TIPS FOR ACTORS ON PREPARING A MONOLOGUE

Greetings, ladies and gentlemen, and welcome to theater is a sport. 

I don't know about you, but I love performing monologues (I also like writing them very much, but today's post is about acting).  They're juicy, aren't they?  Not only that, it gives an actor the opportunity to have the undivided attention of an audience for a little while, and to challenge themselves to be as engaging as possible for two, ten, or even twenty or more minutes. 

And, of course, monologues are often used in acting classes and for audition purposes.  I remember nervously learning my monologues when I was auditioning for acting schools, working them until they felt like they were a part of me. 

Below are a few guidelines for student and community theatre actors about preparing a monologue, whether it is for an audition or a performance, a stand alone piece, or part of play. 

MAKE SURE YOU KNOW THE PLAY
If you have taken a monologue from a play for an audition or acting class purposes, make sure you have read the ENTIRE play before performing the monologue.  This is vital in understanding where the character is, what there goals are, what they have done so far to achieve them, what obstacles are in their way... all these great questions you need to know the answer to in order to create a compelling performance. 

DEVELOP YOUR CHARACTER
Again, if you are doing a monologue for an audition or for an acting class, you need to develop a character just as you would for an entire play.  You need to develop an appropriate voice, walk, physicality, motivation... in short, all the stuff you would for a standard play. 

WHO IS YOUR CHARACTER TALKING TO?
Obviously, this is important.  Is your character talking to an unseen character?  Are they breaking the fourth wall and talking directly to the audience?  Are they talking to an unseen video camera for a documentary?  Are they talking to themselves, thinking and feeling out loud?  You need to know who you're talking to in order to sharpen your character's intentions. 

WHERE IS YOUR CHARACTER?
Obviously, this is very important as well.  People behave differently when in a library than when in a grocery store.  Or in a bedroom or in a Laundromat, etc., etc. 

WHAT DOES YOUR CHARACTER WANT?
This is a question that an actor should be aware of always, monologue or not, because a character is a collection of wants, and the actions they perform to achieve what they want.   In a monologue when it is just you speaking, it is so important to be precise in what your character wants.  Otherwise, why bother even have a monologue?  Your character needs to earn their speeches, remember.

BE CONFIDENT IN YOUR MEMORIZATION
You may not believe what I'm about to tell you.  In fact, you might be thinking, "Bobby, you're crazy."  But I have found, in my experience, that memorizing a monologue is actually quite a bit easier than memorizing little tiny lines that pop in here and there throughout a play.  Having said this, it is important to be confident in your knowledge of the piece.  The last thing you want when trying to engage an audience, teacher, or casting director, is to be thinking..."Oh, no, what's my next line".  You want to know your monologue cold, so that you can stay in the moment as much as possible.  I have always found it helpful to test my memorization by writing out the monologue... more than once.  And, of course, you should be running through it a great deal... a very great deal.  Over and over and over.

And most importantly...

YOU ARE NOT ALONE WHEN YOU ARE PERFORMING A MONOLOGUE!
Just because you are acting by yourself, it doesn't mean that you are not connected to others... your AUDIENCE is your scene partner.  You can play off of their energy as you would another actor onstage.

I hope you have found these tips somewhat helpful.  I know, from my experience, that they have always helped me. 

Until next time, please remember... Theater is a Sport.  Sometimes even a solo sport.

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5 Tips For Improving Your Improvisation!

Yours Truly, Bobby Keniston

So today at Theater is a Sport, I'm talking about improvisation and how it relates to theatre, particularly in school and community theatre. 

To answer the first question you must all be thinking.... WHAT IS IMPROVISATION?

In simplest terms (or, at least in the terms I think of it), improvisation is the act of creation with no (or very limited) preparation.  It is diving in and just creating.  It's being spontaneous. 

Because of this almost freestyle nature, improvisation can make many newcomers to theatre nervous.  Scared, even.  Heck, even I get nervous when playing improvisation theater games from time to time. 

It's acting without a safety net (the safety net being lines written for you).

But, then, here's another question:  WHY IMPROVISATION?  WHAT'S THE POINT?

However, I'm a firm believer in improvisation and its uses in character development and really digging into questions of motivation and "as ifs".  Not to mention, it can be SO MUCH FUN.  It's a great way to learn to trust yourself, and trust your cast mates.  And, if you can become proficient at improvisation, it truly comes in handy when you get on stage and something goes awry. 

In a sense, I believe Improvisation to be the purest form of acting, really.  The goal of any play should be to appear like it's happening right there in the moment, and the performers should appear to be creating their own lines and actions.  It's trying to create the notion of improvisation, only you've had rehearsal and lines written for you. 

And, my favorite thing about improvisation is that it makes the two biggest rules of acting come to startling life:  LOOKING and LISTENING.  And then, REACTING.

So here are a few tips for spontaneously creating a scene when playing theatre games or learning to improvise.  Hopefully these tips will help you to keep a scene going:

TIP #1:  I did not invent this, and anyone who has ever had any experience with improvisation has probably heard it:  YES, AND...  What this means is that you should take what your partner gives you, and treat it as fact.  And then build on it. 
For example:    
PARTNER A:  Boy you sure are getting fat!
PARTNER B:  It's the Ho-Hos, man.  They call to me in the middle of the night.  It's like I'm cheating on my wife with snack treats!
That's accepting what your partner is giving you, and building on it.  This scene could now go in different directions, with the subplot of the wife o what-have-you.
Now, Partner B might be as skinny as a rail, but not in the truth of this improvisation. 

TIP #2:  ESTABLISH YOUR CHARACTER ASAP!  When improvising a scene, it's a good idea to cut the malarkey and get right into it.  Audiences will want to know who you are from the get-go. 
For example:
PARTNER A:  Doctor, help me!  My arm was just cut off!
PARTNER B:  Careful!  Your dripping blood all over my examining room!  Don't you have any manners?
Right away, Partner A has established him or herself as a person in dire need of medical attention, and Partner B has built on that, making his or her doctor a bit fussy and unfeeling.  This scene could build in many interesting ways. 

TIP #3:  Some call this setting up a BLOCK and some call it DENYING, and both those terms are true, but I'll put a more positive spin on it:  GO ON THE JOURNEY WITH YOUR PARTNER.  Remember that in an improvised scene, it is not about YOU.  It's about you and your partner(s) working together as a team.  Blocking or denying your partner is a way to kill a scene very quickly, which, obviously, is the exact opposite of what you want to do. 
Here is an example:
PARTNER A:  Doctor, help me!  My arm was just cut off!
PARTNER B:  Your arm is right there.  And I'm not a doctor.
And another:
PARTNER A:  Is this your first frat party?
PARTNER B:  What are you talking about?  I'm in the supermarket!
And another:
PARTNER A: (miming holding a puppy)  Do you like my new puppy?
PARTNER B:  There's nothing there!
See what I'm talking about?  Go with your partner.  This is all part of Yes, and... to an extent, but it's more than that, too.  It's about moving in synch with the person you're performing with, and not shooting down their creations. 

TIP #4:  KEEP RAISING THE STAKES!  Just like a scripted scene, a performance is more interesting if the stakes keep going up, and the action keeps rising and rising.  Scenes are interesting if they build.  No one wants to see something stay on the same level for too long.  It's boring.  Part of the point of improvisation is for you and your partner to keep building, just like a written scene should keep building.  Now, fun improvisations often go off and build in a somewhat exaggerated or surreal fashion, but that's okay, too.  As long as it builds.

TIP #5:  RELAX AND DON'T BE IN YOUR HEAD TOO MUCH!  You're going to be a very nervous improviser if you stay in your head too much.  If you keep worrying, "I don't know what to say, I don't know what to say, I don't know what to say...", then guess what?  You're not going to know what to say.  But if you really look, listen, and put trust in yourself and your partner, then you can do this.  Don't worry about being as funny as the Upright Citizen's Brigade, or Drew Carey's Improv shows.  In fact, right now, don't worry about being funny at all.  In fact, don't worry.

Just make a scene.  Relax.  Create.  You'll be fine.  No one's life is hanging in the balance.

Remember, improvisation can be a really great time, if you can let yourself go. 

And also remember--- theater is a sport.

Any questions or comments?  Let me have 'em!  Share them with me below, or send me an e-mail at theater.is.a.sport@gmail.com!

SO YOU WANT TO BE A VILLIAN: Tips on how to play a bad guy (or gal)

Erin Boyer, a former student, playing the Serpent in a production of "The Apple Tree" that I directed for Foxcroft Academy.  Costume and photo courtesy of Michaela Petrovich.

Today at Theater is a Sport, I thought I would talk about something fun:  being a villain on stage.

One of the reasons people become involved with community theater is to discover a world outside of who they are, to pretend to be someone completely different.  And, since most average people are not villains, per se, being cast in a bad guy or bad gal role can be one of the greatest joys for an otherwise really nice actor. 

I have played my share of morally questionable people over the years, from a womanizing cross-dresser, to a one-eyed grave-robbing minstrel in the Middle Ages, but the most genuine villain I probably ever played was the part of Chillingworth in an adaptation of The Scarlet Letter.  As with every role I tackle, I took this role very seriously, and spent a good deal of time developing a believable character.  Whether I succeeded or not is not really up to me to decide, but I was proud of the work that I accomplished.  And, along the way, I discovered some things that helped me out in playing a villain, and I will share them now with you:

TIP #1:  IF YOU'RE PLAYING A DEVIL, FIND THE ANGEL IN HIM OR HER!  Even if you're playing the baddest of bad people, it is important as an actor to find some good in them.  Maybe you discover when doing research for playing Adolf Hitler, that he apparently loved and doted on his dogs.  Now, perhaps there is no scene in the play that shows him playing with his dogs, but, just knowing this tidbit as an actor can help you show the human behind the monster.  Remember, a villain is still human.

TIP #2:  REMEMBER--- A VILLAIN IS THE HERO OF THEIR OWN STORY.   By and large, for most plays, this rule is true.  Most bad guys or villains don't even realize that they are villains (except for a very few, like Iago in Othello who is perfectly aware that he is evil).  Remember that in most stories, the villain just happens to have a conflicting objective than that of the hero.  In their own mind, what they want and what they are doing to get it may be the morally correct choice from their perspective.  In a way, this makes the characters even scarier a good deal of the time.

TIP #3:  SOMETIMES, MORE IS LESS!  Unless the play calls for you to be a very over-the-top villain, you may not want to start practicing cheesy "evil laughs" or angry shouting.  Sometimes, the best way for a villain to show their power and control is to be a little understated.  A person can sound far more dangerous threatening a person in a low tone of voice than shouting at them.  Talk about these types of choices with your director.  After all, how often does Anthony Hopkins raise his voice as Hannibal Lector in The Silence of the Lambs?  Not very many. 

TIP #4:  HOMEWORK--- OBJECTIVES AND MOTIVATION (AND A LITTLE SUBTEXT)  These things are important to look at no matter what part you are playing, but they are particularly important to examine closely and precisely if you are playing a villain.  Objectives:  what does your bad guy or gal truly want?  Why do they want it?  What do they hope to gain by achieving this goal?  Motivation:  What happened in the characters life that made them the way they are (this may not be provided by the script).  Create a backstory to give yourself proper motivation and incentive if these ideas are not expressly identified in the text.  Subtext:  this is looking at every line, ever action, and finding clues about what makes your character tick and what they are truly saying.

TIP #5:  MUSIC, SWEET MUSIC!  When I was playing Chillingworth, who was  a very angry villain, I would listen to angry music to help put me in that mindset.  Since then, I have tried to find the right music for ever character I play.  This does not mean that it has to be music that your character would listen to (I listened to Eminem and Metallica to get angry for Chillingworth), but just something that helps you as an actor.  This, of course, is for everybody, not just for villains, I just happened to discover how effective it was for me getting me revved up to play the bad guy.

I hope you have enjoyed these little tips.  Perhaps soon, I shall write a post about how to play a saint. 

Until then, may you be truly and humanly bad, and remember--- theater is a sport.

REHEARSAL NUMBER 2: Bobby Offers Advice to Community Theater Directors

REHEARSAL

#2

Greetings and salutations everyone.  My name is Bobby Keniston, and I would like to welcome you to Theater is a Sport, a blog run by me, Bobby Keniston, a realtively young man who has been obsessed with theater my entire life.  If you are a student actor, a playwright, a community theater junkie, or a plain old drama geek, you have come to the right place.  As Shel Silverstein might say, "Come in.  We have some tales to spin.  Come in.  Come in."

At this moment, aside from listening to the Magnetic Fields sing 69 love songs, I am sitting at my computer hoping to relay a little bit of advice to community theater directors about what to do at your second rehearsal.  A good while back, I wrote a post about the importance of a read-through and table work in general, and, assuming you agree, it is now time to talk about the first rehearsal away from the table. 

First of all, don't get me wrong--- there are some plays of complex themes and language that may require more than just a single rehearsal of table work.  If you are directing that sort of play, then, by all means, stay at the table if you must.  However, in my experience, I have found that the sooner the actors are up and moving around finding their characters in their voices and bodies, the better.  Clearly movement is very important on stage, and there is no time like the present to have your actors begin to start to feel things in their frames, renting out their bodies to their characters. 

Remember as I move forward that I am talking about community theater here.  The advice I am about to present is intended for amateur productions, where most of my experience as a director exists.  What I will present is also applicable to school theater, where I also have done a great deal of work.

When I direct community theater, which is composed of very game, often talented, but by and large untrained actors, I like to treat early rehearsals as almost an introduction to acting class.  In fact, I had an actor from one of my community theater productions tell me (in a positive tone) that after working with me, he felt like he deserved credit for basic acting college course.  WhileI don't know if that is true (although this young gentleman did learn a lot and grow exponentially), I do think education is part of being a community theater director (obviously it is the most important part of being a school director).

This is why, following the table work, I like to devote at least two, maybe more, rehearsals to character work.  Guiding the actors into finding their characters physicalities, voices, motivations, etc.  I like to start with brief physical warm-ups (including some voice stuff), and then move into what I call "The Movie Poster Exercise". 

The Movie Poster Exercise works very well with students, but is also appropriate for community theaters as well.  Have the actors close their eyes and focus on their breathing (they should be standing).  Pay attention to actors' breathing at this early stage, making sure they utilize dropping their breath into their middle (or diaphragm, as it is called).  Right from the start, make sure to encourage this type of breathing, as it will save you time later when dealing with vocal projection...

But I digress.

So, with their eyes closed, tell your actors to imagine their characters in their minds as if their characters were the stars of their own movies, and to picture how they would look as the hero on their own movie poster.   Assure your cast that the character need not look like them (one day they will have to look like them, but that's later).  Tell them to focus on how their character is standing, what body part do they seem to be leading with or exaggerating, what expression is on their face, how is their posture, etc.  Have them get a clear picture of this in their heads.  Then, and this is why their eyes are closed (so they won't feel silly or shy), have them slowly start to bring this posture into their own bodies.  Have them mimic their characters' movie posters with their own bodies.  Then, as they all seem confident, have them exaggerate it (use the idea of levels 1-10, and make them show this posture at an exaggerated 10, and then mess with different levels).  

Once you are through with this, have them drop it and return their bodies to neutral and open their eyes.  Now, I have found, is a good time to have them walk throuh the space, milling and seething as it is called.... have them start nomally, then play with the speeds (double speed, triple speed, half speed), making sure they do not bump into each other.  After a bit of having them walk as themselves, encourage them to start thinking of their characters' movie poster and start bringing that posture into how they walk.  Have them walk as their characters in a variety of different speeds.  After this exercise where everyone is doing it together, you might want to have people shar some things individually, point out where their character appears to be "leading from" and whether or not it is their intetion.  This is a great way to start having your actors creatively begin to "own" their characters, which is what every director should want.  Remember, you are their to guide and get a vision across, but it is very important to allow your actors to feel creative and to build their characters (if there is something that you feel is completely wrong, of course you will have to steer them in a different direction).  But this rehearsal should be a kind of productive play (after all, it is called a "play" for a reason).  This is all very fun, but it is also all very much a kind of work, too.  

In fact, the very foundation of work that everything else will build from.

In future posts I will happily be talking about character's voices, using improvisation in rehearsals, and all kinds of other stuff.  Thank you for tuning in tonight.

Until next time, feel free to check out the links below and remember--- theater is a sport.

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