1st Edition
Preparing for Rehearsal Approaching the Dramatic Text – One Step at a Time
A resource for actors, directors, and writers (both professional and in training), this is a step-by-step, practical guidebook to the pre-rehearsal analysis of a script. Its aim is to de-mystify and organise the questions necessary to ask in order to prepare for a creative, imaginative and fruitful exploration of a dramatic text in the journey towards rehearsal.
The language is unselfconsciously engaging and accessible, uncluttered by alienating academic vocabulary. It holds out a helping hand throughout the important and sometimes rather lonely time of preparation for rehearsal, a time of exploration usually spent without the reassuring guidance of a director or dramaturg. The volume takes the reader on a journey, chapter by chapter, from first reading of a script to arrival in the rehearsal room or film studio for the first readthrough or day of shooting. The book maps out six investigations for the actor or director, and most importantly, the order in which those explorations should be tackled. This book also forms the basis of any core text analysis module for students studying on professional acting, theatre arts, scriptwriting, media, and film or directing degrees at a university, college, or conservatoire level.
A professional director, actor and writer, this guide is also a result of Chris Pickles’ many years of experience not only in running workshops for theatre professionals, but also teaching text analysis to actors and directors in training.
List of figures
The text
Acknowledgements
Introduction: Why write this book?
PART I: THE WHAT
1. The actor’s process (or lack of it).
2. Reading number 1: Let the play speak.
3. Research: getting to know you. Context of the play.
4. Reading number 2: What’s the story? The essential narrative action.
5. Reading number 3: The archaeology of the character.
6. Reading number 4: What’s my story? What is my character’s essential narrative action?
PART II: THE WHY
7. Reading number 5: What is the driving psychological action? Getting beneath the skin.
8. Reading number 6: What is my character’s immediate psychological action in the unit?
Some selected further reading
Index
Biography
Chris Pickles is a theatre director, writer, teacher, actor and producer.
