Beats

Beat/Units In Theatre

Stanislavsky believed that Theatre is a constant state of conflict and that there are no typical 'goodie' and 'badie' characters and instead their are only light and dark.

• A beat is considered a part of a text/script where mini objectives are pursued and attained or blocked resulting in the person changing the dynamic or the state of the action in the text itself.
• Beats are often marked by the entrances/exits of characters they are also marked by a subject change, moment of silence/inaction or a change in a characters behavior.
• When working on a text it is good to split the text into beats this is for many reasons - the primary reason being that when you eventually put them back together they flow seamlessly and show the characters journey throughout the piece. In addition it makes the structure of the piece strong.
• Stanislavsky titled each beat/unit (the title was always poetic and/or emotionally rooted to the character and what they are thinking/feeling/doing at that given time) in a way that made it clear what was happening in the scene.