Your scene partner initiates, telling you, "You're terrible." Does that make you sad? Does that make you angry? What if your scene partner is just "some stupid kid"? Maybe he says, "You're terrible" and you just laugh; "Yeah, okay, I'm terrible." Making a choice about a relationship and relative status can help inform reactions and […]
Looking for an exercise/warm-up that will engage your group in tapping emotions between characters and leveraging those emotions in heightened subsequent beats?
Looking for an exercise/warm-up that will engage your group in tapping personal emotions and leveraging those emotions in heightened subsequent beats?
Objective: To build scenes by exploring and heightening committed perspectives.
Objective: To play with strong emotional perspectives that evoke strong emotional reactions and drive strong emotional scenes.
Improvisation: Making it up as you go along. A group of players gets on stage without previously rehearsed lines or blocking and acts out. The audience understands that this show is constructed from nothing before their eyes. In these aspects, improvisational performance differentiates itself from any other performance medium. Improvisation then is at its best […]
THE SELF CONTAINED EMOTIONAL STATEMENT How do you start an improv scene? My answer was forged from the perspective of giants' shoulders. Mick Napier, of The Annoyance Theater, says we start with just one thing. - Assume a posture. - Grab an object. - Start a motion. - Engage your environment. - Embody a character. […]
YES, GOOD IMPROVISATION REQUIRES A GROUP. AND, WE AGREE. A great improvisational performance requires both a group and an audience. It’s the collaborative building that makes improvisation exciting. The ability to riff is dependent on having something to riff off of. The definition of riffing demands that there be an “accompaniment” or “exchange.” Sure, a […]
HEY EVERYBODY! How do you focus a Ten Person game? Step right up. Step right up. I want to ride the roller coaster. You’re too short to ride this ride. See the two-headed boy for two dollars. I’m afraid of clowns. I ate too much cotton candy. Where can I buy beer? I’m on mushrooms. […]
When we whine that we don’t want to do group game work anymore, we ask, “Can we just do some two person scenes?” We want to breathe. And we equate “two person scene” with “time to breathe up top.” There’re just two of us; there’s less impetus to force our voice into the scene. We’re […]