Character
Ask yourself questions about each character, perhaps make notes in margins or on separate pieces of paper about each one. Think about a sketch for each one that includes questions about:
Age -- what is their likely age and on what evidence do you base your guesstimate? Body type -- picture a likely, or interesting, or appropriate body type. Tall/rangy; medium height/hefty; small/wiry; imposing/statuesque; any particular body features to be aware of: missing limbs, blindness, etc.?
Hair color/style -- for all plays you should definitely think about hair type/style. Balding? Greying or all white? Full and long? Color? Texture? Nappy? Straightened? Under kerchief? Braided? Ribbons or beads?
Body movement style -- what would be characteristic stances, walking style, arm movement style? How do they gesture: close into body? Extending arms widely? How do they sit in a chair? Do they use a lot of eye contact, look down, avoid gaze, stare down opponents? Where do they put their hands -- in pockets, on hips, on a cane, folded on large belly?
Style of expressing anger (or affection, or another rmajor emotion) with body --fling arms and scream, sink into chair and shake head, mutter with back to interlocutor, shout to the whole room and all who can hear. speak in cold controlled voice standing firmly (these suggestions are for ways to express anger; try out expressing sexual/romantic/affection; telling a secret; expressing frustration; etc.)
Geographic origins of each character -- For this play, plot out the different origins of char cters, from US south, from Caribbean, from Africa, from more than one generation in NY, etc. In other plays, where someone is from, farm or city, midwest or coast, etc. can be significant. Think about how this gives one ideas about their accent, dialect, speech style, clothing, social position, experience, status.
Other relevant social markers or categories or affiliations -- is religious affiliation significant? Profession? Job type? Educational level? Special skills? Musical abilities and/or instruments they play?
Make an music analogy -- you might think if this character were in an opera, would their music be sung by the soprano or tenor? Baritone or mezzo-soprano? Bass? Countertenor? Etc. What ideas does this give you? Or, if they were in a band or orchestra, what instrument would they be, or play?
Interpersonal relationships -- who are their friends, confidantes, parents, children, relatives, antagonists, employers/employees, unknown to them? Generational differences? Who the people they go toward, in a room, who do they avoid? How will they address the audience, authority figures, intimates? What will these relationships mean about how they interact? Think about body relationships, spatial relationships, power relationships, and how those are shown spatially on stage.
Socioeconomic position -- how do they get money to live? Where do they live, and what is their degree of freedom, restrictions, based on money, status, prestige? How are these linked to age, color, gender, other features? How do class and income make a difference in how a character looks, moves, dresses, interacts with others?
Costume -- What are their characteristic clothing styles? Colors? Types of shoes? Hats or scarves? Accessories? What does clothing tell us about their cultural position, social position, personal style, etc.?
Function -- Think not only about your character's type, but also the job they perform in the action. Are they a major protagonist, and how are they sympathetic to audience, and where do our sympathies for them break? Are they blocking characters to the desires of the characters whose objectives we end up supporting? Are they mediators, go-betweens, advisor characters? When do they appear and how often? Do they take positions upstage, downstage, center stage? When? Do they comment, serve as a moral register for the audience? How do they do these functions, including more than one of these functions?
Think of other key questions to get at imagining characters coming to life, moving, having a history and a future.
Set and staging values
Type of set -- is it realistic and detailed, illusion of reality? Is there a proscenium arch and a missing fourth wall? Is there an abstract set, with a few symbolic items or props? How much do the set instructions help you imagine the space, and the meanings and expectations it arouses about the types of attention one brings to the play? Do we see symbolically? Realistically? As an open artifice that teaches us through clear formality and fictionalizing?
Is the stage raked, where might different levels be, when and how are some characters standing above others, higher, lower, falling in a pit, climbing stairs, standing in doorways, climbing through windows, spying from behind a screen, rising from a pit?
Lighting -- where will there be night scenes, and how lit? Bright daylight? Dappled outdoor light? Hellish reds? Moody blues? Warm yellows and oranges? Any spotlights? Blackouts?
Furniture or other onstage items -- What kinds, and what will they convey? Will there just be boxes, ladders, or other obvious pieces to use in multiple ways to invoke imagination of audience? Who moves furniture between scenes? Characters themselves, as themselves? Characters as actors? Crew? In the dark? Behind a curtain?
Music and sound effects -- Where must there be music or sound effects? What kinds? Where are sounds optional? Do we see the sources onstage? Recorded?
Costumes -- realistic, contemporary abstract (all black, say), period, detailed, color coded for symbolic meaning?
Props -- what props are absolutely necessary or optional? Will there be many realistic, detailed props? A few props that are multi-purposed (e.g. a piece of wood that can be used so that the audience can imagine it as a scepter, wand, nightstick, blade, or umbrella handle -- so we "see" the rest of the implied umbrella, guitar, or dumbell weight?) What are the effect of having authentic Caribbean drums on stage in this script if few other props appear? The effect of real Bible in Richard III, or an actual blade to Richard's throat?
Other stage effects -- Where will there be fog, smoke, and for how long? Cigarette smoke? Water? A real stove that works in a realistic kitchen (say, in Raisin in the Sun)? If there is a revolving platform, how large is it, and when do characters step off it?
Stage positions that become symbolic or associated through parallelism -- Where do certain positions of the stage become symbolic if similar or antithetical kinds of actions (pledging loyalty/ breaking oaths, kissing/spitting, conspiring together/addressing audience) take place there? For example, the backstage area that is the ballroom in one scene might be the nursery in another -- in the one case a more external public space, in the other, an intimate and interior one. What will be the significance of having some characters who can occupy that space in one context not able to enter it in another? Or, enter it only to clean it up, but never to "occupy" it?