Do you suck at memorizing strains? Let’s change that. No extra excuses, no extra self-tapes the place you’re looking at your script half the time, or staring on the casting assistant in the midst of your CBS pilot audition questioning when you will completely neglect the place you’re, lose your web page, smile nervously, and take a very lengthy awkward pause in the midst of your scene when you attempt to discover your line and get well, all of the whereas questioning simply how unhealthy your suggestions out of your agent goes to be.
You’re an actor, sure? You’ll spend the remainder of your profession occurring final minute auditions, or having strains modified the day of your shoot I need you to know what you’re doing. Casting administrators and showrunners need you to know what you’re doing. Sure, I do know. “The script is available in late final evening whereas I used to be in the midst of a shift.” Or like 9am the DAY OF the audition, and there are 5 scenes, one among them together with a monologue with a bunch of medical jargon. F*&ck. How in God’s identify do you memorize all these strains and “make the character yours” when you’ll be able to’t even bear in mind the place you place your Subway card? How do you “join” to the reader when are hungover, drained, and have 3 extra auditions and have you ever choose your child up from day care, all earlier than your 5pm temp shift?
There’ll at all times be somebody extra memorized than you, do not forget that. Like sitting proper subsequent to you within the ready room. So up your sport, cease making excuses, and discover ways to memorize strains just like the unhealthy@ss you’re. I do not need you dropping out on a visitor spot on “Blue Bloods” since you could not get by means of your speech to Tom Selleck’s character within the producer session, and needed to say “I am sorry, can I begin once more?” like 3 occasions. No, you’ll be able to’t.
Let’s repair this, sure? Listed below are my two prime methods to memorize shortly. I have been utilizing them for a really very long time, and recommending them to my college students.
1. Get the rehearsal Professional app to your telephone. Simply do it. It is $19.95. Simply chill on the Starbucks for 3 days. This one is a sport changer. It’s the best, most actor pleasant app available on the market, and helps you memorize enormous quantities of dialogue shortly. I do not work for them, I do not know them. I similar to it. You import the scene, spotlight your strains, document them, and it performs again in a loop till you may have them down pat. You possibly can work on it within the card, on the subway, within the ready room, or doing the Stairmaster. You possibly can black out the opposite character’s strains in order for you, do every kind of various voices, and get your freak on. However most significantly, you get an incredible sense of the rhythm of the scene, so that you’re prepared and versatile once you stroll into the audition room. (Tip: When recording, whisper your strains, and say the opposite characters’ strains out loud. This can assist you depart the correct quantity of house for strains, and likewise will stop you from listening to your strains out loud and getting locked right into a “sample” of claiming it).
2. Write out your strains. Do individuals nonetheless use pen and paper? I have been doing this since my highschool drama trainer steered it after I needed to memorize a bunch of monologues for a half ass manufacturing of Molier’s “Tartuffe.” Write out all your strains within the scene as one massive paragraph (not the opposite characters), then write it out a number of extra occasions, breaking it up into smaller and smaller ideas every time. This appears time consuming, however it’s not. It is superb, and actually provides you a really feel for the arc of the scene, and likewise actually provides you a deeper understanding of the character and the thought course of. Writing out strains provides you this superb capacity to attach the thoughts to the web page, and actually helps you get the strains down chilly, particularly when you may have an audition for Aaron Sorkin and might’t mess up a single phrase.
3. Improvise the scene. Significantly. In case your 60 12 months outdated roommate sucks at it, and your mother is just too busy telling you to surrender on this performing factor, get an actor pal and have them actually run by means of the scene with you in your individual phrases, many occasions, and many various methods. It provides you a fuller, extra three dimensional really feel for the scene, fills out the connection between the characters, and you then layer the strains on on the finish. By memorizing the sequence of occasions within the scene, the strains come quite a bit simpler, and have a brisker really feel to them.
Strive it. Belief me. Discover your “factor.” Be good at this. Please? Whittle your prep time down to love an hour and save your sanity each time one among these final minute auditions are available. Or hold doing the factor the place you cowl your strains together with your hand, and spend like a number of days making an attempt to get the strains proper. That one by no means labored for me.
I like you. Good luck!
