Always start from an understanding of the text.

 Look for the facts of what happens, what the

characters do, and how the plot unfolds.
 This includes the backstory—what happens
before the play starts.
 Look at the play’s given circumstances.
 Identify the play’s setting and research it.
 Familiarize yourself with the history,
manners, culture, fashion, style of
movement, mind-set, and behavior of the
world of the play.
 The External Plane: the events, the facts
 The Social Plane: the historical and cultural
context
 The Literary Plane: the playwright’s voice,
style, rhetoric, and structure.
 The Aesthetic Plane: the production
elements, such as costumes and scenery.
 The Internal Plane: the characters’ inner lives
and psychology
 The Physical Plane: the “plastic” of the
character, meaning the way the character
looks, moves, and talks.
 Focus on the heart of the play—its
themes, the main character’s struggle on
an emotional and psychological level, the
protagonist’s hamartia (core wound, tragic
flaw, etc.), what is at stake.
 Re-read and consider the play from
your character’s perspective.
 What is your character’s journey
through the story of the play? What
does he/she want? What are his/her
obstacles? What tactics does he/she
employ?
What to Look For and How to Approach the Role
 What does your character want from each
of the other characters?
 How does your character feel about each
of them?
 How well does your character understand
the other characters?
 How well does your character understand
his- or herself?
 How does your character relate to other
people?
 Each character in a play has a superobjective—the
ultimate dramatic need that guides his/her journey
over the course of the whole play.
 The superobjective can be broken down into smaller,
more manageable, easily studied units. Each unit
consists of a major step towards the achievement of
that superobjective.
 Keep the “big picture” in mind as you divide the script
into units, making sure each unit contributes to the
overall throughline (the logical progression of events
leading the protagonist towards his/her intended
superobjective—whether or not it is achieved).
 Be aware of the counter-throughline (the logically
progressing efforts of the antagonist OR the logical
progression of the obstacles).
 Further divide each unit into beats—a character’s
use of one tactic in his/her attempt at achieve the
goal of the unit. Units often have many beats.
 A character will use one tactic to achieve the
objective of the unit or a step therein. Based on
its perceived success or failure, he/she will adapt
the tactic to the new circumstances.
 Score your script: In preparation for playing the
role, place brackets around each beat in which
your character participates. For each beat, write
out the (I) Intension, (O) Objective, and (N) Name.
 Discuss your beatwork with your director and/or
scene partner, to insure that you are all in
agreement about the action of the scene.
 Who is the leader in the scene?
Who is the follower? Which is your
character?
 Note: A character may lead in one
beat/unit/scene and follow in another.
 What do you do at each change of beat?
What new action do you take?
 While you may be able to analyze the text
to observe your character’s shift in tactics,
much of this is best discovered while
working with the other actors in the scene.
Exploring the Physical Life of the Character
 Consider how the Given Circumstances of both
the play and the character effect the physicality
of your characterization.
 The Play: time period, setting, time of day,
weather, historical context, cultural context, etc.
 The Character: social class, family dynamics,
social dynamics, education, wealth, manners,
philosophy, religiosity, relationships, personal
history, gender, race, sexuality, personality,
present emotional state, etc.
 Use this information to guide you in establishing
how the character moves, speaks and
physically interacts with others and his or her
environment.
 Stanislavski often said it was by means of the
word, of language, that the character’s objective
would be fulfilled.
 You must give the lines shadings, nuances, mood,
coloration, emotional reality, and energy, all of
which should ideally arise organically—not
mechanically—by means of precisely setting up the
framework in your mind. Do this by finding the
right moment-to-moment “if.”
 Use your training in speech and dialect to find the
voice of the character. Find the cadence and
timbre of the character’s voice through your
observation of the world around you.
 Part of your job is to embody the physical
life of the character, including his/her
posture, gait, use of gesture, expression,
eye contact, and general movement styles.
 Again, this is something that is embodied
organically without seeming preconceived
or calculated by means of finding the right
“if.”
 It is important for you to be observant of the
repertoire of movements in the people
around you. Also, look for the animal-like
movements exhibited by those around you.
 Stanislavski’s Method suggests extensive work on the
inner life of the character, maintaining that the actor’s
use of body and voice will then emerge out of the that
unified, clear vision of the character’s inner life.
 As the practice of Stanislavski’s Method developed,
later practitioners found that working from the inside
out was too cerebral, and they began exploring
working from the outside in to create more physically
interesting performances. The effect, however,
seemed to lead to less unified and thoughtful work.
 At present, most Method practitioners suggest
working simultaneously from the inside out and the
outside in—in order to create performances that are
both mindful and physical
 A paradox is the truthful co-existence of
two polar opposites.
 Actors often find great freedom to riff
within the confines of very rigid and
specific parameters of characterization
and action.
 It is not unlike how musicians can “jam” or
create solos out of a strict, repetitive chord
progression.
Breathing Life Into the Text
 Before you enter, you should know where
you have just been, what were the conditions
of this previous space, what you have just
been doing, why are you coming into this
new space, what is this new space, and what
do you immediately want as you enter?
 Explore the moment of orientation—that is,
the moment in which you orient yourself to
where you are and, if applicable, to the other
character(s) in that new space.
 How does your entrance alter the particles in
the space?
 As you design the blocking, let it emerge
organically as part of the objectives of the
characters. Blocking should be
purposeful—not decorative or separate
from the intentions of the characters.
 As much as you can, design blocking so
that it adheres to the principles of stage
presence and blocking that you have
studied; however, your first responsibility
is truth of characters in the moment.
 Is there any stage business that could be
incorporated into the scene?
 Stage Business can help give the actor an way to
enter into the reality of the scene. Using the
principle of Spheres of Concentration, you can
first find the reality of stirring a pot, going through
a stack of mail, setting the table, and then expand
outward to the larger, more challenging realities of
the scene.
 Stage Business should be relevant to the overall
action of the scene, help to establish setting and
mood, reveal character, and if possible, make a
symbolic contribution to the meaning of the scene.
 Stanislavski noted the existence of
contradictory positive and negative character
traits, desires, and impulses.
 Look for opportunities for villains to be
charming and heroes to be wicked, etc.
 Likewise, behavior and speech is often the
opposite of one’s emotions or intentions.
Characters often suppress emotions that
threaten to expose them. Have you ever told
someone to call you, hoping that you will
never hear from them again?
 Begin to memorize the words and
blocking in concert, as they are
inseparable.
 This should be the halfway mark in your
rehearsal process. As is often
misperceived by the novice,
memorization is not the final product of
the rehearsal process.
Polishing the Mechanics and Finding the Deeper Life of the Character
 Use relaxation and concentration exercises
to prepare for all rehearsal and
performance work. Remove tension and
sharpen your focus to welcome in order to
welcome the life of the character into your
body.
 Use sense memory and affective memory
efforts to recreate and fully inhabit the
reality of each beat of the text.
 Take into account what happens to the
characters before the play begins—the
backstory.
 Take into account what happens in the
time between the scenes when the
character is offstage—the between-time.
 Take into account what happens to your
character after the scene ends. Are you
setting up the character for where he/she
is headed?
 Consider how the accumulative affect of
the action might alter both the inner life
and the physicality of the character.
 What does your character want in each of
the relationships with the characters in
each beat?
 Does the character succeed in getting
what he or she wants from the other
character(s) in each beat?
 What does the character do when he/she
does or does not attain an objective?
 Through all of the work up until now,
you may be starting to get a clearer
glimpse of the character’s underlying,
subtextual unconscious motivations
and ambivalences, which will add
depth to your characterization as
they gradually dawn on you and
emerge because of your work on the
script.
 Look back through your beatwork and
refine/adjust it based on your discoveries.
 Allow yourself to “forget” what you have
chosen (because it has been assimilated
and absorbed into the preconscious area
of the unconscious) as you act organically
when you actually perform the rehearsed
piece, at which point all the work on the
role is pushed away from conscious
awareness and acting it—performing it—
takes over.
 By this time, too, you will have found
the correct rhythm and tempo for
each line, beat, unit, scene, act, and
the play as a whole.
 As you begin to perform the piece for
audiences, continue to discover new
things and refine your work.