The First Commandment of Theatre

1. The First Commandment of Theatre Thou shalt thoroughly research thy character.

2. First Stop • The text/script • All of the main information that you will need to know about a character will be in the script. • What do I do if my character is a real historical figure?

3. Stop 2 • The Library • Read anything and everything about your historical figure. • Read anything and everything about the playwright. • This is where you can research the play and discover why the playwright wrote the play and who did he/she base the characters off of?

4. Let the Questioning Begin! • Who is your character? • This isn’t just the simple facts like name, age, and gender. We want to ask deeper questions. • Personality type • Likes • Dislikes • Fears

5. What is your Character’s past? • You will get a little of this information from the script. Especially if relationships are talked about in the dialogue. • What was your childhood like? • Where there any tragic events in your past? • What was the greatest moment in your characters past? You will have to use your imagination for these!

6. How does your character move? • This applies to physical movement. • Hunched over? • Limp? Which leg? • Pacing? • Prideful? • Posture What does your character’s movement suggest about your characters personality and/or frame of mind?

7. What is said about your character? • This is where we go back into the script and see what other characters think about your character. • Is your character liked/disliked by other characters? • How do other characters feel about your character?

8. Where are you? • Where is the play set? • What time period? • What season? • What time of day? How does knowing these things change your character and his/her behavior?

9. What is the style of Play? • Drama • Comedy • Musical Theatre • Melodrama How does the style change your character’s behavior/movement?

10. What does your character want? • What is your character’s ultimate goal (super objective)? • What is your character willing to do in order to get what they want? • What does your character want in the immediate scene?

11. Why does your character want what they want? • What is the motivation behind your character’s objective.

12. How bad does your character need to achieve their objective? • What is the urgency level? • Does the urgency level change the behavior?

13. Who has what your character wants? • Who is keeping you from achieving your objective? • Do they know that they are standing in your way? • What are they doing to keep you from getting what you want?

14. How does your character go about getting what they want? • What actions does your character take? List some ways that your character has attempted to achieve their goal (you get these answers from the script)

15. What are the obstacles? • What and/or who keeps getting in the way of you achieving your objective? • Sometimes it happens to be you.

16. How does your character change? • Your character will go through some sort of change, what is it? • Does your character achieve their super objective? How does this change them?