Memorize Your Lines
Find yourself often forgetting your lines? Is it difficult to remember that script within a short time frame? Cast members who forget their lines are often an annoyance and a burden upon other actors. To help your cast,director and yourself, it is a necessity that you memorize your lines and your cues.
Contents
Steps
Preparing with the script
- Highlight your lines so you do not have to look all through your script to find them.
- Make notes if necessary, such as how loudly or softly to speak, to slow down or speed up, and so forth.
- It may help to write down or circle your cues to speak.
- Read your script until you fully understand the plot of the play. This means understanding your character's intention (what they want), your character's obstacles, (what stands in the way of what they want) and their tactics (what they do to get what they want) and the emotion of it (the energy, if it is sad, or happy, or exciting.) Directors want to see you have emotion and energy. This way, if you forget your lines during the show, you will be able to make up something to say so the audience won't notice.
- Pretend you are that character for a day and act exactly like the character's personality.
Learning the lines
- Write it out. This is self-explanatory––write out your lines repeatedly. This gets the lines into your subconscious memory. To save on paper, you can also type them out, then simply erase and start again.
- Write it out with the other hand. If you are right-handed, write out your lines with your left hand, and vice versa. By using your less familiar hand, your brain has to think three times as hard about what you are writing.[citation needed]
- Get into character by asking yourself questions about the character. If your blocking is to walk upstage carrying a towel, ask yourself why your character would be doing that. You can also get into character by thinking deeply about why your character acts the way they do. Even make up a background story for your character - what happened before the script, and what is going to happen afterwards.
- Practice reading the lines out loud. Say the cue, your line, and the line after it. Do it one section or page at a time.
- Say your lines in different ways. If your lines call for sadness say them happily, if it calls for a whisper scream it loudly. Use different emotions. You might make yourself laugh with some of your choices, which helps you to remember that sentence.
- If you have a monologue, try repeating one or two sentences at time. Then add another sentence. When you have about five sentences done that way, repeat them over for a little bit to make sure you have it.
- Use projection (volume) and inflection (speaking with expression) to your advantage.
- Break it up. Try to conquer small parts of your script at a time. It is difficult to memorize all your lines at once. By taking small parts of your script, you can add lines one at a time until you have your script memorized. A good way to work through is to go scene by scene.
- Try singing your lines.This might help if you love singing; then it will just be like singing a normal song as you will read later on. Also, it will program that song in your brain forever, so you will never forget your lines
- Take a break. If you are tired from rehearsing, relax. It helps your brain work better. Also, try doing some exercises to help relax your brain.
Practicing with others or audio help
- Practice with a partner. Ask the other person to read your script while you rehearse it to them. Ask them to highlight or circle parts that you skipped or jumbled the words.
- If you don't have a partner there are a bunch of apps for your phone that can help your memorize and rehearse your lines. For example, try the free app Line Please.
- Practice with friends or family. Have them look at your script, and recite your lines to them.
- Record your lines. Use an MP3 player or something to record yourself reading all the lines (with gaps of silence where you're supposed to talk). You can then play it while driving or exercising and say your lines in your head. You learn your lines as well as the other actors' cue lines. It's like learning the lyrics to a song; the more you listen to it, the better you are at "singing" along with the recording.
- Record it on your phone (one sentence at a time) and play it again and again then join in and then try without it.
- Record the whole play, and when it's your line, don't say anything. Then play it and you can say your lines, and it will be like if you are practicing with the cast!
- When practicing with a friend or family member, ask them to read the lines of the other role so you know when to come in without looking at your script.
- Not only will this help you remember your lines, it will help you remember your cues.
Last rehearsal by yourself
- Be sure you know all of your lines the night before the performance. If you can practice before the show starts, do so.
Tips
- If you have parts of your script that you tend to mess up, highlight them. Then go over them and ask yourself why your character would say or mean that. By adding thought, you are memorizing without realizing it.
- Remember, if you ever mess up on performance night, say it wrong but strong! The audience won't know the difference.
- Learn the last word of your cue line well so you know when to come in.
- Read the script before you go to bed. By doing this your brain will keep the lines in mind.
- Write your blocking in pencil. Most directors tend to change their mind.
- Don't spend more than an hour at a time trying to memorize. An hour is typically how long a human can spend memorizing anything.[citation needed]
- Sometimes, just knowing your lines isn't enough. If something occurs which means you need to improvise, you need to know the start, middle and end of the scene so you know how to get back on track.
- Remember the first and last line. You can improvise if you know those. Try to remember a word or two from every sentence or few sentences, so you have the general idea of what you are going to say.
- Make stickers with your lines and spread them all over your home so that during the day you come across to them and read them.
- Write or type out your lines. You'll be reading closely as you do so, which will help you remember them.
- Make a flash card for every two lines, shuffle them then find the next lines.
- Try to print out a version of your script and highlight your character in one color. You can then grab an extra color then highlight all the important parts.
Warnings
- Try to take breaks between learning and rehearsing!
- Never break character. That makes it extremely hard to get back into your zone and remember your lines.
- Don't forget to bring your script to rehearsal.
- Don't work yourself too hard or you could not look forward to the play!
- Don't freak out! Stage fright is in the past! Who cares if you mess up? The audience won't notice, and so just keep going, and have fun!
Things You'll Need
- Script
- Highlighters
- Pencil
- Recording devices
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