Unit: Character Creations

Kindi Swasey

Objective: Students will be able to create a solid three-dimensional historical character using movement, expression, voice, and more by interacting with other characters in a 30-minute improved performance at the end of the unit.

Learning Level: Intermediate

Student Prior Experience: Students should know and be familiar with vocal work in creating a character voice, movement work such as pantomime and some basics in characterization work. Students should be familiar with ways to be able to research.

National Theatre Standards:-TH:Cr1.1.8. c. Develop a scripted or improvised character by articulating the character’s inner thoughts, objectives, and motivations in a drama/theatre work.

-TH:Re8.1.8. b. Analyze how cultural perspectives influence the evaluation of a drama/theatre work.

Enduring Understandings: Character is a way to stand in another person’s shoes and view the world from their perspective.Characterization helps us to understand how to analyze others and feel compassion for them and their story

Essential Questions: How do historical figures of the world connect to characterization in that they have a specific voice, physicality, thought process, background, etc.?How does character give us a new perspective on those we interact with every day?

Performance Tasks: Perform a 30-minute improvisation as a character interacting with other historical charactersPerform a character “interview” for a few groups in the class to deepen your character’s storyPerform a contentless scene focusing on vocal work for historical characters.

Lessons:Lesson 1: Historical characters and characterization processesObjective: Students will demonstrate their understanding of what is important to identify Historical characters by participating in instructor led activities and discussions that lead them towards these discoveries.

Lesson 2: Research Day!Objective: Students will demonstrate their in-depth knowledge of their historical characters by doing a research collection assignment.

Lesson 3: Return and Report Day

Objective: Students will demonstrate their knowledge of their characters by completing the get to know you game.

Lesson 4: Go on a walk with me. Objective: Students will demonstrate their understanding of character movement by applying class activities in order to create a walk for their historical characters.

Lesson 5: Move it like you mean itObjective: Students will demonstrate their understanding of viewpoints and other movement techniques by applying a specific movement to their characters.

Lesson 6: The Character’s Mind.Objective: Students will demonstrate their understanding of how their characters might act and think by filling out a character worksheet on their character’s opinions about the world.

Lesson 7: Let’s talk.Objective: Students will understand the fundamentals to creating a character voice by performing a contentless scene using the voice of their historical character.

Lesson 8: Historical Character Lunch Research DayObjective: Students will be able to create a solid three-dimensional historical character using movement, expression, voice, and more by interacting with other characters in a 30 minute improved performance.

Lesson 1: Historical Characters and Characterization Processes

Objective: Students will demonstrate their understanding of what is important to identify Historical characters by participating in instructor led activities and discussions that lead them towards these discoveries.

Materials Needed: papers and bowls for three-way charades.

Hook: Play three-way charades but they have to do it on historical characters. Pass out little slips of paper and have students take three. They are required to write a historical character on each slip of paper and put it in the bowl. For the first round they just have to describe them as many as they can in one minute. Next, they need to give one word to describe this person, the third round they have to act them out. You might have to divide them into two groups to play this game and compete against each other.

Step 1: Stop students after playing round one. Ask. Why might this have been easy or difficult for you? What kinds of things did you describe in this first activity to help your friends get the person right? Who were the easiest to get?

- People all have defining characteristics that they are often easily described by.- We are defined by the things we say and do just like these historical characters are

defined.

Step 2: Stop after describing in one word:- Ask. Why was it easier to get these characters after describing them in one word?

- Based off the descriptions from the last round- When idea or a word associated with something gets passed around you know

that person by that word now- What is one word or phrase that people often associate with Michael Jackson?

(Thriller) how about Trump (I’ll build a wall or China), how about Gollum from Lord of the rings? (precious), how about Gandalf (you shall not pass).

- Characters, whether fictional or realistic, are described by what people know them by

Step 3: Stop after acting them out:- What made performing these characters easier?

- Because we had already described them once (in history it is helpful to know who the character is and their context to recognize them again)

- Some of them did very distinct things in history like Hitler and his hand signal, that we instantly know them by. This is important to take in as we are becoming characters.

- They have a certain physicality

Step 4: We are going to play another game “flashback photography” Where we recreate pictures of these historical characters and look at their lives in a flashback photo based on their lives. This is to show that every person or “character” is 3 dimensional. Each person goes up one at a time, the whole class does not have to go at the same time. (practice with Moses parting the red sea) On person starts, maybe they start as Moses. They would go up and say “I’m Moses.” Then others would add on to the picture in any way that they want creating an entire 3D picture with their bodies. Examples might be something like:

- I’m an Israelite - I’m the water

- I’m a whale in the water- I’m the sand- I’m part of Pharaoh’s army

Explain that it is important to know the simple most understandable facts about your characters that are recognizable to others like in charades, but also the in depth back stories of these characters just like in this flashback game. We are going to learn both about our characters in this unit. This is what you should do when you are becoming a character in a play. For example, if you are the character of Michael Jackson, you need to know about their surface identifiable things. Such as “Thriller,” Jackson Five, dancing, etc. But also, his backstory is important such as where he grew up, what got him into singing, why he kept dancing and singing, who was important to him in his life etc.

Step 6 (Assessment discussion): Why do you think it is important to know how to become someone else in theater? How do you think we learn to become someone else? Do we completely get rid of ourselves? What do we have to change? Discuss with students the importance of using elements of yourself in character development, and the importance of creating real characters.

- Explain that you want to see them incorporate themselves into these characters. This is their take on the historical figures they are going to be researching.

- Explain to the students that although it is great to learn how to mimic someone, the trick to good theater is being able to make a character your own. Ask the students how they think this is done?

- Really taking in what a character does, likes/dislikes, what they sound like- Being yourself while being your character

Step 7: Next time we will be doing some research on your characters that you want to perform in depth.

Assessment: On a piece of paper please write your 1,2, and 3rd choices of historical characters to be and put your name on it. Justify your choices. Why do you want to be this character, what can you do with this character that will challenge you and be unique? I will try to give everyone their first choice, but I don’t want there to be doubles. Try to go for a risk, be something that you can really embody. Think about someone that you might not normally get to be because of your normal shape and size.

- You might be someone that is not your same race or has a talent in singing even if you feel you can’t sing. Challenge yourself. Whose shoes do you want to play in for the next couple of weeks? Who do you want to get to know a little bit more about?

Lesson 2: Research Day!

Objective: Students will demonstrate their in-depth knowledge of their historical characters by doing a research collection assignment.

Materials Needed: computers to research on, character choice papers that students wrote last time with the character you will be performing as written on them.

Hook: Hand out everyone’s character choices to research.

Step 1: Explain that today we will be doing some research on our historical characters. Ask. Why is it important to do research on your characters?

- To get to know their background- To understand who they are so you can actually perform as them- To get ideas about what you could do as that character.

Why is it important to do this kind of research as an actor? In life?- You understand people and places so much better- You get all the hard stuff done now so that it gets easier later when you are trying to

perform- It shows on stage when you are acting because you add depth to your character and

reasoning behind your choices. Step 2: Present research assignment for students up on the board. Students need:

- Their name- Character’s name- Answer these questions:

- where are they from, - what is their family life like, - what do they like to wear, - how do they interact with other people? - (add any other questions you might feel are important to know)

- Four additional interesting and detailed facts about their characters that come from four different sources. None of those sources can be from Wikipedia, however, they can start there and search the links at the bottom.

- They need to have a picture

Assessment: Have students print this research and turn it into the basket for points. Make sure it is filled out correctly and give them 15 points for having all the correct information.

Lesson 3: Return and Report Day

Objective: Students will demonstrate their knowledge gained from their research the previous day of their characters by completing the get to know you game.

Materials Needed: Get to know you game grids, students need to bring their research printed if they have not already done so

Homework due: Research

Hook: Have people pull out their research and have them share with a group something interesting they learned about their characters. Then have them share with the class some interesting facts about what they discovered about their characters. What did they learn that they didn’t already know about their character?

- Express appreciation for their work and research and tell them not to stop researching their characters throughout the entire unit.

Step 1: Pull out getting to know you grids. Hand one to each person and have them go around and “get to know” each other’s characters. They are required to go around and get the signature of the characters on their grids when they have found that specific quality.

Step 2: Allow students 10-15 minutes time to “get to know” other characters

Step 3: After students have played the grid game, go through and put a star or check mark next to the squares that they don’t know about your own character. Let’s talk about these get to know your character more and the others in the room. Why would I have you get to know other characters?

- Because the final assignment requires you to interact with other characters- It’s good to know something about the other characters you will be interacting with- Good to know who is doing what in our final assessment

What did you discover about your own character? Did your research help you in this assignment? If not, I want you to take this and find out how these relate to your characters. Come back and be ready to tell me how.

Step 3: Pull out laptops again and allow them to do more research on their characters based on the grids. Think about how this applies to your character if you are going to perform as this person.

Assessment: Hand in your grids to the basket. Share one new fact with another classmate that you learned from the grid assignment.

Name:____________ Historical Character:________________

Find Someone Who...Has Children Likes science Has a career in

SingingIs a different

race or ethnicityIs from a foreign

country

Has invented something

Is older than 25 Has been in a leadership

position

Is an athlete Speaks a different language

Has long hair Has been in a movie or t.v.

show

Is an only child Has blonde hair Has been in a play

Has been in a commercial

Wears glasses Has a physical impairment

Likes reading Was murdered

Lived in another country (other than the U.S.) for more than a year

Is taller than 5’8’’ Is royalty Makes or made more than

$100,000,000 a year

Dated or married

someone famous

***Only one signature from each person. You cannot have multiple signatures from the same character. Lesson 4: Go on a Walk with Me

Objective: Students will demonstrate their understanding of character movement by applying class activities in order to create a walk for their historical characters.

- Standard TH:Cr3.1.I. b. Explore physical, vocal and physiological choices to develop a performance that is believable, authentic, and relevant to a drama/theatre work.

Materials Needed: A ream of paper for name tags, markers, yarn, hole punch

Hook: Have a piece of paper with hole punches on the corners set on each student’s desk as they walk in. Have them grab a piece of yarn and a marker to make a nametag for their character. Explain that these nametags are going to be very important as we work today so that everyone knows who you are.

Step 1: Who can imitate how someone walks in this room? Does anyone think that they can do it? How about how I walk? - if someone can do it let them and discuss how they did this. What made them look exactly like these people? If they can’t that’s okay, we are going to learn how. Explain that we are going to practice portraying our historical character’s walks today. We will continue to develop more movement on top of your characters with hand gestures, etc., but it is important to get “the walk” down first. Why do you think so? What is so important about a walk?

Step 2: So how do we start? Does anyone have an idea of where you could begin a portrayal of someone’s walk? I want to make it clear that we are not necessarily imitating these characters word for word and walk for walk. This is a portrayal of your own. You are you portraying this character. How do you think they are supposed to move?

- Watching and observing- Watching posture- Watching their gestures- Knowing them and how they react to different things.- Think about age and how that affects posture- Think about height and how that affects posture.

Step 3: An important place to start is with your friends. We talked a little bit about the surface and the background of getting to know these characters you’re portraying. By a description, one word, and a sentence. Think about how you get to know your best friends to a certain point.

- Do any of you get to know them so well that you can imitate the way that they walk? How? Can anyone think of specific examples?

- Demonstrate how different people in your life who are close to you walk… Allow them to show as well.

We are going to observe each other as friends in this class today and how we all walk before we get into how your character might walk.

Step 4: The first thing to observe is their center of gravity. How do they hold themselves? Then we observe what they lead with when they walk? Watch me, what body part initiates first when I walk?

- I usually initiate from my knees, you could initiate from your hips, shoulders, etc. - Everyone find a partner, we are going to go to the auditorium and observe this about

each other. Figure out what you initiate when you walk. What is your center of gravity? - What is their posture? Age? Mood when they walk?

Step 5: Now add in gesture. What kind of way does your partner move their hands and their head when they walk? I want you to follow your partner around the room and see if you can imitate their walk exactly.

- Have someone show the class. First have their partner go, then have them show after that.

Ask. Tell me how this went for you? What did you do to learn the walk of your partner’s? Was it easy or hard? Why? Did you exaggerate some of the things they do?

Explain that sometimes we tend to over-exaggerate something that a person does to get a point across. How do you apply this to your characters? What are you going to do to create a walk for your character?

- Think about posture, what they exaggerate, gesture, where their center of gravity might be

- Why is this important for your character? - Think about height. Explain that my cousin is super tall about 6’ and he slumps his

shoulders because he doesn’t want to be sooo tall. I have an older sister who is shorter than me and she has very good posture to appear taller.

Step 6: I want you to treat your characters like your best friends and get to know them so well that you can give them a walk. You have done your research on them, so you should know a lot more about them. How can your research help this experience? What are you going to use from your research to help you?

- some of you may not know exactly how your person moves. Go from your research is there a physical attribute about them that might cause them to move in a certain way? How tall are they?

- Some of you are smaller than your characters, how are you going to overcome this to look bigger or taller? Tell me? Show me?

Step 7: Have the whole class explore walking around as their character. Then have a few students go up in a group of 6-10, have them explore walking around as their character. Tell them to play with gesture, center of gravity.

- Ask them how their age affects them, how about posture. ASK class if they can pick out any characters based on the walks they are giving them.

- What are they observing? How will they apply it to them?

Have the whole class get up and try it now. Tell them to come up with something pretty good because we will be doing a runway of their walks and showing it off to the class in a minute.

- Maybe pull out a few who are doing really well and have them show the class. Let the class observe.

Assessment: Take students back to class. Turn on some runway music and have them in pairs walk down the runway as their characters. I want them to experiment with time and use duration to make it all the way to the end of the runway and then turn around and walk back. I will be taking notes on what I see and how well you have embodied this character and give them a 1-10 based on their ability to portray them.

- Ask students to observe their character. Can they see the character in them? How are they doing this?

- Make sure you write up on the board things to think about, gesture, center of gravity, personality, etc.

Written Assessment: Have students pull out their journals and begin it as, “I went on a walk today…” They need to write observations of what they discovered about their character based off today and how their research helped them.

Debrief: Ask. What have you learned about your characters today?What can you glean from today’s experience and apply to acting in theatre? How does this apply to characters you might play in an actual show?Keep exploring these and learning about them when you can. I want to keep asking you what you are discovering.

Lesson 5: Move It Like You Mean It

Objective: Students will demonstrate their understanding of viewpoints and other movement techniques by applying a specific movement to their characters.

Materials Needed: review viewpoints from Anne Bogart, clip from Miss Congeniality about “walking “ https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9db4o8c5X0I Viewpoint work taken from: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Viewpoints

Hook: Watch the clip from Miss Congeniality about gliding. This is just to get them back into the “walking” mode. Remind them that we learned about walks last time by the following entry:

- Journal Entry about walking last time. Have students pull out their journals and begin it as, “I went on a walk the other day…” They need to write observations of what they discovered about their character based off of last class and how their research helped them. This is just to get them thinking about previous learnings from last class.

Step 1: Review walks from last time. Ask them to walk around the space and refocus back into that character you were last time.

Step 2: Talk about actions that you do every day.- Get ready in the morning- Eat food- Take a shower

Have students imagine in their heads on an average morning. What are some things you do every day?

Now think about how your character goes about their every day. Close your eyes, don’t answer this question, just think about it. What is an action that they do every day in their schedule?

We need to discover these things today to help us create the perfect movement. Remember I want your characters to become your best friends.

Step 3: Introduce Anne Bogart’s Viewpoints. Talk about how this is one method to develop your character movement. Through a very brief introduction to Anne Bogart’s Viewpoints we will be creating personal movements for our historical characters today. The first one is: Shape

- The first thing we want to figure out is what is the general character shape that your character fills. How do they fill the space in a room?

- Like a cylinder with liquid in it, how do you fill the space in this room as if you are the liquid?

- Read this definition from Anne Bogart’s Viewpoints: Shape - The contour or outline of bodies in space; the shape of the body by itself, in relation to other bodies, or in relation to architecture; think of lines, curves, angles, arches all stationary or in motion.

Activity:- Create a shape of your character as if we are in a wax museum. Let one half of

the class look at the room and observe the other statues in the room.

Step 4: Time- the next Viewpoint we will discuss today:Explain that there are different things that fall under “time” according to Anne Bogart:

● Tempo, duration, and repetition● Explain that we are going to focus on duration. Why?

○ Because for our final assessment you will need to be your characters for the full 30 minutes of the assessment.

Step 5: Space- specifically location in this situation: (space) the location of something changes the way you move. Explain that you are going to call out a specific location and you want them to move how you would move in those locations.

- High School Prom- At the beach- In an office as office workers- Old folks home

How did your bodies change to fit the place or feeling? What does this do to your movement?

Step 6: Lastly, we are going to discuss Story- give your character a story to move to

Think in your mind an action they do often. Taylor Swift plays in concerts often and has a guitar. Bethany Hamilton surfs and prepares her surfboard. Amelia Earhart checks her plane. pantomime an action you do every day. Let the class explore and create this movement thinking about shape, time, space, and now story. After exploring and creating this, have six go up at a time to show the class as their characters performing this “story” that they do every day. Ask for observations on different and unique movements.

Assessment: Write three things you learned about your character’s movement in relation to Anne Bogart’s viewpoints in your journal and show them to someone by you before you go.

Stand in a circle and have every person say something that they learned about how their character moves.

Lesson 6: The Character’s Mind

Objective: Students will demonstrate their understanding of how their characters might act and think by filling out a character worksheet on their character’s opinions about the world.

Materials Needed: Journals, agree/disagree papers taped on either side of the room. Character worksheet. Freaky Friday video clip. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oNcw3lllJ4w

Hook: Finish watching Viewpoint video clips from last time as needed. Discuss how they can apply that movement to themselves. Ask them what things they have discovered about their characters if there is anything new.

Step 1: Ask. What does our brain do for us every day? How does our mind affect us?

Have students close their eyes and imagine a busy day in their character’s life. What did they think about? What made them mad that day? Happy? Are they tired? Where did they go? What people did they see?

Have students pull out their journals and write a journal entry as their character. Have them write about this day they just imagined.

Discuss these journal entries and ask about the “belief” part. What did they choose to write? Ask: How many of your characters are more religious people or have some form of religion that is important in their lives? How many don’t? How does this affect the way your character might think?

Step 2: Ask students opinions on black licorice. Ask. Have any of you thought about the fact that your background makes up the way that you think? How you are brought up, what you are exposed to and the people you interact with affect what your opinion of things is.

Watch Freaky Friday clip. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oNcw3lllJ4w - Discuss how they continue to go on to be each other but they have to be completely

normal. They had to be themselves playing the part of another person. How are you going to do this to? How will you be yourself in this part but also include the characteristics of your historical figure?

- Have your students think of this assignment as a “Freaky Friday” sort of day where you wake up as this person and have to do a day in their shoes.

Step 3: Play the “Agree/Disagree” game. This is where you read statements. Your students have to decide what their character would agree or disagree with based on these statements. They choose to go towards agree, disagree, or neutral. Ask students their reasoning behind this. Why? What made you choose this? How is this going to help you with your further character development?

Agree/Disagree Questions:- People are never satisfied with what they have; they always want something more or something different. -People should read only those books that are about real events, real people, and established facts.-All students should be required to study art and music in secondary school.

-Reading fiction (such as novels and short stories) is more enjoyable than watching movies.-Only people who earn a lot of money are successful. -Playing a game is fun only when you win. - “When people succeed, it is because of hard work. Luck has nothing to do with success.” -People should sometimes do things that they do not enjoy doing.-Television, newspapers, magazines, and other media pay too much attention to the personal lives of famous people such as public figures and celebrities.

Ask. How might have your own opinions swayed the way you answered these questions?- I don’t know enough about my character, so I answered it in my way- I am thinking about how they might of thought based on our time period and culture’s

values- Emphasize that back then some things just weren’t weird for people. Things that

might be racist or rude today were not necessarily rude in these people’s days.- Think about the fact that your view of this character’s way of thinking might be skewed

because you have seen history unfold. You have a different knowledge and experience with this than they do.

- Take Hitler for example, he thought pretty differently than others about the Jews. He got people to truly believe that the Jews were a menace and ruining everything. He got people to hate them.

Assessment: Have students go back to their seats and fill out a character sheet (In My Mind’s Eye) that has something to do with their opinions about things. They need to fill it out to the best of their ability. Afterwards we will do an activity with it. Students will turn this worksheet in at the end of class.

Assessment (If time allows): Hot seating. Have students take turns three at a time come up and sit in the “hot seats.” I want people to be able to ask them questions about their opinions on things and other stuff about their life. They need to act/try to talk like their character would when they answer these questions. Have them wear name tags for this activity. Give lots of students turns and discuss their answers.

Name:___________________________

In My Mind’s Eye(Character Development)

1. Is my character religious? How dedicated are they to their religion? If they are not, why?

2. Does my character think that race is a big deal? Why or why not?

3. How does my character feel about this quote? “One should never judge another by external appearances.”

4. What is my character’s biggest political belief?

5. What is something my character thinks about every day? Why?

6. What is my character worried about?

Lesson 7: Let’s Talk

Objective: Students will understand the fundamentals to creating a character voice by performing a contentless scene using the voice of their historical character.

Hook: Play the animal voice game. Students stand in a circle with one person in the middle. That person sticks out their hand and points it at someone. They spin around and when they stop they go to someone and say make a “gorilla noise.” The person needs to disguise their voice by saying the gorilla sound. After saying the sound, the person in the middle has to guess who it is. If they guess right, they trade places with that person. If they are wrong they have to spin around and play again.

Step 1: Discussion: What did you guys notice about voice in this game?- You had to disguise your voice so that they wouldn’t guess who you are- Some people it is easy to tell who they are because of the way they sound

Voice is a huge part of what defines us as people and actors. How we use our voices tells us a lot about who we are.

-Who was a person that you got right off the bat because of the way they sounded?- In theatre if you can learn how to manipulate your voice to sound different in different ways, then you will be able to play many different characters in shows. You also will be able to tell a lot about a person’s story by understanding the way they use their voice.

Step 2: Go back to Drama Foundations and Review: Rate, pitch, tone, volume, diction and what they mean. Have students go in their journals and write what their character talks like based on rate, pitch, tone, volume, and diction. Have them turn to someone by them and say as their character: “I eat fruit with my cold cereal.”

Step 3: Did any of you go home and research how your character sounds? What was a specific character trait in the way they sounded that you want to add to your own vocal work? How are you going to apply this?

- There is so much creativity in voice. You can change the entire meaning of things when you use voice. Play the single word game. Students sit in their circles. I will give them a word. They are to go around the circle saying that word or phrase in the way their character would say it.

Ask. What did you do to make your version different than all the others?- Changed the pitch, the rate at which I said it, the volume at which I said it, the

way I emphasized it.- Tell students that there are specific ways that each of them used these words.

They used techniques that you use everyday but there are names to them.

Step 4: Talk about how people can change their voice but sometimes it requires physicality.We are now going to watch a video clip. I want you to observe how he uses the vocal tools but also his physicality and movement to be these characters. Apply these to you. (Let it go) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hjbPszSt5Pc

- Did you see him physically change his voice? What did he do with his body? - So how does physicality play into voice?

- The way we are built physically affects how our voice sounds, it makes us talk lower or higher or through our lip, etc.

- How are you going to do this with your own characters?

- You can’t just be students and expect to be able to pull these characters off too. You need to try these voices ALONG with the physicality. Convince me that you are actually these people. Take on their physicality.

Step 5: Pull up a PowerPoint of a few pictures of some of the students historical characters. I have some pictures of people’s historical characters up here. I want you guys to create how this person might sound to you. The PowerPoint changes based on the different characters that students might choose in this unit.

- Show the pictures one at a time. Have the class turn to a group and create the voice for the character shown on the screen. This is just to give everyone a chance in a less threatening environment before sharing with the class. Everyone gets to try creating a voice for those characters.

- Have them then look up at the picture on the slide and say the line “I eat fruit with my cold cereal” while everyone is looking at the slide.

Assessment: Create a voice for your historical character and do the following scene (contentless scenes) for a group of students. Have students vote on who should do it for the whole class. Or I will just draw names out of a hat and they will come up to read the script together.

- Review guidelines for the character lunch. Students need to bring a snack or treat for at least 8 people in the class for participation points

- Wear or bring your costume to class, I will give you time to change.- Check for allergies in the class so no one brings dangerous food- You will be expected to stay in character for the entire 30 minutes.

Contentless Scene One: “What did you do last night?”

A: Hi!

B: Hello.

A: How’s everything?

B: Fine. I guess.

A: Do you know what time it is?

B: No. Not exactly.

A: Don’t you have a watch?

B: Not on me.

A: Well?

B: Well what?

A: What did you do last night?

B: What do you mean?

A: What did you do last night?

B: Nothing.

A: Nothing?

B: I said, nothing!

A: I’m sorry I asked.

B: That’s all right.

Taken from Acting One by Robert Cohen

Lesson 8: Historical Character Lunch

Objective: Students will be able to create a solid three-dimensional historical character using movement, expression, voice, and more by interacting with other characters in a 30-minute improved performance.

Materials Needed: students need to bring a snack or a treat to share with at least 8 people in the class, can’t be homemade, **check for allergies in the class. Character analysis sheets. Rubrics.

Hook: Play speed dating as historical characters to get everyone warmed up. Give them 1 minute to get to know each other as best as they can as their characters, then have them rotate. This is to help students get to know each other’s characters and to get warmed up and used to acting as them.

Step 1: Pass out Character analysis worksheets. Have students fill them out as much as they can while you get set up for the “character lunch.”

Step 2: Explain to students what you are watching for one more time before we begin the lunch. Give them a few minutes to get dressed up and set out snacks for the performance.

Assessment: Let the lunch begin. Assess students’ ability to improv for a full 30 minutes as they portray their characters and interact with other historical characters. Take notes on great things you see from each person so that you can discuss them at the end of class. Play some music in the background so that they feel more comfortable.

Step 3: Give students time to clean up and get back into their regular clothes again after the 30 minutes is over. Have them finish filling out their character analysis.

Step 4: If you have time at the end of class, discuss what happened, read your notes to the class of what you loved and ask for any other observations. What was their experience like? Did they enjoy this? What was hard? How are you going to apply this to the next thing you do in theatre? How did this help you with life and observing other people’s stories?

Name:/20pts.

Character AnalysisInstructions: Try to answer these questions to the best of your ability. If you don’t know the answer, use your imagination and your own portrayal of the character to answer. Don’t just put IDK.

Historical Character Name: _____________________Age:___________Where were they born:____________________Where were they raised:___________________Favorite Color:____________Favorite Food:___________________

What are they famous for? Why? 2pts.

How do they act around other people? How do they feel about people? 2pts

What is their family life like? Are they close to their family? Why? 2pts.

Where is their center of gravity? How do they walk? 2pts.

What is their favorite thing to do in their spare time? 2pts.

Are they religious? Why or why not? Be specific. 2pts.

What is their general personality like? 2pts

Historical Character Lunch Rubrics: (write the following guidelines on the board the day of the performance)

Students are required to stay in character for the full 30 minutes, take tallies on how many times they break character. Students have a fully developed character voice and movement for the entire 30 minutes. Students interact with others and branch out from their own friend groups. Students give a unique and well prepared for performance with costume for the full 30 minutes.

Name:Character Name:Stayed in Character for full 3o minutes: 1 2 3 4 5 tallies:Voice: 1 2 3 4 5Movement: 1 2 3 4 5Interactions with others: 1 2 3 4 5Overall performance: 1 2 3 4 5

Name:Character Name:Stayed in Character for full 3o minutes: 1 2 3 4 5 tallies:Voice: 1 2 3 4 5Movement: 1 2 3 4 5Interactions with others: 1 2 3 4 5Overall performance: 1 2 3 4 5

Name:Character Name:Stayed in Character for full 3o minutes: 1 2 3 4 5 tallies:Voice: 1 2 3 4 5Movement: 1 2 3 4 5Interactions with others: 1 2 3 4 5Overall performance: 1 2 3 4 5