NILES — A master class with Austin Pendleton is a history lesson, a comedy routine, a one-man show and very much an educational experience.

Pendleton, a Warren native, did three acting master classes Saturday at Trumbull New Theatre, the community theater his mother helped to start more than 70 years ago.

Most know Pendleton, 81, as an actor (more than 150 film and television credits on his IMDb.com page, too many stage roles to count), director (he earned a Tony nomination for directing Elizabeth Taylor in her Broadway debut of “Little Foxes”) and playwright, but he’s taught for more than 50 years at HB Studios in New York and studied with people like Uta Hagen, who literally wrote the book on acting (actually, two of them).

Many of the lessons he passed on in the first class were ones he learned from people like Hagen and Robert Lewis, who stressed the importance of talking and listening between characters. For Chistopher Fidram of Boardman, who performed an early scene from a one-man show by Martin Moran called “The Tricky Part,” Pendleton told him the “listening” he has to do on stage is to the audience he’s directly addressing.

“What is your objective?” Pendleton asked. “The ones (characters) that affect you are the ones who make you feel what they really want.”

Fidram, who also attended the class Pendleton did at TNT two years ago and called it “the best thing about 2020,” said the advice was very beneficial.

“I brought that scene in because I didn’t know what to do with it,” Fidram said. “He made me see creating the audience as a character and utilizing them is an important part of the story.”

Focusing on the objective of the character came up repeatedly in the class. Actors who lose the objective end up playing an attitude or an emotion, which are important layers in any performance but never should be the primary focus, he said.

Those who attended the master class were asked to prepare a scene or monologue to perform for Pendleton. Given his resume and years in the theater, he often had stories to tell about the authors.

When Lynn Rafferty of Columbiana performed a scene from “Painting Churches,” Pendleton talked about attending a dinner party with its playwright, Tina Howe, and hoping he never got on her bad side after hearing the tales she told about others.

Brett Bunker of Howland did a cut from “Jake’s Women” by Neil Simon, who Pendleton said didn’t like his acting and fought to keep a director from casting him for one of Simon’s plays.

The last time he saw Simon before his death, Simon greeted him with open arms and gave him a big hug. When Pendleton asked a mutual friend who knew of Simon’s dislike why he would do that, the friend said, “Well, he’s senile.”

But Pendleton also praised Simon’s work and said someone taught him once, “Just because someone doesn’t like your work doesn’t mean you have to hate theirs.”

There’s a bit of absent-minded professor in Pendleton’s teaching style, and he often used personal anecdotes to amplify the points he wanted to make.

He shared secrets, such as the fact that most actors hate entrance applause.

“I haven’t done anything (yet),” Pendleton said. “The only option open to me now is to disappoint you.”

He also shared simple truths that actors should remember, like the importance of suspense.

“The audience wants to know what’s going to happen next,” he said. “If they lose interest in what’s going to happen next, your goose is cooked.”

Pendlton also believes that stage fright is an actor’s best friend.

“(Stage fright) is not a problem; it’s fuel. Nothing is more boring than a secure actor. Every character in a play is scared of something. There’s no ease in any character in a play.”

agray@tribtoday.com