An Acting Duet is a five to twelve minute scenes, part of a script or a side used for Duet Acting in forensics. The duet is not an official part of the National Forensic League, but is often part of normal competition and tournaments. Two people, the actors take part. The event allows interaction between the participants and the setting, thus adding acting to the competition. This is in in contrast to Duo, where the actors may not even directly address each other and movement is restricted.
How do you select an acting duet? The scene used may be either comedic or dramatic material. It must be of sufficient length. A properly formatted side will take approximately one minute per page to perform. Therefore, if you want five minutes of performance, look for five pages of dialog.
A good acting duet must have conflict between the characters. This drives the scene.
Each character must have a strong want. The characters want is what resolution does the character seek and what is the reason for engaging the other character. A character without a strong want in the scene may be withdrawn, and this choice will lead to a weak performance. Of course, the choice of characters want is complete up to the actor, so you can decide you own want. However, it should fit within the context of the dialogue.
You must ask yourself what is the relationship of these characters. You speak and respond differently to friends, parents and authority figures, so would your character.
A good acting duet will often have transitions where an actor can move from one emotional color to another. This reflects a change of thought or emotion within the scene.
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