Smart but Stumped, 5 Tools to Help You Learn Your Lines is a blog that reviews text analysis software. The blog was created by Meisner, a professional actor and teacher of the Meisner technique of acting, who says he needs a tool like this to help him learn his lines.
The software reviewed in the blog helps actors memorize their lines for stage plays and film scripts. The blog posts are written in a very professional tone, with paragraphs broken up by headers that describe what the text analysis tool does. The author uses many examples from his own experience with the software to demonstrate its effectiveness, and also provides links where readers can try the software themselves.
Smart but Stumped, 5 Tools to Help You Learn Your Lines is a blog that reviews text analysis software. The post gives an overview of the most popular and successful apps available for actors who are preparing for their auditions by learning lines.
The author begins by providing examples of how actors can use text analysis tools to break down scripts, speed up memorization and improve delivery of lines. He then describes five tools: Rehearsal, Scriptation, Scene Partner, Rehearser and My Lines.
The first tool reviewed, Rehearsal, is geared toward the iPad and iPhone; the app features voice recognition technology that allows actors to practice their lines with the app reading back their performances. The author notes that this tool would be suitable for an actor working on an audition or practical exam, but not so much for a feature film or television show.
Scriptation is another app that is used primarily in rehearsals and auditions; however, it can also be used by directors during production to study scene shot lists and by producers to review scene breakdowns. This app has some additional benefits over Rehearsal in that it allows users to add notes directly onto scripts and categorize them as well.
Scene Partner is described by the author as the most
Whether you’re a theater professional or an aspiring student, you’ve probably stumbled across the infamous Meisner Technique. The technique is named after legendary acting teacher Sanford Meisner who developed this technique as a way of training actors to “live truthfully under imaginary circumstances.”
The technique requires that the actor repeat personal statements with another actor or a scene partner until it becomes natural and believable. In essence, the actor is believed to be living in the moment, rather than reciting lines from memory.
The Meisner technique has inspired much conversation and debate amongst actors, educators and other theater professionals. While many find it useful, others find it confusing and difficult, leaving them with questions about how to actually do it, which they believe leads to better performance.
In fact, smart but stumped is one of the most common reasons people deal with when learning their lines.
In this post we’ll share five tools that will help you learn your lines faster and easier than ever before. We’ll also share tips on how to practice your lines in a way that helps you memorize them more effectively.
I’m an actor. A good one. People tell me that, even if I don’t believe them. But there’s one thing, the most basic thing, the first thing you learn when you start acting, that I am still terrible at: learning lines.
I’ve had super-patient teachers and coaches who have tried everything from crazy mnemonic devices to underlining words in my script, but nothing works for me. Not even the old standby of repeating my lines over and over again as I fall asleep. (If you have ever wondered why actors sometimes sound like robots when they’re on stage, it’s because we’re trying to remember our lines.)
So imagine my relief when I learned about five text analysis tools that can help me get a handle on my scripts and cue cards:
1) Word Frequency: This tool shows you how often each word appears in your script. In order to remember your lines you need to build muscle memory of the words themselves. Knowing which words appear most frequently will let you focus more attention on remembering these words so that the rest of your line will follow naturally.
2) Word Length: This tool counts how many letters are in each word in your script. Longer words tend to be harder to remember than shorter ones
“Meisner” has a cool name, but there are problems with Meisner’s method. It isn’t easy to explain at first. And it doesn’t help you learn your lines as quickly as you’d like.
You want to learn your lines quickly. You want to be in the zone and not think about text analysis. But that is exactly what Meisner’s method forces you to do.
So you hear about a new tool for actors: “TextAnalysis.” You download it and try out the demo on one of your scenes from the play you have coming up in three months. It is amazing! The software figures out which line of dialogue starts each scene, and which line ends each scene; then it breaks down every character’s dialogue into a separate file, with all stage directions removed, so all you see are the words spoken by that character; then it tells you which lines are repeated most often, so you know where to focus your attention; finally, it shows you statistics about how many times each speech begins with “I”, or “You”, or “We”, or whatever word you want to use as a proxy for who is dominating the conversation!
You love this software! You can’t wait to start learning your lines!
But when you
“I’m a pretty smart guy and I can’t remember my lines. What can I do?”
This is the question I get asked most as a drama teacher.
Fortunately, there are some great tools that actors can use to learn their lines. Here are five of them:
1. Text to Speech software
Text to speech software is amazing. You open a text file in the program and it reads the text back to you with whatever voice you choose. It’s not going to win any Oscars anytime soon but the best ones are surprisingly good at reading dialogue and have a range of different voices; everything from child to alien.
2. Word Frequency software
Word frequency software takes your script and works out how many times each word appears in it. This might not sound very useful but it actually helps you learn your lines very well because it forces you to pay attention to the words that come up most often in your script; which tend to be the important words, the words you need to remember more than less common words.
I’ll never forget the feeling I had my first week of Meisner training.
I was excited about learning the technique but I was at a loss for how to memorize. I had been studying acting for three years prior and memorizing lines felt like a mystery. For some reason my scene partners were able to memorize their lines quickly and easily, whereas it took me days, sometimes even weeks to get through one scene.
I knew I had to find a better way, but I didn’t know what to do.
Fast forward through several years of study and trial-and-error, I’ve finally found the tools that work for me. In this article I share with you 5 tools that make learning your lines easier than ever before.
