UNIT VI. Character
creating a character
MAIN OBJECTIVES:
1) Introduce and practice the concept of motivation
2) Introduce and practice the concept of subtext
3) Practice showing emotion as a character
4) Practice playing a character with specific qualities
1. WARM-UPS
Lead two or three physical and vocal warm-up activities.
2. SKILL BUILDING
Motivated Movement (Character, Inner Justification) Explain to the students that they should never do anything on stage just because the director told them to. Their character should always have a reason for moving or speaking. This reason is called their motivation—and it will determine how you speak and move.
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Mime Emotion (Character, Body Awareness) Explain to the students: If you are playing a character, you have to know how to express what a character is feeling—often without words. Body language speaks volumes to the audience.
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What’s Behind the Line? (Character, Inner Justification) Explain that our voice relays emotion, intent, and purpose by the way we use volume, pitch, and emphasis on each word. As an actor, you’re given lines, but they’re just words till you use your voice to convey the meaning. A line can mean something completely different depending on how you say it. The meaning behind a line is called the “subtext.”
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Character Painting (Character)
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3. CLOSING ACTIVITY
Play any game from a previous lesson you think would help reinforce skills learned so far.
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Curtains Up Curriculum by Friends of the Groom Theater Co. is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International License. Curtains Up is a training program designed for young actors, sponsored by Friends of the Groom Theater Company.
It is available to the general public for free under the terms of the Creative Commons License above.