Hi There,

Short of replacing the actor, cue cards, telepromptors, and the actors saying the lines in the other actor's ear. There are a few technics that I have found helpful.

I have recently been in The Diary of Anne Frank. This show requires that the lines are said as written. If you flub a line or improv it can kill the entire mood of the show. As well as make your fellow actors mad. We did have one man who had trouble remembering lines. It was not that he couldn't memorize the script. It was that when doing a scene he would get swept up into that moment the words in the script were just not there.

We solved this by meeting before rehearsal or setting a 30 minute break aside and do a speed through. This is where you speed through your script on stage, but with no blocking or real acting. The actor were not allowed to look at there book, but the Stage manager would stop them if a line was wrong. This just doesn't help your actor who is having trouble, it also helps the other actors. Going through there lines fast without their ussual "acting" can bring new light to a line. Sometimes people overact, and never think of a line in its real context. So not to single out the one person it helps if you make it an acting exercize.

If this doesn't help, and without yelling, you can ask the actor if he would like to do the script that is written. This may embarrass them enough that they will make an effort to work on it a little more. You could also assign a crew member to go over the script with them when they are not onstage.

As for the blocking, you may have to be a little leniant on that. Unless it is a dance move or a move specifacally for another actor/cue you want people to move naturally anyway. It may be that the movements are not making sence to him/her. You may need to breakdown the reasons they are moving so they get why they are moving.

~joe