Patsy Rodenburg’s Second Circle: What It Is and How to Practice It

You’ve had the note, or something like it. “I couldn’t see you.” “You were playing to the back wall.” “Talk to her, not at her.” The words were all there. You knew them. And yet somebody watching felt you weren’t quite in the room.

Patsy Rodenburg, the British voice teacher who spent decades running voice at London’s Guildhall School and teaching at Michael Howard Studios in New York, has a simple map for that feeling. She calls it the three circles of energy, and the one actors want most is the second circle.

The short version: in first circle your energy falls back into you. In third circle it pushes out at everything and lands nowhere. In second circle it goes to one specific point outside you, usually a person, and comes back. You can practice moving into it with your breath, your feet, and your eyes, and you can keep it in a scene, in an audition room, and on a self-tape with a reader who’s off camera. This guide covers all of it in plain words.

The three circles, in plain words

In an interview with WOW! Women on Writing about her book The Second Circle, Rodenburg says the circles describe how your energy connects to the world and where your presence is focused. She also says she began defining them more than 30 years before that interview. Here they are in our words, with what each one tends to look and sound like.

First circle: energy that falls back into you

You’re focused on yourself. Rodenburg describes it as a collapsed body, a gaze that drops away, and a voice that falls back into the speaker. On stage it reads as mumbling, private, or apologetic. It isn’t always bad, and people in first circle are often good listeners. But the audience can’t hear them or get in.

Third circle: energy pushed out at everyone

The opposite pole. Your energy goes out, but it’s general rather than aimed. In the same interview she says people in third circle look past you, take up more physical space, and often speak too loudly. In a 2023 profile of her teaching, she warns that it’s tricky precisely because it seems energized. Actors land here when they “perform” a scene: big, loud, and aimed at nobody in particular.

Second circle: energy that goes to one point and comes back

This is presence. In second circle, she says, you’re fully present because “your energy is placed on specific points outside of yourself.” The point is the key word. You’re not radiating at a room; you’re talking to her, listening to him, looking at that one thing. And because your attention is out there, what comes back from the other person can change you.

Amy Leavitt, an accredited Rodenburg associate, puts it as a two-way flow in her 2020 article in the Voice and Speech Review: in second circle you’re alert and available, your energy is aligned with a specific point outside yourself, and there’s give and take, connected speaking with active, accurate listening.

You need all three, and you move between them fast

A common misreading is that first and third circle are wrong and second is right. Rodenburg doesn’t teach it that way. “We need all three,” she says in that 2023 profile, and she adds that we can move between them very rapidly. You might be in second circle physically and drift into first in your thinking, or the other way round.

That matters for acting in two ways. First, characters live in all three circles. A man rehearsing a speech to himself is in first circle. A bully at a party is in third. Your job is to choose those states for the character, not fall into them because you’re nervous. Second, you, the actor, still need second circle underneath, so that even a withdrawn character is withdrawn toward someone the audience can see.

One more useful note from a school that teaches the circles. BYU’s theater education lesson on Rodenburg tells students that all three circles are necessary and that second circle can be exhausting to hold for too long. That’s normal. Presence takes energy, which is one reason the practice below is short and repeated, not long and heroic.

A short daily practice: breath, feet, eyes

Rodenburg’s own exercises are taught in her books and classes, and her work starts from the body before anything else: Leavitt describes her craft sequence as beginning with the body, from the feet on the floor to the tilt of the head, then breath, then voice, then speech. What follows is our own short version built on those ideas. Ten minutes is plenty.

1. Stand and notice. Stand with your weight even on both feet. Let your knees be soft, not locked. Check your shoulders: if they’ve crept up toward your ears, let them drop. Lift your eyes from the floor to the horizon. Your spine should be up but not rigid, as if you’re about to greet someone you like.
2. Breathe low. Put a hand on your belly, just below the ribs. Let the breath come in so the hand moves, then let it go out on a quiet “fff.” Don’t pull the air in through your shoulders. Do this five or six times, slowly. You’re not trying to breathe more; you’re trying to breathe lower.
3. Visit first circle on purpose. Let your chest sink and your eyes drop. Say a line you know, any line, to yourself. Notice how the sound falls back toward you.
4. Visit third circle on purpose. Puff the chest, lock the knees, and say the same line at the whole room. Notice the push, and that you’re looking past everything.
5. Find second circle. Come back to the easy stance. Pick one small object across the room, a door handle or a light switch. Breathe low and say the line to that one object, as if it could answer. Notice how the voice travels to it without effort.
6. Walk and stop. Walk around the room with energy, then stop, breathe, and look around you, taking in one specific thing at a time. Rodenburg offers a version of this walking idea in the WOW! interview as something to try right away, and the BYU lesson has students stand, breathe, walk, and stop in each circle in turn.
7. Find a partner, if you have one. Sit across from a friend in silence and keep easy eye contact for a few minutes. The BYU lesson uses three to five minutes. It’s uncomfortable at first. That discomfort is first or third circle trying to take over: looking away, or staring hard. Keep breathing and just see the other person.

Rodenburg’s point about repetition is the reason to do this daily rather than only before a show. In the same profile she says an actor repeats exercises “so that it becomes organic,” and then can stand on stage and worry about the acting. The goal isn’t to think “second circle” in the middle of a scene. It’s to have practiced the way in so often that your body goes there by itself.

Second circle in a scene: aim at your partner, not the house

In a scene, second circle has an obvious target: the other actor. Rodenburg’s own image, quoted in Randy Gener’s 2010 American Theatre profile, is of energy moving out toward the object of your attention and touching it. In practice, that means every line is aimed at one person, with a reason to reach them.

Three things knock actors out of it. Nerves pull you into first circle: you check your lines instead of watching your partner. A big space pulls you into third: you project at the back row instead of talking to the person in front of you. Shaky lines do both, because half your attention is on remembering. Being solidly off book is what frees your eyes to stay on your partner.

Volume isn’t presence. In a big house, keep your energy aimed at your partner and let breath and support carry the sound. Our guide to projecting your voice on stage covers that side. And if your problem is reacting, not speaking, read how to listen on stage: listening is the half of second circle actors forget.

You can rehearse this half on your own. In Offbook, you upload a script and pick your role, and realistic voices read every other character, then wait for your line before playing the next cue. The video below shows that first run. Run the scene once just to hear each cue land, and on the next run, keep your eyes off the page and your attention on what the other voice is giving you.

Second circle in an audition room

The audition room tests the circles before you say a word. Walking in, many actors drop into first circle (eyes down, apologizing) or swing into third (loud hello, too much chat). Try the walk-and-stop from the practice instead: walk in with easy energy, stop on your mark, breathe low, and actually look at the people behind the table, one at a time, before you begin.

Then give your scene a point. If there’s a reader, play to the reader. If you’re doing a monologue, place the person you’re talking to somewhere specific, slightly above the heads of the panel, unless they ask you to use them. Either way, your energy goes to one place and has somewhere to land. Our guide to audition room etiquette covers the rest of the room’s unwritten rules.

When you get a note, stay in second circle while you take it. Listen to the person giving it, breathe, and let it change the next take. Leavitt notes that Rodenburg herself gives a note only when it can change someone in the moment, and no more than three at a time.

Second circle on a self-tape, with your reader off camera

Self-tapes are where actors lose second circle most often. The lens is a cold, black dot, the reader is a voice beside it, and the temptation is either to drop into first circle (eyes down, playing to yourself) or to “send” to the camera in third. Neither reads well at close range.

Start with the eyeline. Acting Magazine’s guide to self-tape eyelines says to keep the reader close to the camera so your eyeline doesn’t drift far off center, and, for a monologue, to look just to the side of the lens, about an inch or two away. Looking straight into the lens is for the rare scripts that ask for direct address.

Then make that eyeline a person, not a spot. Second circle on camera is the same as on stage: energy to one point, and something coming back. If your reader is beside the lens, look at their eyes and really listen to their lines. If you’re taping alone, decide exactly who you’re talking to and place them at that point, an inch or two from the lens, at their real height. Our guide to self-taping alone walks through the setup.

A small check works well here. Watch your take back with the sound off. If your eyes keep dropping or darting, you slipped into first circle. If your face is fixed and pushing, you were in third. If you can see yourself taking in what the other person said, that’s second circle, and casting can see it too.

Questions actors ask

What is the second circle in acting?

It’s Patsy Rodenburg’s name for presence: the state where your energy goes to one specific point outside you, such as a scene partner, and you’re open to what comes back. It sits between first circle, where energy falls back into you, and third circle, where it’s pushed out at everything.

Is second circle the same as projection?

No. Projection is about being heard in a space. Second circle is about where your attention and energy go. You can be loud and in third circle, or quiet and in second. In a big theater you want both: energy aimed at your partner, with breath support carrying the sound.

Is Rodenburg’s book called Presence or The Second Circle?

Both. Leavitt’s article lists it as Presence in the UK and The Second Circle in the US (2007). Her book The Actor Speaks: Voice and the Performer covers voice work for actors.

How long does it take to practice second circle?

The short routine above takes about ten minutes. What matters more is doing it often, so the shift becomes a habit rather than something you think about mid-scene. Rodenburg offers workshops and private coaching through her own site if you want to study the method with her or her accredited associates.

Can I be in second circle with a camera instead of a person?

Yes, but give the camera a person. Place the character you’re talking to just beside the lens, at a real height, and talk to them. The point of focus is what keeps your energy specific, whether it’s a scene partner, a reader, or someone you’ve imagined in exact detail.