High School Plays

[The Sevenshot Kid]

This week I tried out for a play and I got a role. This was the second play I've ever tried out for, and I got a part in the last one I tried out for. I'm really excited because the cast is great and the directors know what they're doing.

Problem: I've only ever had to memorize four lines, and now I have a lead role with a lot more than four lines. Do any of you know an easy or effective way to memorize lines?

[POS Industries]

Originally Posted by The Gunslinger

Problem: I've only ever had to memorize four lines, and now I have a lead role with a lot more than four lines. Do any of you know an easy or effective way to memorize lines?

First of all, congratulations!

Secondly, it's all about repetition. You should be running on-book for probably a couple weeks during rehearsal, which is to get you used to hearing your castmates' lines and associating the sound of your own with theirs and be able to recall everything reflexively, and once you go off-book they'll be sure to feed you lines as necessary until you get the hang of it.

If you really want to get ahead of the game, though, just have a friend run through your lines with you as much as you can outside of rehearsals until you eventually get them memorized. This isn't a particularly bad idea because then you'll be able to focus more of your attention during the rehearsals themselves on blocking and delivery.

[Premmy]

Having folks on your off time to read the lines with you is very good, it lets you get your timing, plus, it prevents confusion in memorizing them yourself.

[The Sevenshot Kid]

Thank you. I'm gonna start going over them with people as often as I can.

I thought it was weird that I got the part because on the first day of tryouts I forgot to face the audience. I suspected that a more experienced senior would have nabbed it, not some silly freshman who accidentally pissed off a director on the first day.

[POS Industries]

Originally Posted by The Gunslinger

I thought it was weird that I got the part because on the first day of tryouts I forgot to face the audience. I suspected that a more experienced senior would have nabbed it, not some silly freshman who accidentally pissed off a director on the first day.

Well, if I know high school play directors, they usually go with whoever looks most like what they want for the character rather than talent or experience and just figure whatever amount of terrible acting they're chosen auditioner is doing can be fixed in rehearsal. Actually this is pretty much how all casting works, high school, professional, or otherwise, but you know what I mean.

I'm sure you'll get the hang of it quickly enough.

[Meister]

Originally Posted by POS Industries

Secondly, it's all about repetition. You should be running on-book for probably a couple weeks during rehearsal, which is to get you used to hearing your castmates' lines and associating the sound of your own with theirs and be able to recall everything reflexively, and once you go off-book they'll be sure to feed you lines as necessary until you get the hang of it.

Came in to say pretty much this only, being me, probably in a much more roundabout way. Most likely somewhere along the line there'll simply be a point where you realize you're not even looking at the text anymore.

It's funny how much I hear about other high school drama clubs holding official castings. Ours never had anything of the sort because most of the time there weren't enough people in the club to hold a casting. Usually we'd go over the scripts and pick people half by experience with certain types of roles ("this guy undresses in act 2; Daniel, your part again"), half by necessity. Then we'd go through the classrooms and recruit friends ("hey, we need a guy to prance around in a dress in front of everyone. Come by tomorrow afternoon. Or else.").

[POS Industries]

Originally Posted by Meister

It's funny how much I hear about other high school drama clubs holding official castings. Ours never had anything of the sort because most of the time there weren't enough people in the club to hold a casting. Usually we'd go over the scripts and pick people half by experience with certain types of roles ("this guy undresses in act 2; Daniel, your part again"), half by necessity. Then we'd go through the classrooms and recruit friends ("hey, we need a guy to prance around in a dress in front of everyone. Come by tomorrow afternoon. Or else.").

See, my high school tended to excel more at arts than sports (the occasional lone superstar athlete on any given team excluded), plus a HUGE student body (my graduating class alone was something like 300 people), so things like plays tended to be pretty big productions with three or four faculty directors and a pretty professional (or at least what would be considered "professional" for theatre) attitude about the whole thing as well as a lot of people wanting to get in on it.

Of course, in order to fit everyone in to whatever plays the directors wanted to do, silly things would happen like shows written for small ensemble casts where each actor was intended to play several different roles being changed into huge cast productions where each character was given to a specific person who and everyone but the lead ending up with one or two lines.

[Amake]

I think it's just a matter of paying attention. I did The Hero of the Green Island once, in high school, and it seemed like a pretty boring story at first. Other classes were doing things like Peer Gynt and The Treepenny Opera and A Midsummer Night's Dream and such things that people have heard of. . .speaking of which, what are you playing?

Whatever it is, once you live with it every day for a year I think any story grows on you. I had about four lines myself, but I knew the whole thing forwards and backwards, actually saved the performance one time when the lead mixed up his lines and everyone froze up in panic.

This post has been made possible by a generous grant from High School Nostalgia foundation.

[Meister]

Originally Posted by POS Industries

silly things would happen like shows written for small ensemble casts where each actor was intended to play several different roles being changed into huge cast productions where each character was given to a specific person who and everyone but the lead ending up with one or two lines.

We usually had three times as many girls as guys interested in participating so we'd often do things the other way around and one or two of us ended up playing two different roles. I remember once I had two roles that required me to walk offstage, dress completely differently within 30 seconds or so and walk right back on.

I actually wrote a play once that we performed. (I should say I and some other students in literature class wrote it but even they were the first ones to stress I did the majority of the work so whatever.) It was silly and shallow and probably had enormous plot holes but it also had its genuinely funny moments. What we were supposed to do in this class was write a play about the man the school was named after, and it ended up being about him returning to the mortal realm from Heaven's Waiting Room to solve a murder at the school together with some very silly policemen and Death himself.

The police were probably the best part but a special mention goes to the guy who agreed, with alarmingly little fuss, to have his head shaved bald (male pattern, not completely) to create what can only be described as the spitting image of the school principal, all for about one minute of stage time.

This post has been made possible by a generous grant from High School Nostalgia foundation.

Hah, no kidding.

[The Sevenshot Kid]

There were only thirteen guys with seven roles and at least twenty-five girls with eleven roles. The play is called Curtain Going Up! and its about a new drama teacher, Ms. Burgess, trying to put up a successful production amongst all the chaos. I play Mr. Carter, her love interest and fellow teacher.

Since the town I live in is kinda small, there is more focus on athletics than drama but some of our best actors are also the best athletes. Our school has a history of producing athletes and musicians.