How to Memorize Quickly

Memorizing is hard, but we often need to do it, whether it’s for presentations, or concepts we’ll need to refer to, or that 20-minute wedding toast that everyone will remember. And nothing teaches you how to memorize words, movement, or song like musical theater.

Earlier this year, I played a dancing tree in Evil Dead: The Musical. It’s easy to play a dancing tree. You just stand around with a goofy, tree-like grin, and wave your branches. Finding your motivation? It’s easy. Just remember the party you had the night you reached drinking age. (Or don’t remember, as the case may be.) Now, I’ve been cast as Nathan Detroit in Guys and Dolls. It’s my first speaking part, and it’s a doozy. I have dozens of pages of dialogue to remember.

How to Memorize Quickly

My first instinct was to open page 1 and start reading. Then go back and re-read. And re-re-read, each time going a little further into the script. Eventually, I would know the whole script because I’d read it a gazillion times. Unfortunately, that didn’t work. And it was boring! By the time I’d memorized half the scene, I got sloppy, because going through the stuff I already knew was boring until I hit the new stuff. The new stuff, the interesting stuff, was always at the end.

Then I remembered what my mother used to tell me. She said, “Stever, always have your meals backwards. Eat dessert first. It’s the best part! And if you’re vaporized by an invading space army’s laser beam weapons halfway through dinner, at least you’ll have eaten the best part.” Is it possible that Mom’s advice would work here, too? Much to my surprise, the answer is yes!

Memorize from the End to the Beginning

For speeches, use the memorize-from-the-end technique to memorize the outline.

To memorize a long passage, I started with the last sentence: “I feel like a heel.” I repeated that until I could do it from memory. Then I added the sentence before it. “You are a good man, and I know you will take good care of Adelaide.” I rehearsed, “You are a good man, and I know you will take good care of Adelaide. I feel like a heel.” But that was too big a chunk to add at once. So first I added just “And I know you will take good care of Adelaide” before “I feel like a heel.” Then I added “You are a good man” to the front of that. I kept adding to the beginning until the entire passage was memorized.

For reasons I don’t completely understand, it was a lot easier. The hard part was up front, and as soon as I got through the new piece, saying the part at the end, which I’d already memorized, just reinforced it.

Memorize the Prompts and Cues!

I was so happy-go-lucky with my newly memorized paragraph that I decided whenever I wanted to be center stage, I’d just trot out my paragraph and say it proud and clear. Then the director informed me that I’m only supposed to say it once, and it has to be at a certain point in the play. Talk about a buzzkill!

If you’re memorizing a response to something—say, a toast you need to give at a certain point in a wedding ceremony—keep working backwards until you’re memorizing not only your part, but the cue line or event that comes right before your part. That way, you’ll know when to deliver your coup de grace. If you’re memorizing dialog, rehearse the other person’s cue line leading right into your line.

How to Memorize a Dance Quickly

Even though I’m a whiz at dialog, I’m pathetic at dance. They say some people have two left feet. I have six. And they all move in different directions at the same time. When the memorize-from-the-end-forward trick worked so well with dialog, I tried it with dance. Much to my delight, it seems to work with dance, too.

For me, at least, with dance, the transitions between the new material I’m adding to the beginning and the old material I’ve memorized are particularly important. Since dance is usually taught in chunks of moves (at least at the amateur level), transitioning between the chunks is when my arms are most likely to separate from my body and start doing sign language while my legs tie themselves in knots. As with the dialog, I practice the end moves, then the transition into the end moves plus the end moves themselves, then the preceding chunk, into the transition, and all the way through.

How to Memorize a Speech Quickly

If you’re going to memorize from the end to memorize a speech, stop! Don’t do it! Memorized speeches, unless you’re a professional voiceover artist, always sound memorized. Remember first grade? “See Jane. See Jane run. Run, Jane Run.” You do not want to sound like that.

For speeches, use the memorize-from-the-end technique to memorize the outline. Then when you give the speech, you’ll have the outline in your head and can improvise the specific words so they flow.

Memorization Recap

You can memorize anything from the end: dance steps, lyrics, music. Or you can be really ambitious and try all at once. Bernice is having trouble with a wilting Ficus plant. I suggested watering it. She had a better idea. She’s designing a ritual prayer for the plant Goddess … Ethel? Her ritual includes dance, spoken word, and singing. All at once. While she’s rehearsing, starting at the end and working forwards, practicing all her transitions, I’m just going to slip a little plant food into the soil. Who’s to say that I’m not simply the vehicle through which Ethel will heal the Ficus.

Work Less, Do More, and have a Great Life!

Man Dancing image from Shutterstock