Actor Score Format

Objective

As the character, what is your primary goal and desire? This goal and desire should be placed in the first person singular using the words I want, I need, or I must. A useful and valuable format is: I want to: _________________because ______________ . Remember the objective and your acting decisions must relate to all of the following categories.

Obstacle

What is in the way of you achieving your goals and desires? Is your obstacle a person, a thing, or yourself? Is the obstacle a complexity of those three things? Is the obstacle a force or object that you can control or does the obstacle control you? As a character can you perceive the immensity or simplicity of your task (overcoming the obstacle)?

Physical Condition

How is your character physiologically feeling? Are you queasy, nauseous, hyper, sleepy, caffenated, drunk, or ‘psyched’ with your adrenaline pumping. Do not mistake this with emotions like hate, anger, and happiness. This response is always physical never emotional.

Relationship

What is your relationship to the people on stage? Why? What is your relationship to the objects on the stage? Why? Examine all characters and objects you come in contact with. Do a full analysis as these clues will help guide you through your scene. These relationships will also serve s benchmarks to help jog your memory when you get stuck. These relationships may also change throughout the changing beats in a scene.

Physical Action

What do you actually do physically in the scene? Write a narrative on your complete actions through out the scene. These actions should be based on your objectives and your obstacles. The resulting narrative will serve you as strategies and tactics that will lead you to your characters action. Use strong active verbs to define your choices like grabbing at, running for, jumping to, clawing by, or reaching past.

Images

What past experiences are you building this character on? Why? You will find that recent images are usually stronger in both emotional content and detail that extremely distant images. Beware of volatile personal images. Never reveal your personal images to anyone, as an actor they are your alone. Use a short hand in your journal to describe this image like ‘fight with mom’, or ‘time at the dance’. These images are subject to change for you as an actor due to “burnout’ in the rehearsal process or the images possible inappropriateness to your work as an actor

Note: This information should be reexamined and noted in your journal before and after every rehearsal.