Written By Jason Stansell

Cuttings for Speech Events is essentially taking a piece you’ve selected to perform and narrowing it down to the right scene or scenes.  Typically, it falls more into the Interpretation side of things; however, these skills can also serve a competitor in Informative and Limited Prep events as well. Usually, though not always, they will be the climax of the piece; however, oftentimes you may find openings, climaxes, and endings carefully woven into one. There also may be a line or two that you have to remove or modify. Most jurisdictions limit you to 150 words that you can change, add, or individually remove from your cutting, so be mindful of any such changes. We recommend checking with the rules of your local or national district/tournaments you attend to ensure you are in compliance.

Let’s use an example of the short Sherlock Holmes story “A Case of Identity” by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle. While there are several characters, Doyle wrote his stories all from the perspective of Holmes’s assistant, Dr. John Watson. So, technically, you’d be playing one character who quotes others. Obviously, you’d want to play up each of the quotes as different characters, but this style of writing really frees you up in how you perform the piece. In doing so, it also frees you up with a lot of cutting options as well. Selecting a piece like this can be advantageous because it gives you essentially the best of both worlds. A strong narration and focal point for the story, yet still a couple of characters to vary the performance. There are advantages for other types of pieces as well, which will be covered in more depth in another blog.

Speaking time of the whole piece clocks in at just over 32 minutes at an average speaking rate. So, cutting the piece down into a fourth the size will get you to roughly eight minutes before adding an intro. As the max time for your performance is 10 minutes, a good sweet spot to aim for is eight minutes. This way, if you start speaking too fast, you’re not likely to go undertime, but by the same token, if you end up going a little slower than practiced, you still have a buffer to not be likely to go overtime.

Let’s take a look at the first page. As you can read here, this Sherlock Holmes story starts with a lot of setting up banter and character, much of which is not needed for your performance. Yet you still need some that would also be of interest to the listeners of your piece. Traditionally, you’ll use about thirty seconds to a minute and a half of a performance before you break character for your introduction. This is not a hard and fast rule, and there have been many successful interps that started with their introduction before their piece. However, I will use this tradition in my example.

Here I’ve found a nice, short banter scene of which Watson recounts, of something that happened between him and Sherlock. It establishes who they are, Sherlock’s ability to read more into things than the average individual, as well as illustrates their relationship as colleagues. It is a perfect example of an introductory cutting that sets things up without breaking the later important scenes. You will notice that I removed 10 words and added two, thus, so far, bringing my edit count to 12, which I will make certain to keep under 150. After this scene, I’d write my introduction. I would keep it short, given that I know that Sherlock stories can get a bit wordy to explain everything, and because most people have heard of the great detective, so I don’t have to go into depth about him. That said, “How to Write an Introduction” is for another blog.

Next, I will look for the actual start of the conflict within the story. For this, I have opted for the introduction of Miss Mary Sutherland, as she will give Sherlock a case, bringing us comfortably back into the story after the Introduction.

We follow her tale about her missing fiancé and her interaction with Sherlock over four more pages. However, as you can see throughout the pages below, I got rid of bits that describe what characters are doing and moments when it says things like “Sherlock says”. These are bits you typically want to cut, especially as you can use them in your blocking (actions and movements of the characters) to really give the performance depth. Plus, if you’re going to be performing as Sherlock, it’s a lot easier to ignore coming back as Dr. Watson just to say, “so-and-so said”…

Now reaching the end of Miss Mary Sutherland’s tale, she leaves. Unfortunately, there is a lot more to the story that we do not have time for in a ten-minute performance. So, thankfully, in this particular story, we have already presented all of the clues as to the whereabouts of Miss Mary Sutherland’s missing fiancé, so we can jump ahead to the near ending. I cut the scene ending with Sherlock relaxing and thinking, allowing me to start the next cutting as if he’s solving the case right after Miss Mary Sutherland leaves.

Now, above, you’ll see that I added a “Sherlock then said”. This one is important from the previous cutting we had, where Dr. Watson described Sherlock relaxing and thinking. Thus, a transition into Sherlock’s statement feels warranted. This cutting shows Sherlock solving the case technically to Mr. Windibank, Miss Mary Sutherland’s stepfather, but the audience does not need to know that last part. We’ve cut the character entirely. So, instead, we treat this as Sherlock explaining to Dr. Watson. However, this doesn’t quite feel like an ending, so we jump to the last page.

In typical Sherlock fashion, he explains all the finer details of his conclusions to Dr. Watson at the end. So, cutting from the last page, we take the important details as needed. To close out the performance, I added my own final sentence of “Only time will tell if she will heed my advice,” as it succinctly wraps up the performance and doesn’t include the original text that would be both sexist and confusing in the modern era. 

Three characters, one of whom is mostly a narrator, and a completed story. It has levels, intrigue, and a mystery/situation that is important to the characters. Plus, we successfully cut the piece together for an interp!

Some further brief examples:

Sometimes you may pick a script from a play. One such example could be “The Orphans” by James Prideaux. This play is about two sisters who grew up rich and spoiled and then were left at a hotel while their parents travelled, and ended up dying on the Titanic. Decades later, they have still never left the hotel room, afraid of the world, when someone claims to be a relative and tries to extort money out of them. From beginning to end, there are plenty of scenes between the two sisters that can be used. Or the final scene between the younger sister and the person extorting money. Finding the right scene or scenes to cut may take time, however once you find what works for you, it’s simply a matter of making certain that your introduction allows you to feed right into the scene.

Next, we have “Having Our Say”, a play by Emily Mann based on the book of the same name by Sarah (Sadie) Delany and Elizabeth (Bessie) Delany, the characters in the play. In a play like this, every single scene is a story in and of itself. The difficulty with this piece would be not wanting to get rid of so many good lines and bits. It can be a struggle at times, but that is why you have your coaches to lean on. While we won’t tell you what to do, we’ll advise you on how to do it yourself. Guide you to be able to make those difficult decisions and polish your piece to perfection.

Lastly, we have “A Few Good Men.” There are a lot of really great scenes from this play that could be used for Dramatic Interpretation, but the most relevant would be the climactic courtroom scene. It is a perfect length, a pivotal moment that really defines the play. However, for one person, there are a lot of characters to perform. That of the defense attorney, the prosecutor, the judge, and the witness. The majority of the scene is between the defense attorney and the witness. So, to make it easier, you might end up needing to cut some of the prosecutor’s lines to eliminate the character altogether, and modifying the judge’s lines to make up for it. Also, the play technically does not include the all-famous line: “You can’t handle the truth!” which was improvised in the film. As such, if you decide to use it, you must find the right spot to cut it in. Overall however, a scene such as this is rather easy to adapt as long as you develop the characters to stand out distinctly.

Whatever you pick, you’re almost certainly going to have to do some cutting. I hope this guide with visual examples has helped you in figuring out how, when, where, how, and why to do your cutting.