mishels

And with that question I lured you in!

I am a very serious advanced amatuer magician, and as such, the time has come for me to study some acting since magic without theatre is just a bunch of stupid puzzles.

The thing is, I am doing close up magic, which means me and the small audience will be seated at a table. So I won't "need" to act with my whole body, just the above waist part. Plus, the range of emotions I will have to pass through won't be so varied, I will usually need to act surprized, puzzled, content, offended maybe and such, but I won't ever need to cry for instance.

On the other hand, I do have a full script of the act and I will need to make the script come alive, I will need to connect with the audience which are seated at the same table, I will need to improvise a bit and not always stick to the script since if I do stick to the script and don't acknowledge the spectators actions and reactions the whole act will seem like a prewritten act, which it not the point. The spectators should get the feeling that what they are withnessing is happening NOW and everything I say and do is something that everyone who is not present misses, something that never happened before exactly this way and will never happen again exactly this way.

To do all this, I need to learn how to act, but as I already mentioned, I won't be needing the full spectrum of actor techniques (or whould I?).
So what do you suggest I should do?
Join an acting class?
Read a book (I'll be happy for recommendation as I don't know the classics of acting study books).
Just do the act, record myself on video and watch it afterwards critisizing myself and taking notes?

Thanks,
Mishel.