In performance there are a variety of skills and activities we jest have and do. For example we must always start off with a warmup, because we need to keep our voices healthy, after all, our voices are our tools, our body is our toolbox. So we need to do a vocal warmup and a physical warmup, you could argue that a vocal warmup is much better than a physical one for actors, dancers, and singers. And the reason for the vocal warmup being more important is because as actors, without our voices were nothing, we need our voices to do our job, so that’s why a vocal warmup takes priority. But at the same time you could argue, what if you had a big role that your required to do stuff that could possibly injure your body, well in that case a physical warmup takes priority.
Memorisation is a key skill/technique that any, and every actor needs. Memorisation is the ability to learn your lines to an exceptional level, but if you want to go further beyond that, you would have to learn the entire play.. or not the entire play but everything on all the scenes that you are in. And if you want Togo a step further, you could learn everyone else’s lines not to perform them, but to help you identify the mood, tone, pitch all of those things that you will need to know when your going on stage.
Rehearsal process, is the steps taken towards a rehearsal. For example you would make a roadmap of everything you need to do, leading to that one final rehearsal. So it would go somewhat like this; vocal/physical warmup -> read through/ learn the play -> learn lines -> learn others lines -> actions -> mini rehearsal -> lighting -> music -> final rehearsal -> audience -> performance
Lastly, research is as important, if not more important than anything I were to talk about on here. Basically research is needed so that you have a good knowledge of the play, for example, where it’s set or when it’s set. This can really impact and improve your performance, for example if the play was set in 1950’s women and children would be treated much more differently than they are now or is it’s set in Spain, cultural beliefs of that time could also take a big role. However research goes much further than that, it extends to your character too, you need to know how your character behaves, and why they behave that way, what happened in their past that made them act this way, always ask why and if there is no explanation is the play start asking “what if”. Doing this as well is good because your then utilising the given circumstances and magic of techniques which are golden for and actor to know and if used correctly, a character that could have been a mere bar of gold could evolve into a goldmine of creativity and lore. However there is one more thing that research can be applied to, and that is audience. To know your play, you must know your audience, if my play is quite a gruesome one my target audience won’t be women and children it would be more aimed at middle aged men that like gruesome stuff like ‘saw’ obviously there would still be women that like that kind of stuff maybe even children I don’t know, it could be completely unexpected but that’s why you need to be able to adapt as an actor.
NickForstmanClarendon 