This document provides guidance for actors on working on stage. It discusses different types of stages, following stage directions, basic stage directions like up/down/left/right. It offers tips for actors on making entrances and exits, like imagining where they are coming from and where they are going. Finally, it discusses techniques for engaging the audience like standing, gesturing, walking and handling props, as well as focusing one's attention where the audience will find it interesting.

1. Chapter 9
Working on the stage

2. Each performance happens on
some kind of stage in view of an
audience. These stages vary in shape
and size, for every stage is different,
sometimes the stage is not a stage
at all, but just a cleared space. There
are a number of basic principles that
apply to work on almost any kind
of stage .

3. Using stage direction
When you rehearse a scene, you will
be given directions and need to make
notes of those directions. Some of these
directions will deal with your
characterization or your emotional
relations with other actors. Some will
simply tell you where to stand on the
stage. This latter type of direction is
called blocking.

4. Proscenium stage

5. A proscenium stage has four
directions:
Up
Down
Right
Left

6. Entering and exiting
The best way to make an entrance is
to use your imagination to start the
scene before you enter. Ask yourself the
following questions: where have I just
come from? What was I doing there?
Why precisely did I come here? Why do I
want to go into the onstage areas? What
do I except to see when I get out there?
What do I want to do out there?

7. Similarly, for an exit, ask: where am I
going? What do I want to do there?
How far is it from here? What do except
to see offstage? What makes me choose
this particular moment to leave? Some
people like to play a short improvisation
before each entrance to remind
themselves

8. Opening to the audience
The whole point of a performance is
to share something with an audience.
the easiest way to accomplish this is to
make sure that your audience can see
and hear you. Most of the following
techniques apply to being seen on a
proscenium stage, because the technical
problems of being seen there are much
greater than for other kinds of stages

9. Standing
Gesturing
Turning
Walking
Crossing
Stopping
Entering and exiting
Handling props

10. Focusing
As a general rule, the audience will
be interested in what you appear to be
interested in as you have probably seen
happen in real life, if someone looks up
at the sky intensely, gradually other
people passing by stop and look up at
the sky as well.

11. Gesture
‘’what do I do with my hands?”
Two kinds of gesture:
• expressive gesture
• emphatic gesture

12. • expressive gesture – expresses an
emotion.
( Ex: crying, angry)
• emphatic gesture- emphasizes a
point, usually a part of a line.
(Ex: “pointing a person”)