1. 12 Guideposts Objective: To create honest, truthful behavior on stage.
From Audition by Michael Shurtleff: Everything an Actor Needs to Know to Get the Part

2. DO NOW: In groups of 4 - 5, create a mnemonic device to help you remember the 12 guideposts:
1. Relationship
2. Conflict
3. Moment Before
4. Humor
5. Opposites
6. Discoveries
7. Communication/Competition
8. Importance
9. Events
10. Place
11. Game Playing/Role Playing
12. Mystery/Secret

3. #1: Relationship Relationship = Fact + Feeling
Identify the facts. THEN, figure out the feelings.
What is your emotional attitude toward your other? How does your character feel about the other person at this moment in time? It changes!
DO NOW: Take a moment to think about your own relationships. How do you feel about your mom or dad? You best friend? Your boyfriend or girlfried? You sister of brother? Do you love them? Do they still make you mad sometimes? Do the feelings change on a daily basis? Write your thoughts in your journal…
Explore the feeling in the relationship in the now.
The “now” is the what you need to know in the monologue.

4. Always ask: “Where is the love
Always ask: “Where is the love?” This is what makes you stay in the room and fight, instead of flee.
Avoid judging your character.
Struggle with active choices in the performance.
Ex. Wanting to decide is more active than deciding. Why? Wanting to kiss is more interesting than kissing. Why? The character enters the scene wanting to kiss.
The process of trying to reach an emotional decision is always more dramatic than the achievement of it.
Don’t play the end of the play before you get there - you have to take a journey in front of us.
Full commitment makes good acting.
DO NOW: Write down the FACTS + FEELINGS of your characters and their others in your monologues.

5. #2: Conflict
What are you fighting for??? What is your motivation?
Objective: I am trying to make ____________ feel/do ____________ in order to get ____________.
DO NOW: Fill out this sentence for your 2 monologues!
You must find a POSITIVE motivation (Don’t give up – you are still there – you care! “I don’t care” is not a choice. You wouldn’t be upset if you didn’t care.
Make the most ACTIVE choice in your monologue.
*Brainstorm examples as a class…

6. Plays are not written about everyday lives or moments of peace and quiet, but about the extraordinary, the unusual, the climaxes.
Maximum conflict is what we always look for.
Don’t settle for anything except the biggest dream for your future. Fight to make the dream come true. Do not play the character defeated.
OBSTACLES: Who is interfering with you getting what you are fighting for?
TACTICS: Find as many ways as you can to go about getting what you are fighting for.
DO NOW: Brainstorm what your obstacle/s are in this scene and come up with 5 tactics you can use to overcome the obstacle.

7. #3: Moment Before Where are you coming from when you enter?
Analyze it, make choices about it, and enter the scene with something.
Every scene, play, or monologue starts in the middle. It is up to the actor to provide what comes before.
You have to bring your “stuff” with you when you enter the scene.
All of this must lead to specific choices. The more specific, the better the scene goes. MAKE A CHOICE!!! It’s not enough to think about what the moment before should be; one has to FEEL it, drown it it, be overcome by it!
Be propelled by the feelings, not daintily led by your head.
In an audition, you have the first 10 seconds to make an impression. Then people decide whether or not they’re going to listen. This requires immediate and FULL emotional commitment from the TOP!

8. FOR HOMEWORK Moment Before Exercise: “THROUGH THE DOOR”
At home, brainstorm in your journal 2 different scenarios for entering the classroom. One “good” day and one “bad” day scenario. Be very specific in both scenarios about all the details and events leading up to your entering the room and how you feel about entering the room today (what are your expectations). Rehearse both scenarios at home. When you come back next class, we will see both improvisations back to back.

9. REVIEW Relationship: Fact + feeling Conflict: What am I fighting for?
Moment Before: Where am I coming from?

10. #4: HUMOR It’s not jokes, it’s an attitude.
Humor exists even in the most serious of situations. It gets us through the day.
There is humor in every scene! Find it. A scene minus the humor is not believable.
HUMOR is the HOPE in the scene.

11. #5: OPPOSITES
Whatever you decide is your motivation is in the scene, the opposite is also true and should be in the scene.
OPPOSITES: Ex. Love vs. hate.
DO NOW: Come up with an example of an opposite that exists in your scene.
*Both emotions should exist in the scene simultaneously.
Use counterpoint in your acting. Cry when you want to laugh. Laugh when you want to cry.
DO NOW: Find a place in your monologue where counterpoint might work.

12. #6: DISCOVERIES
Every scene is filled with discoveries, or things that happen for the first time.
Discoveries can be created:
About the other character
About yourself
About someone offstage
About the situation happening right now
About a situation years ago and how it impacts the now.
You must make an emotional discovery in every scene, as often as you can find one.
It’s the actor’s job to add discoveries.

13. #7 COMMUNICATION & COMPETITION
If a feeling is not being communicated, it doesn’t matter.
Communication is a circle
1) Make sure the message is clear
2) Makes sure the receiver has received the message.
If circle is not completed, you can’t move on.
QUESTION: Why is this hard in a monologue situation?
Communication is more than just exchanging words; it is based on your need to be heard by your partner in hopes that you will make a difference in them.
Communication is the desire to change the other person in some way.

14. Competition:
1) I am right and you are wrong.
You should change from being the way you are to they way I want you to be.
“This is a play about me in a love relationship. What is the problem with the other person, and what am I going to do to solve it today?"

15. #8: IMPORTANCE
Plays are written about important moments in people’s lives, not everyday humdrumness.
We want truth in our acting, but the truth is not enough if it is neither dramatic nor interesting nor unique.
Actors are fond of playing the “everyday.” In acting, conflict should not be avoided.
Important doesn’t mean significant to others, it means emotionally important to you in this moment. Tardy bell example...
Make the stakes as high as you can. Add maximum importance!
DO NOW: Brainstorm a way to raise the stakes in your own monologues.

16. What happens in the play?
#9: FIND THE EVENTS
What happens in the play?
Events are about change!
A change can be:
Secretive or hidden
Clear, outright and obvious
*The actor must keep keep a lookout for the changes in a scene, for their can be many. The more you create, the more alive the scene is
A play must move, it must progress; it can’t stand still.
Ask yourself: “What happens in this scene? What changes? Why is this scene in the play? There has to be a reason.”
If the playwright fails to provide it, then you must.

17. #10: PLACE Ask yourself: Where does the scene take place?
The physical nature of the place is only the beginning. It’s only fact. This is NOT ENOUGH; the feeling of the place is important to the scene.
You feel differently in different places. You carry yourself differently based on where you are. It’s not enough to say the scene takes place in a “classroom.” Which classroom? DO NOW: Describe how the theatre room feels vs. your mentor vs. your math class vs. your history class vs. your other magnet area.
Often when actors audition, you can’t tell where they are b/c they don’t know. In an audition, you are in a bare, foreign space; substitue a place you know from your own life.

18. #11: Game Playing and Role Playing
This does not mean insincere or silly behavior.
Every relationship we have in life demands a different role; every situation we are in is a game with different rules. The rules of the game can help to tell us how to “act” in this situation.
DO NOW: Think of some examples of the above from your own life.
In every scene, ask yourself:
What is the game I am playing in this situation?
What role do I assume in order to best play this game?
DO NOW: What game are you playing in your monologue? What role are you playing?

19. #12: Mystery & Secret
After you have done all 11 guideposts, add in what you don’t know!
There is always something going on in the other’s heart and head that we can only ponder.
No matter how open we are, there is always something secretive in ourselves and others.
What is a Secret? There are many varieties:
1) One you never tell anyone and never want anyone to know.
2) One you want someone to know even though you don’t tell them
3) One you want someone to know you have to get them to coax it out of you
Explore the secrets in the scene that you are keeping and those that you wonder about in your other.

20. So…now what?
The 12 GUIDEPOSTS are a road map I’ve provided you. It is up to you now to take the journey!
Over winter break, you need to read your plays. If you can’t finish them, at least get started. You can’t do the real work until you have this foundation!
Figure out the 12 Guideposts for each of your monologues. This is your “research.”
Write down your responses. I will collect them…
Come in the first day back mostly off-book and ready to do a first up of both pieces.
Have fun! And, good luck!