CREATING CHARACTER

Do you have trouble creating characters, or teaching your student's how to develop their characters? Well, we asked our very own Junior State Thespian Officer, Maya, to describe how she transforms into her characters on stage. 

Do your research

​When I create a character on stage, I do research to learn the story line and the character I am portraying.  I watch Youtube videos of other performers doing the role and try to imitate the actors I like best. I take any advice my directors have for me to incorporate into my character.  

practice your expressions

Games are an easy way to help create characters.  Once I am assigned a role, I look at myself in the mirror and come up with any sentence. I then say the sentence how my character would with an emotion picked out of a hat-like afraid, or happy.  My own personality tends to be very facially animated in real life from doing these “mirror” exercises. I am not aware of all of the expressions I use through the day, but when caught in photos, friends and family tend to laugh at my goofy expressions.

IT'S A LEARNING PROCESS...

Becoming a character on stage has been a learning process for me.  Initially, I was typecast into the sweet, little girl.  Eventually I began to repeat working with directors who gained trust in my ability and this trust led to my becoming characters that were very different from what I was accustomed to.  This year working as the youngest actor in a show forced me to step up to become a believable character for the older teens I was acting with.  The director pushed me to become someone different-day and night. Changing how I moved, talked and danced in a way different from “me” helped me be the character. That is one tip I have to being a great character.  Others are to watch and learn from others who have played the role, or see the show if it is available to view.  Also, talk to the director after a scene and ask “what did I do right?", and "what should I change?”. 

​Putting all of these tips together help make a great, yet unique character.

Author

Maya Jacoby, Junior State Thespian Officer 17-18