Character Creation Exercises: 3 Line Scenes, Taking Direction and Working On A Prescribed Set

HOW TO DO 3 LINE SCENES: With the scenes you're given, adapt it in a way where you can only say 3 words maximum in every line you get. This may be a challenge at first put the more you work hard at doing it, the easier it'll get. For example, in my scene, the first line I have is " And you look like a fat old man." One of the things I could do to change it to a 3 line sentence, I could say " You're so fat! ". Hopefully, transforming my lines into only 3 words could teach me how to interpret lines in different ways.

I think 3 line scenes are helpful because it teaches us to work harder on strongly portraying our emotions more in our lines rather than relying only on the words we have to learn for our character. It helps us to use our emotions more than our lines.

TAKING DIRECTION: Taking direction is when you take on board constructive criticism and then improve your scene based on it. A good actor/actress would not ignore the direction being given as it could help them to improve in their acting skills. Usually, direction is given to you by your director (my teacher Mr Rennison) or your peers (my theatre class). As we are all learning how to became the great actors/actresses we can be, it is important we all listen to each other and help each other out. At the end of the day, we all want to succeed and do well in theatre.

I think taking direction is important because it allows you to hear someone else's point of view rather than your own on your acting skills. It helps you to progress as an actress/actor and gives you guidance. Sometimes, we aren't aware of the mistakes me make. Because of this, taking directions from other people will help you to realize the mistakes you are making and transform them into something positive that can contribute to your performance.

WORKING ON A PRESCRIBED SET: Working on a prescribed set is when you are aware of how your scene is going to be set e.g. what props are involved, where the furniture will be placed, entering and exit locations and etc. 

It is important that we remember that we are working on a prescribed set so that we know how to use the space we are given properly. It is vital that we move around during our scene and don't just stick to one place as our audience could get bored and lose interest in our scene. Moving around and working with what we have in our scene will help us to feel more comfortable and free during out performance which will engage the audience more.