A Practical Handbook for the Actor is a simple and essential book about the craft of acting, describing a technique developed and refined by the authors, all of them young actors, in their work with Pulitzer Prize-winning playwright David Mamet, actor W.H. Macy and director Gregory Mosher. It is written for any actor who has ever experienced the frustrations of acting classes that lacked clarity and objectivity, and that failed to provide a dependable set of tools. An actor's job, the authors state, is to "find a way to live truthfully under the imaginary circumstances of the play'.' The ways in which an actor can attain that truth form the substance of this eloquent book.