Breaking Down Your Script: The Compact Guide: A Step-by-Step Guide for the Actor

by Laura Wayth

This clear, concise and practical guide provides actors with a structured and effective method for breaking down and understanding a performance script. It offers a flexible approach that works with plays from any period or genre, with television and film scripts, and even when preparing for your audition.
Inside, you'll find the tools you need for every step of the process, from making sense of the whole script, to breaking it down scene by scene, through to detailed line-by-line analysis. There are strategies for exploring character arcs, objectives, beat shifts and subtext, as well as practical exercises and sample scenes from leading playwrights to help you put the concepts into action. Also included are worksheets you can use and reuse on all your future projects.
Wherever you are in your acting career, this book is your essential working companion – giving you a method for tackling any script, and providing the foundation to take your performances to the next level.
The Compact Guides are pocket-sized introductions for actors and theatremakers, each tackling a key topic in a clear and comprehensive way. Written by industry professionals with extensive hands-on experience of their subject, they provide you with maximum information in minimum time.

159 pages, Kindle Edition

Published February 9, 2023

Reviews

[Jeremy · Rating 3 out of 5]

Clear and easy to read ideas for organizing thoughts about an acting role. It would be nice to have the lists of questions in an appendix, as it is for the kindle edition the lists span screens and would need to be bookmarked or linked.

A little too much of the book focuses on backstory with inventing details of the past. Invented details might help some actors be more specific in their performance, but can lead other actors astray as invented details come into conflict with the director or other actors. Better to fully grasp given circumstances laid out in the script and leave blank spots where a detail isn't in the script, so we don't veer off course away from the intention of the playwright.

I would also add to the method of breaking down the script by including what the character most fears (overall, and from scene to scene). The tension between fears and wants enriches the performance and helps fill in gaps when it seems like a character isn't actively pursuing an objective.

[Jess Esa · Rating 4 out of 5]

A basic introduction that clarifies a lot of techniques and provides a useful guide to refer back to.

[Adelina Petre · Rating 5 out of 5]

I loved it and as a young theatre-kid I found it really useful.