learning lines

Sigh.. we've all got to do it... and lets face it, sometimes there is just too much going on in your life, especially if you're a student like me, to sit down and concentrate for a few hours on a piece of paper.

Right now I'm learning lines for Joanna in Present Laughter. And I have some tips that may or may not help you when it comes to learning lines:

Firstly, do it scene by scene and page by page. Read the scene. Read the entire scene first and find out what is my character saying in this scene? what is the aim or motivations for what they are saying? Understand what is happening in the scene first and you'll learn the lines way quicker than if you try learn it line by line and not focus on what that character is saying.


 Second. Go back to the top of the scene and set a goal, for example I'm going to learn from page 200-201. Goals always help me and if you sit down and put a time limit on it then it tends to help. so lets say you're going to learn page 200-201 in the next 10mins.

Thirdly, read it twice, and concentrate on the words, even over exaggerate the words and say every syllable in your head. You already know the meaning of the conversation as you've done step one. So now you have to get your mouth used to saying those words and the sounds they make on your ear.

Fourth, After reading it twice. Read it again as if you have just thought of those words, you were actually having a conversation with someone. and then look away and see how much of the lines do you know?

Fifth, look back and see what you remembered. If it helps, act it out as you're saying it. I normally don't act it out, i tend to look at the line, look away and say it, look back and read it then look away again.

I hope that helps anyone learning lines at the minute. That's just my technique so hopefully that helps....

um, thanks for reading!

Peach