March 20, 2010
Memorizing Scripts – No Shortcut for Hard Work
Posted by Michael in : Acting , trackback
It’s a Saturday night. Your actors have shown up for the final rehearsal for the sketch for 
tomorrow’s worship service. You really want to work on polishing the performance till it shines. And you’d be able to do it, too, if it wasn’t for that one guy.
You know who I’m talking about. It’s that one person who doesn’t have his or her lines memorized yet. But they’ll have them memorized by tomorrow, they promise. Of course, you know that you’ll be sweating through the entire performance, hoping that the lines all come out in the right order and that the action doesn’t grind to a halt while everybody looks blankly at each other waiting for someone to say their lines.
Look, we all forget our lines – no matter how well we rehearse. I remember doing a sketch at a women’s banquet with a buddy – yes, I’m talking about you, Jimmy Nicka – when I skipped a couple pages of dialogue without realizing it right away. We had rehearsed that script backwards and forwards. I knew the lines cold. But somehow, during the performance, I jumped ahead. We rolled with it, and I got back on track. But it was the longest 20 seconds of my life. Those moments happen.
But I’m talking about people who don’t understand how important it is to memorize their lines as soon as possible. For an actor, knowing your lines is an early step to building a believable character. If you wait till the last minute to learn your lines, you miss out on a lot of the fun of discovering who your character is.
So how do you help your actors learn their lines? The bottom line is it just takes work. You can’t wait to start memorizing lines when you come to rehearsal. It requires time and effort outside of rehearsal. And that’s a big challenge for actors in your drama ministry because they all have full-time jobs or school as well as their own families. It’s tough to find the time, but it’s important to help them see that they need to carve out the time.
I used to write all my lines out in a notebook when I was in a play or sketch. The technique worked for me. Encourage your actors to write out their lines, partner up with someone outside of rehearsals to run the dialogue with them, or type their dialogue into the computer. They need to find what works for them, and do it. Just remember that it’s not going to be easy for most people.
Jim Parsons, who plays Sheldon on “The Big Bang Theory,” spouts lines with such ease that viewers need to keep a dictionary on their laps if they really want to understand all the scientific jargon. He talked about his process for memorizing his complex dialogue. Whether you’re a professional or amateur actor, it’s good to know there’s no substitute for hard work.
I usually have three rehearsals for a sketch. We have our first rehearsal to lock in all of our blocking. I’m not worried about memorizing lines at this point. Sometimes the actors may have received the script in advance, but it’s also likely that they’re getting the script when they show up for the first rehearsal.
Still, this first rehearsal is a good time to pick a few sections, maybe the first page or maybe a couple of key passages here and there, and sit around the table and try to see how well we can memorize those segments. If you can get the actors to have a few segments of dialogue under their belts, it will make their work a little easier before you rehearse again.
The next rehearsal is held the following week, and this is when I typically ask for all lines to be memorized. I let the actors know that in the week between the first and second rehearsals, they need to work hard on locking in their lines so we can rehearse off book. I want to do as much rehearsing without our scripts as possible at this second rehearsal. This way, we can learn where the weak spots are in the memorization, and I can encourage nervous actors to wean themselves from their scripts.
Our third rehearsal is usually a day or two before the worship service or even the morning of. Ideally, all the lines are down, and we can have a short rehearsal to make sure everything is fresh and (hopefully) there aren’t any unexpected problems. And I can enjoy the performance without nearly as much apprehension.
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