13 Steps to cutting an Oral Interp Selection Courtesy of : The Perfect Performance

Step 1 READ THE ENTIRE SCRIPT Look at the general story of the script and characters Do not worry about “cutting” just yet If you do not personally own the script purchase your own copy

Step 2 Read the entire script AGAIN! At this point you need to begin looking for ownership of the piece. Reread the script and look for the parts that talk to you personally. Look for the story that you want to tell your audience

Step 3 Map out the dramatic structure of the text What is Dramatic Structure? Exposition Rising Action Events Climax! Falling Action Dénouement

Step #4 Ask yourself the following questions: What is the story that I am telling from the script? Does the story I will tell have a beginning a middle and an end? Am I sticking to the author’s intent? Does this have proper dramatic structure? If you find a single scene that works well, good for you; you are a very lucky (or maybe lazy) human being. Most cuts will have chunks of various parts of a play

Step # 5 Make a 20 minute cutting of the text to give you a smaller chunk to work with. This will make it far less overwhelming

Step #6 What makes us want to hear more? Why do we love hearing about Rosie and Trump? Why do we love seeing Tom Cruise go ape on Matt Lauer? WE LOVE CONFLICT!!!!! (yeah chaos!) Make sure you keep as much of the conflict as possible in your cutting.

Step #7 Look at each individual line and word Do all of the lines/words in your cutting advance the story… or are they retarding it? Get rid of all retarding lines/ words! As Demond Wilson says “You are either moving forward in life, or moving backwards. You NEVER stand still” Move the story FORWARD

Step #8 Now check your characters…. Are any of them a retarding force? If you need to combine characters do so, but only if you can keep the author’s intent. If the character is not helping your plot… BOOT IT!

Step #9 Once you have your cutting one minute under time, check your dramatic structure What is your exposition? What is your initial event? What is your climax? What is your falling action? How is everything resolved? The purpose of this step is to make sure that you are telling the story that the author intended.

Step 10 Make sure that you have a strong beginning and a strong ending. If you begin weakly or super-cheese you will lose your audience and they will be torqued that they are having to waste the next ten minutes of their life listening to your sorry tail If you have a great piece and do not give the audience an ending to their journey or just fizzle out you will make them even more angry for abandoning them. The perfect beginning or ending may not just slap you in the face you may have to work (eek) to find it.

Step #11 To tease or not to tease…. What is the question? A teaser should serve a purpose. If your teaser does not do one of the following three things, you need to think about doing an intro at the beginning without a teaser. 1) Moves the story forward 2) Provides hidden info about a character 3) Justifies the literary merit of a piece

Step #12 Write an introduction for your cutting It should be no longer than 30 seconds in length It should familiarize us to the world of the play

Step #13 You will need the following supplies for this step: Scissors Glue Manila Folder Cut the words out of your typed script by event Paste them into a manila folder

Now…. MEMORIZE!!!!! MEMORIZE!!!!!