"There's no art to find the mind's construction in the face"

Grade 10's:  Creating a character is one of the most important aspects of acting.  You need to think about how you can turn yourself into someone else.  Some actors depend on costumes or makeup -- they can't be someone else until they dress up or put on a fake nose (the great Laurence Olivier was like this).  Some actors have to internalize the emotional state of the character they're playing.  If the character murders someone in a dark rage, the actor tries to remember a time when he felt that he might hurt another person because of his anger.  This technique is called "emotional memory".  Other actors create characters by observing real people in real life (lots of great improvisers do this).  Sometimes, an accent or a physical state can help create a character (if you're playing an old person you could walk with a cane or someone who is very sophisticated could have a French accent).  The character names you've been assigned could be a good starting point for a character you can use in more than one scene.  If you create a character that people look forward to seeing more than once, that's a good basis for a career!  (Think of Bobby Lee playing Kim Jong Il, or the characters of Logan and Wilf, played by Alana Johnston and Kayla Lorette on "That's So Weird".)

I'm in a play right now called "Dearly Departed" in which I play an old lady in a place like Alabama.  She has a Southern US accent and is very disappointed and impatient with her son.  The accent really helped me find a place to start turning her into a real person, but something else that has helped me is to carry a purse full of junk.  Whenever anything happens in the play, I reach into the purse and find something to use on stage.  I've added things to the purse through rehearsal as things have occurred to me.  At this point, I have a handkerchief, a fan, a Bible, a pencil, a bookmark, and my smart phone!  The show opens on October 17 at Evergreen Cultural Centre in Coquitlam.