Educational Objective:
Students will demonstrate their ability to relate to an unseen character by performing to partners at the same time.
Materials Needed:
• Clean room so the students can spread out and relax
Hook:
When the students come in, have them find their own space in the room, close their eyes, and start to meditate. Ask them to imagine one of their parents. What does their hair look like? What is the expression on his or her face? How is your parent holding himself or herself? Does he/she look nice? Now, imagine your best friend. What are you two doing? What does his/her hair look like? Are they wearing jewelry? Where are you hanging out? What are you doing?
Teaching Presentation:
• Do you see the character opposite of you in your monologue just as clearly? Why not? In every monologue, you are talking to someone. You need to be able to see that person and truly talk to them.
• Have them close their eyes again and imagine the characters they’re talking to in their monologues. Ask those same specific questions from the hook.
• Explain that the character opposite you will react to your monologue. Do you mentally see those reactions? You need to react to their reactions. Are they yelling back at you? What are they saying to you?
• Assign pairs. Have each student recite their monologues to each other at the same time. This will give them an unexpected reaction. Most reactions won’t even fit, but it will make a challenge for the actors so they will stretch themselves with memorization and with different tactics to get what they want.
• Ask for a volunteer to perform their monologue in front of the class. Also ask for a volunteer to be the imagined character. As the first student begins the monologue, coach the second student to give reactions to the first student. It will throw them off for a bit, but force them to react to their imaginary character. Do this with every student.