Situational 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 endowing premises and […]
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 […]
Objective: A scene’s stakes (situational, behavioral and relation-based) can be heightened with more scenes, especially when emotions are heightened, too.
IMPRESSIONS - Impressions are a fun way to get into a fully formed character Variations: • Go around in a circle, have everyone say a person they do an impression of • Move everyone to the right one spot, they do the impression of the person next to them • Get two people up, they […]
Remember what you like; Repeat: We have to listen and retain so we can return to and heighten established information. Memory is a muscle to exercise. But the exercise can be fun – focus on what makes you laugh, what engages you. Suggested Exercises: STORY STEALING – Everyone in a circle. One at a time, […]
Heightening Through Tag-Outs: A “tag out” allows the audience to see how a character from a previous scene will react to another character/scenario/etc. We want to execute tag-outs in service of heightening the emotional stakes. TAG OUTS –To perform a tag out, a player enters a scene in progress and literally tags the player that […]
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 […]
Here's a collection of the Warm-Up Exercises on this site: General/Fun: Crazy Eights Name Thumper Robert Paulson Welcome to BLANK Mountain Hype People I Need Three Things Group Mind: 21 News Reel I Am Superman Buzby Burkley Kick The Duck, Red Rover "Tonight..." Hype People Character & Emotion: Carpool Here's The Deal. Yes, And. I […]
Objective: The aim of group game work is to establish a pattern as a group and heighten in a unified direction. For the group to be successful, individuals need to be focused outward on all that others are contributing and committed to serving the group’s progression with their own contributions.
Simplifying and Clarifying: The sooner everyone is on the same page, the sooner we can heighten and evolve collaboratively. Our main tool of simplification is Agreement - the more players that mirror/agree, the less different stuff there is on stage to negotiate. The more people you’re playing with the clearer you have to be. Our […]