Theater Merit Badge

Theater
Merit badge requirements
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  1. See or read three full-length plays. These can be from the stage, movies, television, or video. Write a review of each. Comment on the story, acting, and staging.

  2. Write a one-act play. It must take 8 minutes or more to put on. It must have a main character, conflict, and a climax.

  3. Do THREE of the following:

    1. Act a major part in a full-length play; or act a part in three one-act plays.
    2. Direct a play. Cast, rehearse, and stage it. The play must be at least 10 minutes long.
    3. Design the setting for a play. Make a model of it.
    4. Design the costumes for five characters in one play set in a time before 1900.
    5. Show skill in stage makeup. Make up yourself or a friend as an old man, a clown, an extraterrestrial, or a monster as directed.
    6. Help with the building of scenery for one full-length play or two one-act plays.
    7. Design the lighting for a play; or, under guidance, handle the lighting for a play.

  4. Mime or pantomime any ONE of the following chosen by you and your counselor.

    1. You have come into a large room. It is full of pictures, furniture, other things of interest.
    2. As you are getting on as bus, your books fall into a puddle. By the time you pick them up, the bus has driven off.
    3. You have failed a school test. You are talking with your teacher. He does not buy your story.
    4. You are at a camp with a new Scout. You try to help him pass a cooking test. He learns very slowly.
    5. You are at a banquet. The meat is good. You don't like the vegetable. The dessert is ice cream.

  5. Explain the following: proscenium arch, central or arena staging, spotlight, floodlight, flies, center stage, stage right, stage left, stage crew, stage brace, batten.

  6. Do two short entertainment features that you could present either alone or with others for a troop meeting or campfire.

Merit badge requirements courtesy of Troop 586 Farmington