Our monologue lesson before Tatum auditioned for the musical was WONDERFUL!!!
We worked on:
- mapping out our monologue with beats
- adding dynamics to our monologue with high and low points
- paraphrasing/anti nervous tick exercises
- creating a quick backstory that's easy to follow and execute in 60 seconds
We changed monologues the morning of our lesson to something we felt like Tatum could totally have fun with and knock out of the park!
Mapping our monologue with beats:
We map out our monologues so that we know exactly when to pause, what words to emphasize, and so that we have a road map to follow so that we can rehearse every part of our monologue and not have to make anything up on the spot.
Our beats, or pauses, are where the best and most difficult acting happens. Without pauses - the monologue not only feels rushed - but unnatural and unpolished.
This is one of the hardest things to teach an actor because they feel the awkwardness of silence and feel like they should hurry things up.
Adding dynamics:
Because we only have 60 seconds in an audition, we approach monologues differently than we would a scene. We add extreme dynamics so that the director, or who ever we are auditioning for, can see several different sides of our acting. We make sure we have at least one big high point and one big low point.
Paraphrasing/anti nervous tick exercises:
Another tough thing to teach an actor/actress is that, especially when it comes to an audition, the script has little to no importance unless you've been assigned specific lines or are doing an extremely iconic monologue that the director suggested. The director wants to see you act, move, and make choices - whatever lines you decide to use to show him these things is completely irrelevant.
Most directors ask for things from a play or musical (in a musical theater setting) because the writing gives the actor opportunities to do these things in a better way than something like a film script, novel, or book.
We paraphrase our monologues/find interesting ways to make it our own so that, if by any chance, we DO forget the words on stage - we haven't just memorized it - we've attached other things and created muscle memory of the IDEA of the monologue as well so we can still make the same choices and insert the same dynamics with different words.
This also helps us be less nervous because it shifts our concern to what matters most - the acting and delivery, than on memorizing words and repeating them. It also helps with the actors natural tendency to repeat the words they've memorized very quickly and without character choices behind them - when they get nervous. It forces them to revisit the choices rather than the words.
By paraphrasing we also create a more dynamic character - one that we assign an extreme backstory to support the acting choices we are making.
In Tatum's case we created the character of the Wicked witch who wasn't invited to a party (in the monologue). We added a sarcastic nature about her and made her more goofy than it called for so that Tatum's comedic timing could shine.