Developing characters
Improvise with characters by taking them out of the world of the play. What happens if two characters meet in the supermarket or go on an activity holiday together? Remember Stanislavski鈥檚 鈥榤agic if鈥. Experiment in order to create content for your scenes.
Exploring subtext
This is what鈥檚 going on underneath the words that are written. For example, two characters might behave very politely yet beneath the niceties they despise one another. Why might this be? Improvise an argument between them. Were they rivals at school or in love? In this way you鈥檙e creating a character history beyond what is spoken in the text.
Monologues
A monologue is when one solitary character speaks to the audience and shares their feelings or point of view. Write a character monologue which explains feelings and events from your character鈥檚 point of view for the audience. Try to include information which means the audience sees the character in a new light or discover something about the play they didn鈥檛 know before. You might then cross-cut between monologues and link them to show differences in character and attitude.
Even if you choose to keep much of the existing script and plot, these exercises will help ensure that characters and their relationships onstage are well thought out and detailed in performance.
Characters as animals
If your character was an animal or bird, what would they be? Experiment with animal characteristics in body and voice. Try being 100% animal and then gradually move back to human with only 10% of the animal present in your acting. Explore how the different characters/animals interact.