Today I learned that I shouldn't memorize my script

I just got an audition for a new musical web series (think Glee) this week.

The moment I got my script, I jumped straight into it. I read every inch of the provided material, then I zoomed in to the highlighted segments, which was what I had to deliver in my self-tape audition. I read it again and again, got to know the story and what it was about, and then I jumped straight into the rehearsal process. I wrote down the initials of every word and punctuation sign in the piece, then started to learn it by rote memorization - that was what I did for acting class the last time when I was trying to remember my 20-minute part, and it worked! It looks like this:

S y s w t l t m?
I' b l s, I' b h a a--
I' n a y, i'... y' t b t t' e h i m l. A I k t' p t s b w o m a f m a. B I h n, n o i m l t m m f l I w e u y. A a t f s t m i w h a, t I w' r y, t I w'... e f y, I b d. A t' g h a a a, b d d I k i' t. I' n e, a I n w b...

Is this a method that people commonly recommend online? Yes.

But is this a good method? Well yes, for memorizing. But very soon I learned that this is terrible for acting. When you're acting, you want to assume the headspace of the character. You can't be thinking about what your next line will be. You should be having visions and dreams of your character's future, childhood memories and traumatic events from her past, and emotions that well up because of those images that you're filling your mind with. The lines have to come naturally, because all those visuals that you have constructed and conjured in advance are meant solely to point to that next line, in that singular structure and word order.

Now, the Actors Network Community on Discord had recently started a new feature called a focus group, where we organize fixed hour-long sessions for everyone to focus on one task of their choice and work on it as intensely as they can. I was in the session and making reports on my progress when an experienced actress - my favorite mentor who prefers her anonymity very much indeed - stepped in to see what we were up to. She took one look at my string of gibberish and went, "Who taught you this?" - I told her where I had learnt it from, and soon I was curious about her method. What else are you supposed to do with the script apart from memorizing it, right?

Here's the trick: You don't memorize a script. Everything boils down to two words - story first. I didn't grasp it at first - story? What do I do with that? Haven't I been dealing with the story too? I created memories for my character. I looked for the emotional beats in her words. I even had a playlist of Broadway showtunes that I used to get down to the soul of my character which paralleled so much with the feelings that certain songs evoked in me. My mentor was pleased to hear that, but still she asked me to think about what I was memorizing. Why was I memorizing? Wasn't I just creating extra work for myself?

It was an epiphany for me, and a very well-timed one too. What I had to learn was - in my mentor's words - to trust in the process of script analysis, that when all is said and done, the words would be there exactly the way it should be. It's the same way when we sing a song - we aren't thinking about what the next line is. We sing on autopilot, and the words come out because they have to, or we miss the beat completely. And learning about that cleared things up so much for me. I was lost in the process, grasping at techniques, making up scenarios on the fly without a proper structure to build my character on. I was getting frustrated because I had been practicing for close to three hours and I still did not feel like I was in the "zone". It was only when someone gave me a much needed course-correction, and only then did I see what was up. I couldn't get into my character's headspace simply because I have not internalized the story enough to see the natural progression of the words, and why they were arranged the way they were.

And that was it. Memorization by rote learning carries the risk of sounding rehearsed and stale, because it forces us to focus too much on "how" and not "why". By approaching scripts from the story instead of the words, I'm creating new meanings for every moment in my performance, meanings that are unique to me and no one else. This realization has renewed my love for acting by reminding me of the fact that acting is an intellectual pursuit as much as it is based on performance and preparation - so even if I do not score this role, I will be grateful for this experience of handling a well-written character and making her my own. It's a valuable lesson that acting classes too often gloss over, and I'm glad I'm learning this early in my career.