top of page
Creating a Character Worksheet!
What are acting verbs that I can apply to my scenes? See below:
https://www.scribd.com/doc/105591175/Ultimate-List-of-Acting-Verbs-Objectives
Hungry for more action verbs?
Look into the book "Actions: An Actors' Thesaurus" by Maria Calderone and Maggie Lloyd-Williams
CREATING A CHARACTER: THINGS TO CONSIDER
1) Name
2) Age
3) Place of origin
4) Where they now live including their address and type of abode (example: a one bedroom apartment or a semi-detached house, )
5) Where did they grow up? What kind of dialects surrounded them? Did the dialects at school differ from the dialects at home?
6) Occupation (if any)
7) Marital status
8) Surviving family
9) Education
10) Class
11) Financial Situation
12) Hobbies (if any)
13) Pets (if any)
14) Desire and/or ambition (outward and or secret)
15) Secret Regret
16) Guilty Secret
17) Any other interested "facts" that occur to you!
18) How do you walk, talk, and dress? What are your mannerisms?
Applying Your Character to a Scene! Consider:
1) Subtext: The thought motivation...
2) Emotions: What the character is feeling moment to moment. The emotional motivation...
3) Behavior (physical). What the character says and does as a result of thought motivation and emotional motivation
4) How does what your scene partner says and does affect your choices?
A) Character choice: How am I different from this person? Personal truth versus character truth. The magic 'if' from Stanislavsky. If I was this person would I react that way-- given the set of circumstances. If the answer is yes, exactly like that! Then you could safely use personal truth-- if not, use character truth.
B) Character Relationship: Past relationship- how these characters normally react to each other. Ex: best friends. Present relationship- how these characters relate to each other today/now. Ex: A is alarmed- realizing that B sees their friendship as having romantic potential. There is unusual tension between them.
C) Objective: What does your character want (Super-Objective for the whole play, objective for the scene, and action objective for each moment in the scene)? Use ACTION (active) verbs! Don't just say something- rather convince, manipulate, argue, comfort, sooth, etc (see list of active verbs below).
D) Opening emotion (and/or attitude or state of mind): Hope? Anger? Bitterness? Jealousy? Vulnerable. Confident. Excited. Expectant.
E) Transitions: In a well-crafted scene there should be potential for changes of emotion, subtext and objectives. Find these and mark them as moments.
F) Subtext: You probably already have this thought line in place because of 1-5, but check it.
bottom of page