Things You'll Need:
- Yourself
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Step 1
Explore the space. When you are rehearsing a play, take every advantage to see and explore the theatre you are going to be performing in as early on as possible. While the space will be different once the set is built in it, the feeling of the room is vital. Spacework is successful when you really know, in your body, the space you will be filling.
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Step 2
Know your environment. Your play takes place somewhere... in a specific place. It does not take place on a stage. It takes place in a house in New England during Christmas, or on the streets of seventeenth century Italy, or in a New York City diner in the nineteen sixties. If you can, visit the real place. If you can't, research it exhaustively. Consider if you are a stranger in this place, or is the setting of the play your home. That will greatly influence how you make every movement. The way a stranger knocks on a bedroom door is entirely different than how a stranger knocks.
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Step 3
Get your props as early as you can. Spacework is about how your character behaves in the space of the piece you are performing. Much of behavior is determined by how you use what you have around you. If your character smokes a pipe in the show, chances are he has smoked a pipe for a while. The audience can tell if they are watching someone light a pipe for the first time, as it is a rather involved process. You must practice this, just as you must practice every other "everyday" thing that your character does in the space of the play.
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Step 4
Use your imagination. While it is not imperative to create an entire back story for your character, you must know how your character lives in her body as well as you know how you live in your own. That behavior is influenced a great deal, if not almost entirely, by your surroundings. Use your imagination to put the character into other situations outside of the play in those same given surroundings.
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Step 5
Carry the work from rehearsal into performance. A great acting teacher once said, "prepare, memorize, rehearse... then step on stage and forget everything." This may sound counterintuitive, but what the teacher was trying to get across is that rehearsal is a chance for you to get the play (or whatever you are performing, be it scenes or an entire piece) ingrained in your mind. That includes your spacework. Then, once you're performing it, the spacework should be so inside you that your performance should almost feel like second nature.
