Developing Quality Performances

I know that most of us are just getting over Christmas but we are already having to turn our attention to Easter. Actually, if you’ve not already started Easter rehearsals I urge you to start losing sleep!

Easter is typically an opportunity for big production. Easter is a time of magic and is more typically balanced towards drama.  Many churches are limited to the most basic amateur who if you are lucky has had some sort of high-school experience. The end result is most often a non-awe inspiring “hammish” performance.

This is not disparaging the person who is trying, it’s simply recognizing there is normally room for growth.  Developing solid performance quality is not as difficult as you might imagine and in reality does not take as much time as you might think. There are several exercises that you can send your people on and ways that you can get them to think through their actions.

First, after you cast your roles, send each performer off with a homework assignment.  This assignment should be for them to go and research their character completely. They should learn everything about their characters life - habits, actions, reactions, relationships, etc. If the character is fictional character then they should find an identical role in real life to study (for example, if the their character is a postman they should study the life of a postman).

Now when they come to rehearsal you should encourage them to begin to relate their work to that study. For instance, given how close we are to Easter, if the character is Jesus, they need to realize the pain associated with the beating.  They need to understand the materials used for such torture and associate how that really feels when it slaps across your back.  When they hit that part of the role, they need to allow those feelings to become real – to imagine really being hit, to try to really feel that pain. This produces a very believable reaction because it’s believable to the actor.

Make the first few rehearsals about character development – not so much about the words. Anyone can recite memorized words, what makes the performance riveting is the raw emotion that comes from the person. Details will emerge – many that the actor might not even realize – and these details will make it real.

I firmly believe the key to a quality performance begins with the actor or actress understanding their character from the inside out and then applying that to their stage character. The key is emotion and emotion can only be reached through study and understanding.

Spread the Word.

Find Out More About This Incredible Ministry Resource!

Fundamentals of Audio - DVD

This DVD based training system was developed by Brad Herring - National Speaker and “Recording & Production” Editor for Technologies for Worship Magazine.

This series has shipped world-wide and helped churches everywhere improve their sound quality, as well as many hearts of audio engineers!

Are you suffering from bad sound or trying to train new people into your sound minsitry?  This DVD is for you!

GET MORE INFORMATION>

Professional Linguistics is our language partner.  If you are looking for mission translation, document translation, or any other language need - give them a call.

As a long-term technical advisor for TFWM I find it to be a helpful resource for churches!  Now - it gets even better!  As a sponsor for TFWM, follow this link and get a free one-year subscription!