Procedure for Acting Project: Major Role

1. A major role is designated by the theatre faculty as appropriate for an acting production project.
   The criteria for such a designation includes:
   1. The role is generally recognized as particularly challenging
   2. The role has a substantial performance history
   
   
2. The role is cast by the play’s director
   
   
3. The student cast in the role, with the director’s approval, appplies to the Theatre/Dance Department for consent to enroll in 499 Production Project. The application contains the following:
   1. A statement by the student explaining his/her rationale for performing the particular role
   2. A list of prior major/minor acting roles
   3. Grades for performance courses and practicums
   4. The student’s cumulative GPA and GPA in theatre courses
   
   
4. If the application is not approved, the student receives a written explanation from the chair of the department.
   
   
5. If approved, the director will designate deadlines for the student to submit the following reports:
   1. An initial character analysis
   2. A history of the character, including an extended annotated bibliography detailing previous interpretation, criticisms and commentaries about the play and the character, etc.
   3. A revised character analysis which reflects the director’s concept of the character; this revised character analysis then becomes the basis for the actor’s characterization
   
   
6. Beginning with the revised character analysis and continuing through the final performance, the actor will keep a diary in which he/she records efforts (e.g., approaches, methods, exercises, etc.) to develop the characterization.
   
   
7. Following the final performance, the student will write a self-evaluation detailing his/her success and/or failures in characterizing the role. This self-evaluation must be typed, written in an acceptable style and distributed to the theatre faculty within five days of the final performance. It will provide the focus for the oral critique.
   
   The reports described in #5 above will be available to theatre faculty at least two weeks prior to the play’s opening performance. The actor’s diary will be available the day following the final performance.
   
   
8. The oral critique will be scheduled within ten working-days after the final performance.
   
   
9. Within a week of the oral critique the theatre faculty will submit grades to the Department secretary for the Production Project:
   1. The grade from the play’s director will constitute one-half of the total grade and will reflect the director’s judgment concerning the quality of the actor’s reports and diary as well as the student’s progress in characterization.
   2. Grades from other theatre faculty will be averaged. (The average grade will constitute the other half of the final grade.) These grades will reflect the faculty’s judgment on how successfully the actor performed the role and how discerning the actor was in terms of his/her self-evaluation.