Characterization Articles for Drama Teachers

Character analysis can be done in many forms: • You can analyze a character in a play you’re studying. • You can analyze a character you’re playing in a production. • You can analyze a character in...

Drama Teachers! Do you want to teach musical theatre in your program, but you’re getting feedback from students like I can’t sing. I could never be in a musical. If you can’t sing you can’t be in a...

Characters come alive in the smallest details: a favourite food, a disliked type of music, a fear of spiders, an allergy to plums, a scar from a fall at two years old, a love of reality television....

When it comes to analyzing a character, names are extremely important. In a play, character names are always specifically chosen by the playwright to give clues on personality, status, identity,...

Birthdays are wonderful character development material because every human being has an immediate emotional reaction to their birthday. It could be that the character hates getting older or isn’t...

Consider this brilliant scene: “A: Do you like my dress? B: Yes, it’s beautiful.” Imagine you’re playing the role of B. And that is your only line in the entire show. The “obvious” choice is that B...

Naming characters. It’s something that I take very seriously as a playwright. Some might say a little too seriously, as I spend an hour on a baby name website instead of actually, you know,...

The first place to get insight into your character is by reading the play. Before making any decisions or judgments about your character, read the whole play three times. The first readThe first...