Ideas for creating and developing characters
If you already have a character, try these ideas to extend your knowledge and understanding of how they behave in a set of different circumstances.
Transporting a role
Experiment with how characters react in different locations. Take your character out of their usual world and create an improvisation somewhere entirely different. You could use Stanislavski鈥檚 magic If and ask yourself 鈥榃hat if鈥?鈥 to explore the infinite possibilities of the character and plot to create a complete imaginary world.
Here are some ideas for different situations:
- on a bus
- a jury member
- a television interview
- trapped in a lift
- a futuristic world
- a child in a nursery
You can experiment by using a different location, or by changing the characters鈥 status and giving them a menial or a very important job to do. You could go backwards and forwards in time and imagine how they behaved as a child and how they鈥檇 behave as an elderly person. What if you threw together three completely different characters such as an old lady, a pilot and a circus clown in an interesting A specific circumstance involving a particular place, time and character/s.?
Now where would you put them?
What are the characters鈥 motivations or what do they want? Perhaps the old lady wants to save the world from an alien invasion鈥
How would your character behave if they:
- won the lottery
- met the Queen
- were told they only had six months to live
- became Prime Minister
Using constraints
A constraint is a condition that you must apply to a scene, so that you鈥檙e improvising within a set of rules. Here are some ideas for working with constraints when improvising.
Space
Apply the following spatial constraints when staging or improvising a scene and see what happens.
- A very small space, such as a lift. Characters must behave as they would normally but within a tiny playing area.
- A vast space, such as across a giant mountain range.
Consider how changing The distance between characters, objects, set. Proximity may show aspects of character and relationships on stage. affects body language, vocal tone and volume and interaction, between characters. There may be something that works and could be included in your devised piece.