I sat with across from an executive. It was a benign conversation - a check-in meeting. Neither of us was all that engaged. Looking down at his desk, I noticed he'd arrayed files on his desk in the order of a rainbow - Red, Orange, Yellow, Green, Blue, Purple (though Roy G. Biv forever, squad). I […]
USSR 1730... Vladimir Toma invents a heating device... "Yah, so, this I call...vodka..." The difference between one actor delivering all three of those lines and three improvisers delivering one of those lines apiece is huge in terms of audience reaction. When the audience sees that a player is accepting a choice given to them - […]
Nothing bugs me more than a scene where two improvisers meet stage center, stare only at each other and talk only to and about each other. I get it. Your stage partner is truly the only other active element on stage with you. But, c'mon, show some imagination. The audience likes to see us interact […]
Check out this Two Person scene performed by Shaheen Ali and Christopher May. In it the performers weave patterns of emotional behavior to link characters, relationships and environment in a sustainable scene. Enjoy! [wpvideo 3EOke0v5]
Watch this scene, starring Scott Beckett as "Mr. Johnson" and Jonathan Nelson as "Jeeves."
We want to fill our blank stages with imagined environment. We want to engage physically in that environment to help visualize the imagined. And - most importantly - we want to be emotionally affected by where we are and what we're doing. That's Improv As Improv Does Best. Our fellow player(s) and how they emotionally […]
Don't be the improver who initiates a scene by running to center stage and delivering a premise. Don't be an improviser in a scene where two players stand shoulder-to-shoulder, cheating-out, and talking about something not in-the-moment. Don't be a point in the arch of a group game where improvisers stand in a semi-circle and discuss […]
Feeling about active endowments. That's Improv As Improv Does Best. It ain't easy. That balance between making up imagined details and committing to feeling about imagined details is tough to manage. Already we're trying to see our world's details instead of thinking up details, but we also have to care about those details in-the-moment. Like […]
An improv stage can be anywhere. On it we can do anything. You could be in a submarine on Mars raising talking chickens. Often improvisers are good at labeling the moment. But you need more than words; you have to be in the world. This exercise focuses on attaching emotions to the scene's active elements […]
We want active emotions in our scenes, so we need active details to react to. If the doll your character is afraid of is actually on stage with you, then rather than just talking about how you're afraid of dolls, you can actually act afraid because that doll is actively making you afraid in-the-moment. If you endow […]