Satellite Session 02-16-13

This week in the satellite jam session the ensemble members worked in two groups of six on Harold openings, and each group played an open free form 25-minute improv set. The rest of our time was spent warming up and discussing the improv. No names are mentioned so you are more inclined to be objective and empathic.

I had the groups working on a “static line” free-association opening. The goal of the opening is the players will popcorn words and ideas back and forth for 45 to 75 seconds before morphing into the first scene of the set by someone stepping out of the line and initiating the first scene. Challenges in this opening are to stay connected by keeping eyes up off the ground and on their fellow players.  Words should be spoken with decisiveness and clear enunciation. The purpose of the opening is to litter the stage with offers, that they may be picked up as in-the-moment inspiration throughout the improv set. The pacing of the piece is greater than that of bringing a good or creative offer to the mix. Hit the beat when it needs to be hit, and try not to overlap. That's the whole game, the content is secondary to the flow. 

1^st Set Notes:

A scene starts and a player sits typing with determination, the second player immediately kneels beside them, watching over and concerning themselves with their scene partner’s task. The kneeling improviser will enjoy more success and momentum in scenes when they think before acting, not just following their first impulse. Their initial direction of focus when the scene starts should be in agreement with the co-created reality of the scene. Say to yourself I agree with what's going on here. And then the only decisions needed to be made are in regard to how you'd like the scene to progress, choosing the paths you are interested in taking, and then developing opinions about the offers that come up in the scene and being surprised and changed by them. All other energy goes to being playful and scenes thrive.

A couple scenes started interestingly with fun, productive, scene moving offers and as they walked the path, progress fizzled. They experienced a sense of, “Well, what do we do now?” The note here is that the offers given at the beginning of the scene are integral to the scene as a whole, and as long as we are paying attention in the moment we will give ourselves gifts to use later in the scene. Follow through with the games you create for yourself! A scenic example of this opens on two players huddled behind a block at center stage. They concernedly discussed and gossiped about what was happening around them, referencing people getting shot instead of just fired. A third character entered and joined the two behind the box, asking for a Sprite. At this point the scene fizzled and ended oddly. There was no need for the scene to fizzle. The world they had created had two major things going on. The severity of the world outside of their bubble was contrasted with the childlike nature of drinking sodas and gossiping while hiding behind a mini-fridge in an office. In these moments players need only play and heighten both sides of the world to follow the productive, wide-open path. The world around them becomes more severe and their bubble becomes more innocent. Rinse, rather, repeat.

The set ended with a lengthy callback scene about a couple who, in the first scene, had been about to get married and the Groom had walked in on the Bride and they ended up having brown-chicken-brown-cow relations right then and there, mere minutes before the service. In this second scene, the Mother was laying into the Daughter about the state of her wedding dress during the service, and the Daughter eventually confessed to making love with her Husband before the ceremony. The Mother was shocked and outraged and a third character entered with the wedding tape, which, as he described, was mainly just thirty minutes in the Bride’s quarters before the Wedding. The Mother was outraged and furious and then the Husband comes in and the scene became heated between he and the Mother. The Father of the Bride entered the scene and, oblivious to the facts, became quite eager to see the wedding tape. At this point the Mother was trying to stop the Father from viewing the tape and the Husband wanted the Father to watch. This pattern looped until I side-coached the Mother to stop arguing (1) and then we got to see the Father turn on the tape and have a reaction. After he turned on the tape but before his reaction, a player swept the scene yet I side-coached to have the scene continue and ignore the edit. The Father could have chosen any honest reaction and it would be the best response, and it was, he was okay with it because they were both adults.
The notes for this scene are  the two side-coached moments.
1) Roadblocking forward movement in a scene is fine, momentarily, if a character disagrees with a course of action; support, though, comes from allowing the scene-partner to make up their own minds about what they want to bring to the scene after the roadblock has been expressed. A player should be opinionated with their character points-of-view and allowing of space and time for response.
2) The scene edit happened to come right as the journey was finishing, which would have disallowed the audience a chance to see a moment that was being built up to. Regardless of the length of the improv set, if you cut the scene now to come back to it later the audience will never see the Father's particular response; they may be informed of what it was but the don't get to be in on it. Let them be in on it. We drove all the way to Disneyland and right when we got inside the gates BOOM. Edited. And we wouldn’t have had the opportunity to view the Father reacting to watching the tape. Put in the work to buildup an idea, and then enjoy the spoils.

2^nd Set Notes:

A scene starts with a nervous character being welcomed into a Disney Tattoo Parlor by a confident tattoo artist. The scene was a negotiation of what type of tattoo was going to be given and whether the artist was capable or not. The tattoo artist made a couple of bold offers in the scene but did not revisit them. One of the bold offers came after the customer claimed to want a tattoo of Mickey and Minnie, to which the artist stated, “Dirty.” The setup the tattoo artist immediately provides for themselves with this offer is for any time the customer makes a choice the artist can state their judgment of said choice. The second bold offer came after the artist drugged the customer. While describing the tattoo procedure and noticing the effects of the drugs in the customer, the artist stated that she was a man. The setup here is that the artist has given herself the go ahead to reveal secrets to the customer while the customer is drugged. These things should be continued. The artist will enjoy more success and momentum in scenes when they play along with the tune they’ve created for their own scenes.

Another scene took place between a Mother and Daughter. At one point, the Mother turned to her daughter and, although she was several feet away, the Daughter said, “Don’t touch me!” The Mother agreed and continued along with the story. The note here is to be aware that the “Don’t touch me!” offer is bigger than face value, and implies subtext that doesn’t so much need to be addressed as respected. If the Daughter is saying “Don’t touch me!” she is either over-dramatic or has real concern because of things that have happened in the past. The awareness of the undertone is key for the success of the relationship between the two improvisers. This lesson was echoed in another scene, where a child flinched when their parent arrived to take them away. The parent character can continue to act nice and kind and doesn’t need to address the flinching but being aware of the possible truths behind it, without selling it out as nothing, is paramount. Awareness brings choice-clarity.

I hope the notes are helpful to your own improv. Thanks for reading!

Improviser Metaphor

Prepare your offers as if you were a chef preparing the ingredients of a meal. Your carrots, for example, represent an offer you are about to make, and the meal is the scene. You get to decide how you should prep your ingredients before you present them. What kind of thought do you want to put into your offers? With improvisation you can become a chef who, while following the right path, may be able to chop more and more swiftly and precisely until eventually you just look at the carrots and they fucking cut themselves into perfectly cubed pieces and you didn’t even mean to. The trained improv mind will minimize the time needed for choice consideration and impulse checking before the line is delivered. This minimization relates to the time it takes to cut the vegetable; the time needed to be safe cutting near your fingers while holding the tool steady. The untrained mind is erratic displaying various levels of severity, which could range from the chef slashing the carrots wildly to throwing them in whole without rinsing to slicing their finger and giving up on the offer or the scene or themselves.

Your scene partner is your co-chef in the kitchen, occupying the same level of hierarchy with no difference in status. You build the meal together. Of course, in the scene you would have characters that would have varying levels of status, sometimes similar sometimes not, but person to person, regardless of skill level or experience, the players, as people, as chefs, should be equal in status. Line by line you build the scene, you cook the meal. 

Your combined outspoken lines of dialogue make the scene; they are your meal finalization and delivery. Playing a show is like creating many different meals for many people with, depending on the show, a plethora of co-chefs.

Also, this metaphor is not recommended for permanence as having a healthy variety of processes for thought and action while improvising will positively impact ones play and ones heart. Experimenting in your kitchen, finding new recipes and improving your ingredients will yield new lines, new laughs, and renewed interest. Find ingredients that are satisfying, that people appreciate and avoid the stale ingredients or the ones that taste good immediately but eventually make you feel like shit.

How do you want to operate in the kitchen? What’s your process? 

The secret to improv, believe it or not

The secret to improv is to believe in what you and your scene partners say and do and feel. Bold statement, right? Well, dernit, I feel it in my heart.

In short, belief brings sincerity. Sincerity makes people care about watching and when they care about watching a person they laugh delightedly.