Peter, I want to thank you for the time you have taken out to answer. You post is HUGELY helpful and most importantly encouraging thanks.
Again in general, the roles with more lines, or more lines spoken about them, are the ones more central to the action, so that the plot action is driven by who they are, how they must act, so in that sense the writing is limiting, but in a positive way.
Thanks for anwering this. This is what I wanted to/needed to know.
The so-called minor characters (I'm a very egalitarian person: I do not believe that the the larger the role the more important it is. It is the same with the people playing the roles; and I despise actors who think they're inherently superior to, and more intelligent than, the shy young woman who's running the sound.) have to be built in a more round-about way. If the playwright gives you:
Mitzi's hotel room. A knock on the door. Mitzi sighs, throws back her Scotch, opens the door.
OFFICER CRAIGMEYER
Ma'am, the sergeant would like to see you down in the lobby. Five minutes.
That's all there is of Officer Craigmeyer. Say that the role has been given to a 60+ year-old male who can pass for late 40s. That limits the character far more than the playwright did, but tells us nothing about how he should deliver his one line. Almost anybody who can speak English could deliver the line and the play would go on, but if it's done without a sense of the character it'll stand out as a bad moment in the play, possibly the only thing the audience will remember. The actor has to put the cop's world into that line: he played football in high school; got kicked out of Harvard for some unproven infraction; twenty-five years on and off the police force; this is his first week back at work after recovering from a shooting; he hates women, and his sergeant is a woman. So, as we see, is Mitzi. All these things, and a zillion more, can contribute to that one line, none of it from the playwright, but it has to be believable, has to fit the play.
What I really liked about this is not only have you said how to do a background study but you have made the studyt relavant to the plot by having it explain or connect to the brief one line interaction between the cop and mitzi. The words are plain the tone would be perhaps derisive. Wow! Learnt something there.
All for now: past my bedtime.
Peter
If I weren't lame, I would have been an actor and benefited from this as an actor too. Thanks Peter.
NB: although they say writing is an extension of acting. I noticed the lines of the cop do reflect the study. They are curt and would fit perfectly. How I enjoy this beautiful dance of writing and acting! Thanks again.
