As acting teachers, we sometimes assume that students already know how to work on a scene, or that rehearsing with a scene partner is “natural.” If your students have already performed onstage, and many have, they may labor under this same misconception. After all, they were in Almost, Maine! So they must know what they are doing. We often ask our students to pair up and prepare a scene outside of class without giving them any instructions for how to rehearse. This leaves our young actors vulnerable to the worst habits of bad actors, such as directing each other, confusing line-throughs with genuine exploration of text, and locking into auto-pilot as the result of meaningless repetition.

In my own scene study classes, I try to keep discovery and experimentation going for as long as possible. Over the years I’ve picked up techniques from other teachers and directors, and developed a number of my own, that help students play and learn through rehearsal, whether they’re working with me in class or on their own with scene partners. This article boils those practices down to a seven-step process that can comprise a unit of study in your acting class. In a future article I’ll share some specific rehearsal ideas that you can assign as homework, or which you can try in class, that build on this foundation.

Ideally, you should complete the entire process, all seven steps, at one time. It will take at least two hours and possibly more, depending on the length of the scene or short play you have chosen. If you do not have the luxury of a three-hour time block (and many of us do not), the steps can be divided up—but they should be done in order, and Steps Six and Seven must be done on the same day. On the day you do those last two steps, begin with about ten or fifteen minutes of Step Five to refresh students’ memories, then move on.

I strongly suggest that you walk through the steps once, with the whole class working on the same scene, before you assign scenes to be prepared separately, outside of class. After students have worked on a couple of scenes with this approach, they will naturally gravitate toward the steps they’ve found beneficial, dropping others and maybe adding some of their own. If they do come up with new, individual ways of approaching scenework, recognize this as a sign of artistic maturation and applaud it. Our goal is not to create acting automatons, but to foster the growth of unique artists.

What you need
The first thing to do is to pick a two-person scene or very short play (ten minutes or less) that offers a fairly complex relationship but which doesn’t require dialect, verse, age, insanity, or a gun. In other words, it shouldn’t be British or Tennessee Williams Southern or Shakespeare; it shouldn’t be too far outside the age range of your students (about ten years older is okay, but not ten years younger); and it should feature characters more or less in their right minds, who don’t wield firearms and who don’t end the scene by dying. Preferably it’s a boy/girl scene, but if your class is mostly girls, a two-girl scene is better. You’re seeking a script/scene in which two people are talking about something important, something that really matters to them—and there should be some history between the characters; this is not the first time they have met. (If you’re having trouble locating suitable scenes, refer to the sidebar on this page for suggestions.) Make a copy of the script or scene for each student, stapled or bound but not double-sided.

You’ll also need:

• Two or three good dictionaries
• A pencil for each student (they will be writing on the script copies)
• A blackboard/chalk/eraser are helpful, but not essential.

Reading for sense
Purposes of this step: understanding plot, experiencing first reactions to the piece, and building comprehension, while providing an ensemble exercise for the class.

1. Ask students to sit in chairs in a large circle. Arrange them boy/girl/boy/girl as much as possible.
2. Read the play aloud, taking turns. The first boy/girl should begin, then after a while, the next boy/girl. If you run out of text and still have more students, that’s okay; just stop. If you run out of boys, ask the first boy to read again with a new girl.
3. When you finish, ask your students if they have a general sense of what the scene is about. Do not ask them to tell you; just make sure that they have comprehension. If you encounter opinions or judgments about the characters (a student volunteers, “That guy was a jerk!”), move on gently and firmly without engaging. You can make a non-committal response, such as, “We’ll see,” or “Let’s keep exploring.” Point out that it is very, very difficult to play a character after you have judged him or her, so the actor’s focus should be on why a character behaves a certain way, and on understanding (and empathizing) with them, rather than criticizing. Many television shows and Disney movies (which your students will have seen) feature starkly “bad” or “good” characters, so you may have to push your students to get beyond the black and white and into the gray.

Discussion
Ask students to consider whether black-and-white “good” or “bad” is how most people are. How would they define themselves? You will probably find that everyone in the class thinks they are “good”—but have they ever done something not-good? Does that make them a bad person? Conversely, must a bad person be entirely bad? Were they bad when they were a child?

You might describe a scenario in which a car speeds ninety miles an hour in a forty-mile-an-hour zone, runs a red light, drives on the shoulder, passes on the right, and generally breaks every traffic rule in the book. Our first reaction might be, “Bad driver,” or “criminal,” or “jerk!” But what if the driver is a parent whose child is dying in the back seat, or whose wife is giving birth? We must strive to understand our characters’ motivations, without judgment.

Looking up the words
This step gets into text analysis, sound/sense exploration, and character, while increasing students’ comprehension of the scene.

1. Start at the beginning of the text once more. Ask students to read silently to themselves until they encounter a word they don’t know, or one for which they are unsure of the meaning or pronunciation. Your students might be reluctant to admit ignorance, but try to get a discussion started, even if you have to pick several words yourself (you can do this ahead of time) and start with those. The point: We might assume that we know a word, or we might have a general understanding of that word, but we often do not know the true and full definition. Plus, many words have more than one meaning, and learning all facets of a word can help us really “own” it. When students ask why you’re using an old-fashioned cloth-and-paper dictionary (and they will!), tell them that online dictionaries tend to offer only the most modern, common, and brief explanations of words. As actors, we need to dig deeper. So, pick a word, and ask a student to look it up in the dictionary and read the definition aloud. Ask your students to figure out which is the correct definition for this character’s situation, and to consider whether any of the alternate definitions might also fit or be useful in some way—perhaps to shed light on the circumstances of the play or the character.
2. Repeat this exercise for four or five words, with students taking turns with the dictionaries. Demonstrate replacing the real text with a synonym or part of a definition; ask whether the substituted text changes anything. And this is key: At least one of the words you look up should be a familiar word, e.g., “love” or “argument.” The truth is, we take a lot of words for granted, and looking up even words we think we know can be very instructive.

Discussion
Playwriting is a writer’s craft, and acting is about words—unlike movies, which are about pictures. Scripts are composed painstakingly, with a poet’s sensitivity to language, not thrown together with whatever phrases come to mind. What do actors owe the playwright? If you wrote a play, what would you want from the actors?
Ask whether the words the playwright has chosen tell you something about the characters (they usually do). Do those choices suggest how an actor might speak? For example, compare these two silly sentences, trying to say each one quickly while making it clearly understood: “The moon’s earth-movers smoothly roamed over the hills,” versus “Peter Piper picked a peck of pickled peppers.” Some words can’t be rushed, while others can. The great playwrights pack all kinds of acting clues into every line.  

What else can you discover about the text? Is this character educated? Street-smart? Careful with his or her words? A talker, or the silent type? Energetic or lazy? Old or young? Rich or poor? How do you know? Throughout this step, students should be taking notes about the character (male/female) they will be playing; you can also make notes on the board.

Lists
This step is about defining character, building empathy, and exploring self. If you like, the lists can be assigned as homework, with the class discussion scheduled for the next session. Otherwise, give students ten or so minutes to complete this exercise during class, and then discuss.

1. Have your students take a piece of paper and draw a line down the middle, separating the paper into two columns. The heading on one column should be “Similar to this character,” and the heading on the other should be “Different from this character.” Students should then go through the text and identify items for both columns. Examples of “similar” items might be, “We’re both women,” “From small towns,” “Proud,” “Parents divorced.” Example of “different” items might include, “He’s shy, I’m not,” “He’s twenty-seven, I’m only seventeen,” “He has a girlfriend, I don’t,” “He wears glasses, I don’t.”
2. Make another list of things your character is most attached to—things that the character would fight for or refuse to give up. These could be things, people, ideas, feelings, events, etc. The list might also include phrases the character repeats frequently, or a point of view (think of Forest Gump’s “Life is like a box a’ chocolates”). If students get stuck, ask for a list of things other people are trying to take from your character (for good or bad)—for example, dignity, or land, or a hand in marriage.

Discussion
If you are proud and the character is proud, then you don’t need to “act” proud; it will already be there! Still, that pride likely will manifest itself in different ways; no scripted character is going to be exactly like us, and besides, acting is largely about transforming ourselves.

How to develop the differences? Read stories about characters who possess the qualities you are trying to build. Observe others; consider “acting” like that for a day; go through a simple chore (going to the store, cleaning your room, walking home) living inside that “other” personality. How would “shy” or “poor” affect the way you pay for groceries? How might it affect your walk? Your dress? The way you answer the phone? Delve deep: What does your day look like from a shy person’s point of view?

Think about how you “learned” things about your character. Be certain that you are not jumping to conclusions or falling back on assumptions. Just because someone acts bossy and aggressive, that doesn’t necessarily mean they are confident. Sometimes bullies are deeply insecure and attempt to mask those fears by lording it over others.

In the best scripts there will be contradictions of character. In theatre as in life, no one is all one thing or another. Look at some of the similarities you have written. What is the opposite? For example, does your normally shy character occasionally do something outrageous? Think about yourself: what opposites does your own personality contain? Has someone you know ever surprised you by doing something that seemed “out of character”? How do you deal with opposites as an actor?
Finally, point out that these lists will grow and change as the scene is rehearsed and more truths are discovered.

Beats
Here we dive into text analysis, with an emphasis on understanding form and exploring the relationship between form and content.

1. Begin by explaining what a “beat” is. Different acting teachers have different ways of thinking about beats—and you’re certainly free to use your own definition—but the everyday explanation that I use is this: Almost everyone has experienced that moment in a phone call between friends when there’s nothing left to say. Often there is a slight pause, and then one person will say, “Well, I guess I’ll let you go,” or “Well, I guess I’ll see you tomorrow at school,” or something similar. These two “parts” of the phone call are different beats. The friends were talking about one thing (making weekend plans, for example), and then they are talking about something else (ending the phone call). In a piece of dramatic writing—monologue or dialogue, comic or dramatic—a beat change occurs whenever a character makes a discovery, wins or loses an objective, changes tactics, or adopts a new objective altogether.
2. Go back to your script. As a group, try to determine where the first few beats start and end. This is not an exact science, so allow for some difference of opinion, so long as those opinions are supported by reason.
3. After you have defined the first few beats in the scene, go back and give each one a name. Have some fun with this. The first beat might be called, “Putting a toe in the water,” or “Going fishing for flirtation.” The next beat might be called, “Getting the cold shoulder,” or “What part of ‘no’ don’t you understand?”
4. Point out that knowing what the intention of a beat is (that is, knowing what is happening beneath the words) can unlock the whole scene. Of course, as with the lists, beats can change during rehearsal as students become more knowledgeable about the text.

Discussion
Ask students why they think people have different opinions about the stopping/starting points for beats, and even about what’s happening within a beat itself. Point out that it is very possible for one character to think the beat is “We’re having a party” and the other to think it is “We’re breaking up tonight.” Characters in plays often have different points of view, as we do in real life. Have your students ever thought they were living in one beat (“I think she likes me”), only to find themselves in another (“She is using me to find out more about my best friend”)?

Messy as they can be, beats help in structuring rehearsal because they break the scene into chunks. Experienced directors and actors know that it’s usually beneficial to rehearse scenes by beats, focusing on the ones that most need work, rather than always starting at the top of a scene and plowing through until the end. Ask your students to consider why this is so.

Breathing in the words
The purpose of this step—inspired by an exercise in Harold Guskin’s book, How to Stop Acting—is to establish a true and deep connection between scene partners. This step also brings breath into the acting process, incites imagination and emotion, builds trust, and aids in line memorization and comprehension. To accomplish all this, however, your students must commit to this step and not rush through it. As the instructor, you must be vigilant that no shortcuts are taken. Also note that while the step is complicated to explain, it is very simple to do.

1. Students should pair up (boy/girl) and sit in two chairs, facing each other with knees no more than a foot or so apart. Allow for space around the pairs so that there is a sense of privacy. Students should sit up straight in a comfortable posture that can be maintained for a period of time. Hands should be placed palms up or down, with one hand on each leg so that shoulders are relaxed, chest is open, and hands are loose. Legs should be left in a moderate, open position with feet on the floor. Adjust as needed for comfort, but be aware: students might slouch in an attempt to pull away from the other person, or sit ramrod straight and get tired, or cross their arms, make fists, or in some other way “lock up” or grip or shield their bodies. If they do, ask them to remain loose and open to the partner. If you are working with a boy/girl scene and you have more girls than boys in your class, position the two chairs as explained above, and then put the “extra” girl in a third chair on the side, facing the partners, so that the chairs form a triangle. The “extra” chair should be placed at a respectful distance, but close enough to allow for good observation.
2. Ask both students to hold their scripts up so that they can see their partner’s face and the script merely by moving the eyes back and forth or up and down. Ideally, one hand holds the script while a finger of the other hand placemarks the line. Whoever has the first line is Student A. To begin, Student A looks at the script and Student B (the listener) looks at Student A. Make sure the students are breathing normally and looking at each other. It might take a few minutes for students to get comfortable, for giggles to subside, and for bodies to relax. Again, if students hold their breath or breathe shallowly, fidget or tighten their bodies, or attempt to evade this intimacy by making jokes, talking, or by looking away, gently correct them.
3. Have Student A look at the script and inhale while reading the first line. He should read only for the length of the inhale, which should be a natural breath (not artificially extended). If Student A only manages to read three or four words, that’s perfectly fine; he does not need to read the entire line and should not attempt to memorize the line. As students are “breathing in” the text, they should allow their minds to freely associate any thoughts or feelings to the words. If the line has the word “bird” in it, the brain might supply a picture of a cardinal or a birdcage or a pterodactyl, or it might flash to a pet store or to Grandma, who kept a canary. Depending on the students’ life experiences, it might bring up Charlie Parker, or Larry Bird, or Big Bird! The picture of Grandma might in turn bring up feelings of warmth or sadness; the pterodactyl could be frightening or fascinating: it does not matter. The important thing is to allow any and all things that naturally spring to mind. Tell Student A not to stifle any thoughts, no matter how silly or irrelevant they might seem. It’s okay to smile, giggle, cry, or gag. Whatever happens is good. It is also okay to feel nothing, or to have no thoughts—but if students are experiencing that repeatedly, line after line, then they are not paying attention to what is going on inside and need to breathe more deeply, go more slowly, and be patient. Note that while it is Student A’s line, Student B should not look at the script, but stay attentive and focused on Student A’s face.
4. After inhaling a few words and experiencing whatever reaction or thought that arises, Student A should look up from the script, make eye contact with Student B, and speak (not read!) the words they just inhaled, as they exhale. After speaking, Student A should continue to look at Student B, and observe Student B’s reactions (and their own) after hearing the words out loud. Student B might react nonverbally (a smile) or might laugh out loud or be offended. Student A might feel ridiculous, or powerful, or silly.

Keep in mind that since partners might only be experiencing a portion of a line (“To be, or not to be—that”), the words might be ridiculous or nonsensical. It doesn’t matter if they laugh, and it is all good! Have them hold eye contact for several breaths, sharing this nonverbal communication, before moving on.

Potential pitfalls here:

• Student A will read, rather than speak, the text. To adjust, make sure he is looking in two distinct places: first, the script (inhale) and second, the partner’s eyes (exhale, speak).
• Student A will stifle his reactions when he speaks instead of carrying the inhaled reactions through to the spoken (exhaled) words, or will exhale before speaking. In both cases, have him try again until the breath and the thought align.
• Students will immediately look back at the script after speaking. To adjust, remind students that there is no rush. Take your time.
• Student A will “act” or “interpret” the words, rather than simply speaking them. Gently point out what’s happening and give him another chance.

Student A should repeat the above steps until he has completed his line. At that time, he should maintain the eye contact with Student B, and continue to breathe. At some point, enough time will pass so that Student B will realize it is her turn, and Student B can look at the script, breathe in some words, and begin. Remind students not to rush; nor should they attempt to signal to their partners when it’s their turn.

As I said, this particular step takes time to explain but is not difficult to execute. I suggest you use a couple of dedicated students as a model for the class, going through the explanation and process with them for a few lines back and forth before breaking the class up into partners and having everyone work at once. The first time through you will have to make numerous small corrections and remind students to go slowly. Once the students separate into pairs, you can and should circulate among them, watching for the pitfalls and offering corrective suggestions. Students might need to be reminded of the order of actions:

1. Look at script
2. Breathe in a few words > Imagine/React/Feel/Think
3. Look up, exhale and speak > Imagine/React/Feel/Think
4. Breathe and watch > See what happens

The “extra girl” should rotate in and work only after the original partners have established a connection, which usually takes at least fifteen or twenty minutes. She deserves at least that much time again, to establish her connection. Do not have students go back to the beginning when working with her—simply continue where the original pair left off.

Depending on the amount of class time you can dedicate to this, you may or may not finish the entire scene. Endeavor to get through more than half of the scene, if possible, but do not allow students to rush.

Text framing
This step creates a shared history (back story), builds ensemble and acceptance, makes subtext more specific, incites imagination and emotion, fills in the blanks, explores given circumstances, and suggests acting objectives for the scene. Reminder: It’s important that this step and the next one be completed on the same day. If you are dividing this process, do ten to fifteen minutes of Step Five as a warm-up.

Students will complete Step Six three times, once for each of the following prompts:

• I remember when you…
• I wish you…
• I want…

1. Partners should be seated in same formation as Step Five: two chairs facing each other, bodies open and available. Once again, eye contact and breathing should be encouraged, and you can take a minute to establish this. As in Step Five, reactions/thoughts/feelings should be encouraged, not stifled. For Step Six, scripts are not needed, but should be kept nearby for easy access. Students will take turns, and it doesn’t matter who starts. Have each partnership decide who will begin.
2. Beginning with, “I remember when you…,” have students take turns completing this prompt using information from the script. For example, if you were working on the Romeo and Juliet bedroom scene (not recommended; I use it here because it’s familiar), students could take turns “remembering” events from the party: “I remember when you crashed the party...” “I remember when we danced…” Students should use their imaginations to build on these sentences, adding as much detail as they can about how they felt and what they saw, heard, tasted, smelled. So a completed prompt might be: “I remember when you put your palm against mine, and I could hardly breathe! My head was spinning and I felt I was going to throw up, but I hadn’t eaten anything all day except a sour green apple so there was nothing in my stomach, and besides, all I could think of was your hand, your hand!, which, by the way, was hot and sweaty, so then I thought, oh, you must be nervous, too! But your hand was brown from the sun, and strong, and you smelled good when you came close to me, like bread and dirt, and I liked the blue of your eyes and your lashes were so long…” Get the picture?
3. After Student A has finished, Student B begins with, “I remember when you…” and finishes the prompt. Student B’s contribution can be related to Student A’s (it could also be about the palms), but does not need to be. The most important thing is that students cannot correct or negate each others’ thoughts. If Student A says that Student B smelled like bread and dirt, then Student B must accept that and build from there. Student B might not be happy at that description, and feelings can and should be included in each person’s “turn.”

Be sure that students do not create all negative or all positive memories. If you sense that they are getting stuck in the negative, for example, request at least two positive memories from each of them—or if your students seem reluctant to become negative or confrontational, and are sharing only pleasant imagery, require two sad or angry memories from each partner.

1. Instruct students that after they have gone back and forth at least three times each using events from the script, they are to break away from the script and begin to use their imaginations to create new events. They must still begin with, “I remember when you…,” which is why the scene you choose must contain characters who have some history. In that case, “I remember when you…” could refer back to the first meeting, or first sighting, or it might go back to birthday parties or first days of school. Again, students should use as much detail as possible—colors, sensations, feelings—and must not negate their partner’s contributions. Give this at least ten to fifteen minutes before moving on to the next prompt.
2. For each prompt, begin with information found in the script and then, after several exchanges, move on to imagined events. If students are unclear about the difference between “I wish” and “I want,” let them know that in some cases they are the same (and it is perfectly okay to repeat a wish/want numerous times, if that’s how they feel)—but in some cases, a wish might be more fanciful, more dreamlike, or might be something you might think but not say.

If you are “rotating in” extra students, you will need to allow time for the new pair to go through each prompt. This is not ideal, but it can work. The “extra” student, who has been observing, should be given the option to borrow the imaginative history already created, or to start again from the beginning.

Some pitfalls to watch out for here: Students might drop the “you” from the prompt and create a memory for themselves (“I remember when I…”). In that case, remind them of the full prompt. Less mature students might take this exercise to the ridiculous (“I remember when you arrived on an elephant”). You don’t want to curtail creativity, but point out that the goal is to create a shared history that is relevant to the scene, not to re-write the world of the play. On the other hand, others might be reluctant to create in detail, and offer only “I remember when I saw you at the store,” rather than filling in specifics. Gentle coaching might help them free their imaginations. Finally: Be on the lookout for students who simply repeat or rephrase what their partner has said; this lazy habit puts the burden of creation unfairly on one person and should not be tolerated.

Going back to the script
Once all three prompts have been explored in two phases (events from the script, events from imagination), have students pick up their scripts. Having the scripts nearby is helpful because you want to make a smooth transition from Step Six to Seven (remember that these two steps are best done in the same class period). Remaining in an open and available seated posture, with scripts up but not hiding faces, Students A and B should begin to read the scene from the beginning.

Give the following instructions for this last step:

• Maintain as much eye contact as possible and keep your bodies open.
• Don’t forget to breathe, and take as much time as you need while reading at a normal speed (at this point you’re not “breathing in the words,” but you’re not rushing or worried about timing).
• Enjoy the history and details you created with your partner—the good and the bad.
• Listen to what your partner has to say.
• Find out what the lines do to you, rather than trying to “do something” to the lines.
• This is not a performance; it is a rehearsal.
• Let’s see what happens. Begin.

Have students read through the whole script. Ideally, with this reading, the students will experience what it means to have explored a text: beats and structure, specific back story and relationships, wants and conflict. For many, this will be the first understanding of what it means to “do your actor homework.” Students who have previous acting experience might still engage in some old bad habits (mostly overdoing or pushing), but if you can remind them to breathe and trust the work they have done with their partners, they might be able to let go.

I tell my students that when they have done their homework, they don’t need to work so hard onstage. Whenever actors find themselves working too hard onstage, it’s a sign that they need to go back and do more homework.

Discussion
What happened? What did they learn? What worked, and what didn’t? What areas need to be explored more fully? What was the difference between areas that they had spent a lot of time on, and areas that had been skipped or less fully explored? In their opinions, what do they need to do next?

This is one example of many possible scene-study processes. Most working actors have their own methods; as an acting teacher, it’s likely that you do, too, but I hope I’ve shared some ideas you can incorporate.

What is important to you in a scene? What part of the acting craft is your top priority? Use what you know about your students to build a step-by-step process that will work for them. I suggest that you figure out what your student actors most need (for example, to listen to each other more effectively), and then beg, borrow, or invent exercises to train them in doing just that. If you get stuck, email me; I’d love to brainstorm some ideas with you.