Script Analysis and Character Development

Start with character questions

Begin with Character Building, a mind map organized around questions such as “Who am I?”, “Where am I?” and “What do I want?” Use the prompts to consider a character before looking at the more specific examples on the page. You can return to the questions as you study a scene.

Next, look at Guidelines for Actors Preparing Scenes. It includes ideas about identifying with a character and avoiding predictable choices. Compare those ideas with the questions in Character Building and consider how they might shape your preparation.

Explore character and performance examples

Character Analysis looks at a character’s backstory and how it might inform costume and acting choices. For a particular character, the Violet mind map includes details about her life and memory. Use it to see how a map can bring character details together.

Describe Key events focuses on an entrance scene and includes physical and facial skills, posture and voice projection. It offers a way to look at performance choices alongside the character information in the other maps.

Use the quiz alongside the maps

The Drama quiz asks about plot, stage directions, changes in setting or time, and a playwright’s control when a play is produced. After exploring the maps, take the quiz to check your understanding of these aspects of drama. Then return to a map and consider how its character or scene details relate to what you practiced.

Script Analysis and Character Development is a section of Acting and Performance Skills in Performing arts (theatre, dance). These resources offer a character and scene-focused place to begin exploring the unit. Choose a map and use its prompts to guide your next study session.