Memorizing Lines.

There is no easy way to memorize  lines. You have to go over and over your lines until you know them cold.

You have to be able to say them automatically without giving them any thought. Like a knee jerk reaction. You hear your cue and – whoosh – the line magically pops out of your mouth.

The first thing to do is understand the play and where the plot goes. You need to know what happens first, what happens next, etc. in order to get a feel for what words happen when. Read and read and read the play until you understand the flow of the story.

If you are lucky, your lines will help move the plot along.

Her: Is she arriving tonight?

You:  Yes, I think her car just pulled up.

Your lines might be used to help flesh out a character or a setting. These might be harder to memorize because these lines don’t necessarily “connect” to what’s happening on stage, although they are important to the story.

Him: He’s a bit of a prude.

You: I saw him going into the movie theater yesterday.

Him: He usually stays at home and reads!

Your lines may be there to introduce a song or dance – lucky you, there will probably be some underscoring to cue you in (cue “The RRRain in Spain Stays Main-ly in the Play-hayne”).

There is no easy way to memorize (practice, practice) but everyone has a particular system for making the lines stick:

1. Writing your lives down – may be tedious if you have a big part

2. Talk into a recorder – record your cues and leave a space for your response.

3. Flash cards – with your cues on them; flip them over for your actual line.

4. Cover the line as you are reading them – read your cue, see if you know what your next line is.

5. Work with a partner – he/she must be dedicated to helping you and very patient.

6.  Look carefully for clues or signals in your lines or in your cues. One of the most obvious are alphabetical order (or a change in order). “Don’t be silly. Of course you are. You heard what the Master said.” Look for relations between words – similar prefixes or suffixes. Looks for rhymes. Listen for rhythms. Listen for similar sounding words or sounds.

Him:  She’s crazy.

You: But she keeps everyone on their toes.

7. Discover the key words in your lines. They may provide guideposts and help you move forward.

These aids will only work after you have put in time to memorize. Begin memorizing as soon as you can in case it takes longer than you anticipate. Read the line, look away, and try to commit the words to memory. Repeat many times. You must focus on engaging the brain for this. No true multi-tasking, although many find it useful to move while memorizing.

If you’ve never had to memorize lines before, you may find this need to focus to be a challenging experience but extremely rewarding for two reasons.

One, focusing will enable you to learn your lines.

Two, focusing will help you during the run of the play. How?

In the real world, we live in a world of distractions. Happily, you can memorize where there are distractions – on the subway, in a library, at the park, while working out. When you focus, you find that your brain no longer recognizes the distractions around you and you only think of the words. And this will serve you well when the time comes for performance.  You will have trained your brain to focus. Your focus will be on the actions on stage (and awareness of your audience). When the cell phone goes off, the audience member coughs, or the plane flies overhead, you won’t hear it.

You will be like an athlete making a shot at the foul line  in spite of cheering, and jeering, fans.

Don’t try to begin to memorize lines while you are driving. Your focus has to be on the road. Once your lines are memorization, PERHAPS you can recite while driving. But, please, focus on the road for everybody’s safety.

Rehearsing with your fellow actors will help tremendously as you begin to learn your lines. You will move on stage, adding muscle memory to words. You will hear the lines and inflections of other actors which will help you understand where the scene is going. You may have props and items on the set to work with – it will be easier to remember “How fragile this is,” when you’ve just picked up a piece of glass!

You are allowed to be imperfect during the early rehearsal process.

Learn the line exactly as written. It is not OK to paraphrase or ad lib your lines and consider them memorized. You don’t know which of your words your fellow actor is using for their cue – they are expecting to get their cue from you as written.

After you have a good (not perfect) grip on your lines, you can begin developing your character. But first you have to know your lines.

What tricks have you found to help memorize lines? What are some of the problems you’ve come up against?

Too Much of a Good Thing?

I’ve written too much for the introduction to the January play. The three pages, including quotes, are confusing. Should I knock it down to one? Forget the quotes completely? Just go into the play and assume the audience will figure it out?

But I now like giving the whole play a situation to work within. It gives the play an anchor, in a way. Originally written for high school students, the play had a built-in anchor – “We want you to understand the Sonnets because it’s part of your curriculum.” But, now, people are just walking in off the street, so to speak, and have no assumed context for this play. That it is a series of scenes means that it has no story to tell from beginning to end – it’s just a bunch of potentially unrelated stories. So the intro provides a way for the scenes to connect. A reason for them to exist.

What about the dance at the end? It is traditional. Plus, I want to do it. I’ve almost always added dance to my plays. But will it be confusing to the audience? Or will it provide the energetic and emotional “boost” that I hope it will. Right now, I imagine that the actors will wear contemporary dress, so their dancing will be in jeans, Dockers,  sneakers and boots. The women will probably not be wearing dresses, although dresses would look better for dancing. So how will it all look? I think the ending dance is a great way for each actor to take a bow, but will the audience go for it?

The vision I have in my head is clear, although some of my ideas are stronger than others. Each scene must tell a compelling story. As an audience, we must be engaged with the characters. The part of Shakespeare , the character called “Bard” whose job it is to recite the sonnet during each scene,  is to be shared by all – it’s too big a part for any one person. I would love to have the sonnets recited by actors with different accents. Any way we can blend the contemporary and the “Renaissance-ian” using props, costume pieces, and/or the set, is peachy by me.  In the closing, it would be fun if we could bring the stage hands (if there are any) into the curtain call/dance.

I won’t have time to do all 16 scenes, so I will have to eliminate at least six, possibly seven scenes, depending on how much time the intro ends up taking. I only have 60 minutes, including set up and take down, for the entire play. I also have to have a minimum number of scenes – I can;t go out there with a 25 minute play – and I’m not a writer so I can’t write filler. Scene changes will only take so long, and I can’t have a troubadour come in, singing songs,  to eat up time!

I’m preparing this for a competition. I’m in it to win it.

An Intro is Written

I wrote an introductory scene to the show I will be doing in January. My goal had been to provide some kind of set up so that an audience would have an idea of the “conceit” of the play. I knew the idea in my head, but forgot that the audience is not made up of mind readers. Therefore, I wrote the introduction.

The show starts in a college setting, where students are preparing for some kind of exam on the Sonnets. The students are not happy, because they like neither Shakespeare nor poetry, and the course they are taking is a combination of both. As I have one character say, ” . . . the worst of all possible worlds!”

I also have a group of quotes that I had found that referred to how Shakespere is taught in school, what it’s like delivering lines in front of an audience, and about poetry. I hoped that the quotes would tie everything together.

But, when I gave it to DH to read, he said Nope, my introduction didn’t explain where and what the show would be about, especially with the short – very short – set up for the college setting. That was only five lines (not including the quotes). It would have been finished in under 10 seconds.

So I wrote some more to introduce the school setting and the quotes as transitions to the play itself. I came up with four pages, including the quotes. I think it is clearer now, maybe a little too wordy. I may have to delete some of my favorite quotes, not to mention take words out of people’s mouths. But I want to make it clear to any audience member – who would be coming in with no preconceived notions, perhaps not even knowing they will be seeing a show about Shakespeare – what they will be seeing.

Maybe I should follow that adage – tell people what you’re going to tell them, then tell them, and then tell them what you told them.

Shakespeare’s Sonnets – Doable?

I’m preparing to direct a one-act play involving Shakespeare’s sonnets. I have so much preparation to do, it isn’t funny. Fortunately, I am very enthusiastic about it.

This particular play is written for high school students and is designed to help them understand and relate to Shakespeare’s sonnets. However, the language is stilted and unrealistic for a theatrically knowledgeable audience. I have to “adultify” it and I think that will be a huge challenge. I will use the actors to improv their own language to up the situations a bit. But the scenes are so short – 2 – 5 pages max – that there isn’t much time to get up to speed. Each scene has to start out with a bang.

Plus, the theater I’m working with has a great reputation with Shakespeare!! If I had known that, I would have chosen something else to start out with. But, I found this play  . . . charming . . . in it’s own high school way. Perhaps predictable, but that was part of the challenge I sensed when I first selected it.

Now, however, I’m not sure I’m up to the task. I want it to be great yet I’m thinking that I’ve bitten off more than I can chew.

I’ve learned quite a bit about the Sonnets just by doing research on-line. I know, however, that the actors, all volunteers, will have questions about interpretation, “what does that mean,” etc. Much of that will be their “job” to find out. They can look it up on-line as easily as I can.  However, I have to have a strong enough handle on the works to be able to guide them if they go off track or get really stuck. Plus, I have to know the direction I want the scene to go in – that’s what a director does!!  There are many on-line sites out there where information is available and I could get lost in them for a long time. But I also want to put my own personal stamp on the production. Provide something new and interesting. Or else, what’s the point??

Most importantly, I have to make it “theatrical.” Shakespeare brings so much simply through his wonderful writing and is so easy to get into – if done well. I must bring out the drama, the passion, the fun, the enjoyment and delight which grabbed me and, I hope, grabs an audience and keeps them focused on the action –  on what is going on on-stage. I plan to bring in music and dance. Music is a wonderful “short cut” for many emotions. Who knew that this would be old hat for this theater – I thought I was being musically innovative.

Perhaps this all  just means that I am a good fit for this place. I can only keep my fingers crossed and work hard.