also stand alone--follows a fictional class of students through his second-year course, which focuses on character acting.Esper builds on Sanford Meisner's legendary exercises as developed through his own decades of experience training a host of distinguished actors. Co-author Damon DiMarco spent a year observing Esper's class, and through his eyes we vividly experience the progression of the exercises and see how they work in practice. The technique Esper teaches is flexible enough to apply to any challenge, from soap operas to Shakespeare, helping actors learn to create characters with truthful and compelling inner lives.William Esper, one of the most celebrated acting teachers of our time, takes us through his step-by-step approach to the central challengeofadvancedacting work- creating and playing a character.Esper's first book, The Actor's Art and Craft, earned praise for describing the basics taught in his famous first-year acting class. The Actor's Guide to Creating a Charactercontinues the journey. In these pages, co-author Damon DiMarco vividly re-creates Esper's second-year course, again through the experiences of a fictional class. Esper's training builds on Sanford Meisner's legendary exercises, a world-renowned technique that Esper further developed through his long association with Meisner andthe decades he has spent training a host of distinguished actors. His approach is flexible enough to apply to any role, helping actors to create characters with truthful and compelling inner lives.

William Esper was a graduate of Western Reserve University and the Neighborhood Playhouse School of Theatre in New York City. Bill trained as both actor and teacher under Sanford Meisner. Bill and Sandy worked closely together for 17 years, during which time Bill served as Associate Director of the Playhouses's Acting Department (1973-1976). Bill founded the William Esper Studio in 1965 and the Professional Actor Training Program at Rutgers University's Mason Gross School of the Arts in 1977. These two schools are renowned for routinely contributing actors of the highest quality to the International stage and screen.He died in 2019 at age 86.Damon DiMarco earned his M.F.A. from the Rutgers University Mason Gross School of the Arts under Bill Esper's tutelage. He acts professionally on stage, screen, and TV, and teaches at Drew University. Damon's other books include, Tower Stories- an Oral History of 9/11; Heart of War- Soldiers' Voices from the Front Lines of Iraq; and My Two Chinas- The Memoir of a Chinese Counterrevolutionary with Baiqiao Tang, which features a foreword by His Holiness the Dalai Lama.