Acting
Everyone wants to act! Here are ideas and activities to help you do your best.
Click on My Vocabulary
to write in the drama words you want to put in your dictionary.
It is important for actors to be ready for a rehearsal
or a performance. We’ve started with warm-ups!
warm-up – exercises to
get your body ready to move, your
voice ready to speak loudly enough to be heard and your mind ready to
focus on your rehearsal or performance. See the theatre
warm-up example. 
improvisation -
making something up as you go along.
Improvisation is making up what you say and what you do. We all improvise
every day when we talk to our friends and our family. We can improvise
drama. We won't have to write down what the characters say. We'll make
it up as we go along.
Check out the improvisation
examples.
knowing your character - Actors need
to know all about
their characters so they can pretend to be the characters and do what
the characters do. They need to know what the characters look like, what
they’ve done in the past, what they like to do, what they hate doing.
They need to know what their characters want, their motivation.
They find out most of this by reading the play. Then they need to use
their imaginations to make up even more about their characters. Their
characters should be as interesting as living persons.
motivation – why a character does
something; actors and
playwrights need to know why a character acts that way. For example, Peter
doesn’t listen in class. He scribbles on his paper. He doesn’t
write the answers to the test. He is very worried because his best friend
is in the hospital. The doctors only let Jimmy’s family see him. Peter
wants to find out for himself if Jimmy will be ok. He's not thinking about
his schoolwork. This is Peter's motivation for not listening. He is thinking about his friend.
rehearse – practice a play. It
is important for the actors to
go over their parts until they know what they are going say and how they
are going to say it. They should also know what they are going to do.
They need to know where they are going to move and what props they are going to use. Usually they start a rehearsal with a warmup.
relax – not be nervous so you
can do your best job. The
warmup should help. Knowing what you need to say and do will also help.
Believe in yourself. Everyone can do a fine job with school plays!
 concentration
– The actors need to think very hard about their characters
when they are pretending to be the characters in the play. Sometimes when
you are nervous or unsure of what you should do, it is easy to giggle
and stop being the character. This is when it is important to concentrate
on the character and the other characters in the play.
listening – Actors need to listen
to what the other actors
say. It is very important when you act, to not just
say your character's dialogue. The play should seem real. In real life,
we aren’t repeating lines we’ve memorized. We listen and answer
those we are talking with.
 movement/action
– how the actors move, what they do. The actors should
move the way the characters would move. For instance, a ninety-year-old
great grandmother will not move the same way her five-year-old granddaughter
moves.
gesture – hand and arm movement.
When telling a story or reading a play, big movements aren’t too
easy. But it is important to include some hand and arm
movements to highlight what you are saying.
fencing – fighting with swords.
There’s lots of fencing in
Shakespeare’s plays. It was how people fought a long time ago.
vocal variety – breath, volume, diction, pitch and rate
- making your voice louder or softer, higher or lower, slower or faster to be interesting
– and heard.
breath- Actors need to breathe deeply so they can be
relaxed and have a good “outside” voice.
volume - how loud you speak. It is important for the
actors to speak with enough volume, loudly enough, for the audience to
hear what is said.
diction – speaking clearly so that every word can
be
understood
pitch – how high or low your voice is, varying your pitch to give meaning to what you say
rate – how fast or slow you speak. This also adds interest to what you say, but speaking too fast can make it hard for the audience to understand what you are saying.
See the vocal warm-up exercises.
play reading –
actors reading a play out loud. In a play
reading, the actors often sit in chairs in front of the audience. Sometimes
they stand behind lecterns or music stands so they can put the script
in front of them. This way it is easier for them to look at the audience
and to gesture, make hand and arm movements to help the
audience understand how the character is feeling.
Usually one actor reads the lines for one character.
Sometimes when there are many characters in a play, an actor may read
the lines for several characters.
One actor reads the stage directions.
It is important for the actors to know their characters and the script so they can make the reading interesting. They need to
know what their characters are saying – and why. They also need to
make certain the audience understands all that is being read.
The actors need:
- volume – being loud enough to be heard
- good diction – saying the words clearly so
the audience will understand the words
- vocal variety – using a loud or soft voice
to fit the meaning of the play; going slow or faster to make the play
more interesting
- eye contact – looking at the audience
as often as possible to keep their interest
  
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