The Well-Loved Script
Filed Under Articles, The Best of, Preparation, How To | Leave a Comment
Isn’t it a wonderful feeling when you’ve just gotten cast in a show and you’ve got a brand new, unmarked script? It smells so nice, that pristine paper. No folds, no creases, no marks. It’s such a wonderful moment when you hold that unaltered piece of art in your hand and know that you are going to turn it into a bent, dog-eared, pencil marked, highlighted hunk of paper within a week or so. It’s the beginning of the wonderfully destructive journey of making it your own. And in the years to come you’ll be able pick up that script and remember all those tiny little notes you scribbled at the end of rehearsal. Scripts are wonderful, so let’s examine all the things you can do to mess it up right from the beginning so that you can break it in and give yourself a head start at rehearsal.
- Break it In – First off, you’re going to want to break that bad boy in so you can handle it easily on stage and not struggle to read from a book that won’t stop closing. It’s best to have a script you can easily maneuver with one hand. So once you get your script and smell it and enjoy the newness and prepare yourself for the destruction, lay the spine of the script flat on the table. Now fold each cover flat on either side, running your finger down the inside of the spine to set the fold. Continue with this process, going a few pages at a time until you reach the middle of the book. Now you’ve got yourself a nice pliable piece of literature to work with.
- Highlighting – Oh, highlighting, the actor’s friend. We tend to get crazy with those colorful little pens. We highlight everything! Dialogue one color, Cue lines in another, Stage Directions in a third! And soon we’re acting from a coloring book. A good general rule is to only highlight your lines, simply to give your eyes a reference point if you need to find them quickly. That’s it. Don’t highlight your cue lines, they’re easy enough to find, they tend to be right before your lines. It’s their job. It’s what they do. And definitely don’t highlight stage direction! That would ruin the next thing we’re going to do.
- Remove Stage Directions – Now switch from your highlighter to your trusty pencil and start scratching out the stage directions. There’s really no need for them, they’re for readers, not actors and the odds of you actually performing the same actions in the same way are slim. Pay attention to the blocking the director gives you, not the playwright. Be sure to especially black out those little parenthetical adjectives in front of lines like, (angrily), (quietly), (vehemently), it’s up to you to make those decisions.
- Mark Your Scenes – Go through and find all of the scenes you are in. Many directors will provide you with a scene plot that does this for you. Either way, just start going through with those little Post-It Note flags and tag each of the scenes that you’re in so that you can easily and quickly find your place without wasting time in rehearsal.
- Find the Tune – Next give your script a read through looking for the tune of the play. The tune of a show is the line or sentiment that is repeated over and over throughout the play. In Oedipus the tune is disease and pollution; “The fever-god swoops down on us, hateful plague,” says the priest. In Hamlet the repeated idea is that of decay and rotting; Marcellus tells us in Act I, Scene 4 that “Something is rotten in the state of Denmark.” The tune is usually fairly easy to find because it’s repeated so often and is many times right at the very beginning of the play.
- Diaglogue – As you read through the script make sure you know what all of the words mean. If you don’t, get a dictionary and find out because nothing will make you look more foolish than saying a word the meaning of which meaning you obviously don’t know.
- Central Event – Make sure that you know what the play is about. What is the turning point of the play and your character and are they the same? Make sure you know where and what causes a change in the play and your character because that’s going to have a huge influence on how you play the scenes that will follow it. There is always one pivotal scene. Find it.
Probably the best way to prep your script and help yourself get a head start on your rehearsals is to simply read the play more than once. Don’t stop at one or two; go for three or four readings. Not only will it help you learn your lines, it will allow you to hit the stage running when rehearsals start. So while I know it’s hard to destroy that book when you first get it; when it looks so clean. But believe me, it’s worth it. It’s fun. So go on, get out that pencil and those highlighters and go to town. There’s nothing better than a well-loved script. So go to it. And remember,
Sin Boldly!
Hand Placement and the Actor
Filed Under Articles, The Body | Leave a Comment
There is one very easy way for an actor to distinguish himself on stage; to stand out from everyone else. There is one thing that will, every time, make an actor’s work look immediately more polished and professional. What is this one thing? Those of you who read the title already know. It’s hand placement. It sounds like such an insignificant thing, but it really can do all of the things I’ve claimed. Knowing what to do with your hands while you’re onstage can instantly transform your performance from sloppy to polished. Will it make you a better actor? No. Will it make you look better? In a big way.
So what is the key to this hand placement thing of which I speak? Well, the biggest key is realism. What Stanislavsky called “public solitude.” Sanford Meisner talked about this in his book On Acting:
“Stanislavsky, no slouch, had a phrase which he called ‘public solitude.’ He said that when you’re alone in your room and nobody’s watching you—you’re just standing in front of the mirror combing your hair—the relaxation, the completeness with which you do it is poetic . . . On stage ‘public solitude’ is what we want. You have only one element to give up to get to the area where your real acting personality is, and that is yourself.”
Public solitude is the key here, the real simplicity with which you carry yourself. The problem many actors have, especially when first learning their craft, is that they do not know what to do with their hands. They have these gangly things called arms which they seem content to leave down by their sides, but then there are hands at the end of those arms, with five fingers on each. Suddenly they’ve gone from two appendages, to four, and finally to fourteen and they now become too many to handle. What do you do with them? Well, what do you usually do with them? For some reason there is a distinction that many actors have that you need to rid yourself of. It is the idea that you move differently onstage than you do in real life. Certainly there are a few things you have to do such as cheat out and gesture, but if you make this distinction too big you’ll end up grand standing for the audience and being too presentational. There shouldn’t be such a big difference in the way you move onstage. It’s just a stage and you’re still a person, on or off it.
Start to notice your arms and hands in your every day activities. What do you do with them when you stand around conversing with someone? What do you do when you’re waiting for a bus? Notice other people as you go through the world. What do other people do with their hands while their talking? Now start to put these ideas into your character. Is your character an open person? Then they probably wouldn’t cross their arms and it’s a general rule not to put your hands in your pockets too often. The real key to improving your hand placement is not to think about it while you’re onstage. Get out of your head, as Meisner would say. Being self-conscious about what your hands are doing is only going to make them look more awkward and call attention to the fact that you don’t know what to do with them. Let them do what they want. That plan seems to work during everyday life. Why wouldn’t it work onstage?
Start noticing what you do with your arms both on stage and off and see if there is a difference. I swear that if you start watching hand placement from the audience perspective you’ll begin to see how much of a difference it can make and how much more professional an actor can become simply by not fidgeting or looking uncomfortable in their own skin. Who’da thunk it, right?
As always, keep striving to better your art and I invite others to share their opinions on this site, which you can do at the submission link up in the top left. Come share your expertise with others. And until next time, Sin Boldly!
