You now have received your audition notice, have read the entire script and have read your scenes multiple times. How your character and the characters in your scenes relate to each other hopefully is becoming clearer. Now it’s time to really PREP!
Great auditions flow from taking enough time to clearly understand the writer’s intention of a character and then working to fully commit to that character. How can an Actor tackle the challenge?
DO NOT RUSH!
Grasping the writer’s intentions behind each word, every intention, each statement and every piece of punctuation is crucial in understanding the character’s role.
What if the Actor is not clear about the writer’s intention?
What then? Where to start?
- Do a script analysis, line by line
- Review the scenes with acting coaches
- Review the scenes with other actors
- Note where the scene’s location takes place – bedroom, restaurant, baseball field, etc.
- Research the Director’s and Writer’s styles, and types of projects
- Understand the subtext of each line
- What is your character’s objective
- What does your character want
- What is your character’s intention
- What is your character’s conflict
Move in deeper to understand what motivates the character.
What now?
- What is the emotion behind each word, each phrase of your character
- What drives your character’s emotion
- What are your characters reactions
- What are the intention of the words used by the other characters
- What are the reactions of your scene partners to your character
- What are the directions given in the scene’s text
- How does the blocking in the scene relate to your character?
- What are your character’s range of emotions
You are off to a fabulous start laying the groundwork and building your portrayal of the character!
Stay tuned for my next post. For questions or comments, please respond through this website.
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