Breaking Down Your Script: The Compact Guide

This clear, concise and practical guide provides actors with a structured and effective method for breaking down and understanding a performance script. It offers a flexible approach that works with plays from any period or genre, with television and film scripts, and even when preparing for your audition. Inside, you'll find the tools you need for every step of the process, from making sense of the whole script, to breaking it down scene by scene, through to detailed line-by-line analysis. There are strategies for exploring character arcs, objectives, beat shifts and subtext, as well as practical exercises and sample scenes from leading playwrights to help you put the concepts into action. Also included are worksheets you can use and reuse on all your future projects. Wherever you are in your acting career, this book is your essential working companion - giving you a method for tackling any script, and providing the foundation to take your performances to the next level. The Compact Guides are pocket-sized introductions for actors and theatremakers, each tackling a key topic in a clear and comprehensive way. Written by industry professionals with extensive hands-on experience of their subject, they provide you with maximum information in minimum time.

Laura Wayth is Professor of Acting and Coordinator of the Actor Training Program at San Francisco State University. She has worked as an acting teacher and coach in the United States, Italy, Morocco, China and the UK, and is the author of Breaking Down Your Script: The Compact Guide (Nick Hern Books, 2023) and two other books on acting: A Field Guide to Actor Training and The Shakespeare Audition.