When asked for a desired focus for a scheduled coaching session, a Duo sent me the following: Mainly character stuff, fleshing them out versus building out more plot. Getting better at finding and sticking to the game of the scene. What follows is some didactic and exercises that filled two hours. DIDACTIC: How do You […]
To establish sustainable scenes, it is helpful to remember that each player on stage can have at least one Personal and Scenic game at their disposal to heighten. Personal Game – how you react to who you are, where you are or what you’re doing * I love cake; when I eat a piece I’m overcome with […]
The clip embedded below shows the 1A, 2A and 3A scenes from a Harold in succession. It shows how, instead of just following plot through the beats, one character's emotional behavior - in this case, Matt Newman's reaction to learning that people close to him are sleeping together - can be heightened through scenarios beyond […]
We play with the three core elements of improvisation - The Details, Emotional Reactions and Patterns - in balance. We don't over-rely on being clever, which works as long as we are clever and fails us the moment we aren't. We don't over-play our emotional range with erratic characters that, at best, the audience just can't follow and, at […]
Objective: How we feel about our scene partners determines a lot of our scene. Emotional agreement is strong default. But our characters needn’t always align. We love tension. We can do conflict. But we should be wary of argument, negotiation and head-butting. Active scene elements, relationship stakes and a willingness to lose ensure our scenes […]
Objective: Reacting emotionally in-the-moment keeps our scenes effectively in the moment. You can’t calculate every change; you have to allow yourself (and your characters) to be vulnerable to the moment. React, and trust wherever it goes. We choose to feel, reacting emotionally without deference to “sense.” But. Our emotional choices can be aided, informed […]
Behavioral Stakes: Our “What” is emotional reactions to active elements. Commitment and repetition are the only “why” we need. But “Because” can elevate the emotional stakes of a scene with context. “Stakes” come in many forms – and we want to apply emotion to all of them. These exercises focus on elevating characters by allowing […]
Subsequent Beats: The stakes of one scene can be used as inspiration for initiating new scenes. SUBSEQUENT BEATS – Two players do a scene (edited early by the teacher). These two original players go to the wings. A Player Three initiates a new scene, explicitly soliciting the participation of Player One, Player Two, Both Players […]