By: Kristina Anderson, Barbizon International

Remembering things is a critical skill for an actor. Whether you’re working on remembering a script for an audition, practicing a monologue for an acting competition/class, or even memorizing your part for school play, these three tips will help with your memory recall.

Study In Short Sessions
After a period of time, it becomes hard to continue focusing on and retaining information. Instead of trying to learn everything in one sitting, break up the piece your are trying to memorize into a few sections. Then create study sessions by spending between 10 to 30 minutes practicing with scheduled breaks in between.

Create Structure
As you work on memorizing a new piece, create structure by doing things like using categories or imagery. By breaking down the text into an outline, you can use categories that will help you trigger the next part of a long script in sections. Imagery can also help you navigate a script by teaching you to play a movie in your mind that helps you remember the order of the words.

Practice Over And Over Again
And don’t just read a piece of paper on repeat. Write the words down to help you remember them by using them a different way. Recite the script over and over again out loud so that it becomes second nature to use the words.