Do you want to see some Harold's performed? Here are two performed by The Coalition Theater's Fall 2015 Long Form Performance class conducted back to back nights. Player are: Shahenn Ali, Teddy Armstrong, Amber Hendrix, Jesse Hill, Meredith Hughes, Laura Kelly and Christopher May Harold #1 [wpvideo LmNd3vNd] Harold #2 [wpvideo L76Ztupa]
When building Group Games, trust simplicity as The Coalition's Big Bosses did in this To The Ether game. Why? When a pattern is this clearly established and heightened you can reach the point where you don't even need to finish the sequence before the audience is laughing uproariously, having completed the pattern in their own […]
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 […]
As said best in Truth in Comedy, “The Harold is like the space shuttle, incorporating all of the developments and discoveries that have gone before it into one new, superior design.” The other way around, Harold’s learnings pack in the lion’s share of what you need to know to do any other long-form, which is […]
Pop quiz, hotshot. What do you take as inspiration in initiating subsequent beats of a scene during a long-form show? A. This makes me think of that B. If this then what C. If first beat is "a day in the life," then second beat is "the day when X happens" D. If a character […]
Subsequent beats leverage an aspect of an originating scene in setting up a new scene. But… As our goal in any scene is establishing and heightening patterns of emotional behavior, initiations of subsequent beats that clearly focus attention on emotional reaction get us to our meat faster and leverage the power of pacing and pattern […]
I like formats. Playing within The Harold's dictated structure of Opening, 1A, 1B, 1C, Group Game, 2A, 2B, 2C, Group Game and 3A/B/C an improviser can spend less time on the wings worrying about what to initiate and more time focused on how to initiate. I like rules. Rules free us to play Pavlovianly and […]