Tag Archives: heighten

Feb 21

Emotional Subtext exercises

Emotional Subtext:  Make assumptions to heighten emotions.  “Have you seen my wallet?” “I get it; I’m not fiscally responsible!”  Seeking to use emotions to drive scenes, we can make our partner’s contributions matter even if they don’t initially resonate.

Suggested Exercises:

EMOTIONAL ACCUSATION LAY-UPS – Player One comes off a lay-up line with a very innocuous line (“Oh, look, a mushroom”).  Player Two makes that line matter by making a strong assumption about what that line could mean (“I’m sorry I told you about me tripping on shrooms”).
Lessons:
• Don’t feel pressure to explain the subtext/Commitment trumps sense – “What a beautiful sunset”/ “I’ll never cheat on you.”  All that matters is that Player Two thought up a “cheating” subtext from Player One’s “sunset” it doesn’t have to be justified.
• Don’t defend; heighten – Player One needs to make assumptions, too.  “What a beautiful sunset”/ “I’ll never cheat on you”/ “I knew it. You’re cheating on me”/ “That you would think I could ever cheat on me is inexcusable.”

 

“YES, BECAUSE” SCENES – Player One makes a statement about they feel about herself or her scene partner.  Player Two heightens that feeling by making explicit the reason why Player One feels like she does (“I’m afraid of roller coasters” / “Because I dropped you as a baby”).
Lessons:
• Feeling Comes First – Don’t wait on your motivation before feeling something.  Let feeling something, and the repetition of that feeling something, lead to an understanding of “why” (if needed at all).
• Stay In-the-Moment – Commitment to reacting to the last thing said will keep us committed to the moment and focusing outward
• Take a beat – the best thing about emotions is feeling them.  We don’t have to respond verbally right away.  Take a moment to be affected, to feel the impact of the line.  And do it without maybe before knowing “the impact of the line.”

Feb 21

Emotional Initiation exercises

Emotional Initiations:  The sooner we identify how a player feels the better – because that feeling can be heightened by the player and played to by the player’s teammates.  The sooner we can identify how a player feels about a something the better – because that something can be heightened by the player to heighten the player’s emotion and that something can be referenced/heightened by the player’s teammates to force the player into a reaction.

Suggested Exercises:

SELF CONTAINED EMOTIONAL STATEMENT CIRCLE – Around a circle, everyone makes a Self Contained Emotional Statement.  It can be as simple as “I love it here,” “I hate the arts,” or “I’m uncomfortable.”
Lessons:
• It’s a statement. Not a question shifting the responsibility of providing information to your partner. There’s a period. It’s definitive.
• It’s an emotional statement. Emotional reaction is one of our three key tools; let’s get to it. You need to feel and, for the reaction, you need to give that feeling a direction. Give X the power to make you feel Y.
• Being self-contained, the statement places you on solid ground without dictating the scene to your partners – Mick Napier urges us each to “take care of yourself” without confining the scene. Allow your partner the choice of whether to mirror you in some fashion or to take on something entirely their own. Being self-contained is increasingly an imperative the larger a group you have on stage.

 

ANNOYANCE-STYLE SCENE STARTS – Have the class form a line across the back of the stage.  Call out one name.  That person should immediately take the stage and “take care of themselves” with a choice about their emotion, posture, environment, activity, etc.  The moment you call that name, another improviser should be coming out on stage as well.  That person must also “take care of themselves” with a choice.  Players expand on their choices, most importantly establishing and heightening their emotional perspective.  Run through this several times until you are confident everyone will take care of themselves right out of the gate and, eventually if not immediately, get to emotion.
Lessons:
• If I’m picking my nose, what does that say about my age?  If I’m forty-five and picking my nose, where am I?  If I’m forty-five and picking my nose in a restaurant, am I embarrassed?
• A scene needs information.  But expand on what you’ve already got.  Commit to it.
You don’t need motivation to have a feeling

Feb 20

Two Person Scenes Heightening Emotion exercises

2 Person Scenes Heightening Emotion:   Establish an emotional perspective, heighten the emotional perspective through reaction to active details, and edit – That’s scene.  We want to avoid negotiation, conflict and the tepid, talked-out “discovery” that stagnates scenes’ growth.

Suggested Exercises:

ENDOW AND HEIGHTEN LAY-UPS –  Player One initiates from stage left.  Player Two initiates from stage right.  Both players heighten what they initiate.  After a few lines back and forth, teacher calls “Scene” and two new players start the exercise.
Progression:
• Personal / Personal – Player One engages a personal emotional perspective and Player Two engages a personal emotional perspective.
–  Disparate initiations:  Player 1 – (staring forlornly at the Cat’s Cradle he works with his fingers) “sigh.”
   Player 2 – (looking around in panic) “I heard it again.”
–  Complementary initiations:   Player 1 – (staring forlornly at the Cat’s Cradle he works with his fingers) “sigh.” 
Player 2 – (flipping nostalgically through a big book) “Those were innocent times.”
–  Mirrored initiations:  Player 1 – (staring forlornly at the Cat’s Cradle he works with his fingers) “sigh.”
   Player 2 – (playing with a yo-yo sadly) “siiiigggghhh.”
• Scenic / Scenic – Player One engages an active aspect of Player Two with an emotional perspective and Player Two engages an active aspect of Player One with an emotional perspective.
–  Player 1 – I want to kill you and steal your life.
  Player 2 – I laugh at your weakness.
• Personal / Scenic – Player One engages a personal emotional perspective and Player 2 engages an active aspect of Player One with an emotional perspective.
–  Player One – (staring forlornly at the Cat’s Cradle he works with his fingers) “sigh.”
Player Two – “Oh, I’ve had it with your attitude, mister.”
• Scenic / Personal – Player One engages an active aspect of Player Two with an emotional perspective and Player Two engages a personal emotional perspective.
–  Player 1 – I want to kill you and steal your life.
Player 2 – Oh, hey, my Diamond of the Month Club package arrived!
Lessons:
• Don’t give up your thing – heightening our individual choices together is all we need to move the scene forward.  Trying to “figure out” how our things mesh, fighting each other’s thing or dropping our thing in favor of our partner’s thing robs scenes of their potential.
• Commitment avoids justification – explaining why two people are on stage often saps the energy from a scene.  When two players commit to simply heightening their choices, no one will question the juxtaposition of even the most mismatched initiations.
• Reactionary statements avoid negotiation – when we’re not comfortable with and/or don’t understand what’s happening on stage, we revert to asking questions that often bog down scenes.  Simply making choices moves us forward and making emotional choices helps statements stand without defense (“What do you mean, I’m a pig?” versus “Oh, I’m a pig.  You’re a dirty whore.”)
• Heightening avoids conflict – “I want to kill you”/ “I want to kiss you.”  If these are the initiations, we don’t want to debate or argue – heighten the feelings.  You don’t have to address the disparity between feelings right away if ever.  Heighten conflict/tension by heightening your part of it.  Addressing/discussing conflict/tension takes the dynamite out of the scene.
• Make Scenic/Personal Initiations less rare – it can be fun for Player Two to choose a personally grounding emotional perspective despite Player One′s attempt to initially engage her in his thing.

 

TWO PERSON SCENES –  Player One initiates from stage left.  Player Two initiates from stage right.  Players heighten what they initiate.  Have players decide BOTH how they feel about “I” and “You” – engaging an active endowment about themselves AND about their scene partner.
Lessons:
• Bored? React! – don’t know what to do in a scene?  Have an emotional reaction to an active element.
• Lost? Repeat! – I scream.  Why?  I don’t know.  So I keep screaming, heightening the emotion of the scream.  Don’t stop what you’re doing to make “sense” of it; Find “sense” through continuing doing what you’re doing.
• Be affected – There’s power in reacting in-the-moment to another player’s perspective/actions/choices.  When we don’t react to a fellow player’s move that deserves a reaction we risk pulling the rug out from under the scene.
• Feel first, understand second (if ever) – don’t wait to “understand your motivation” before making a choice about how to feel
• Never trapped by your choice – while players should be encouraged to push their heightening before changing course onto a new thing, players should never feel trapped by the things.  “I love my teddy bear.”  I heighten why I love my teddy bear (“He doesn’t judge”) but I don’t have to react only to teddy.  “I really love my fluffy duck.”/ “He doesn’t give a shit.”

Feb 18

Memory exercises

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, players enter the center and tell a true, personal, 30 Second Story. Once everyone has told a story, the teacher tells the class that players now have to enter the center and recreate someone else’s story. Every story should be revisited once by another player.
Lessons:
• Don’t mock; mirror – this is not about making fun of each other, it’s about making each other look good by remembering their story
• Remember specifically – remembering a few specific details will be more powerful than remembering everything generally
• Remember reactions – our emotional reactions are improv gold; focus on those when setting other player’s stories to memory
• See what’s not shown – recreating what our fellow players initially did subconsciously is great fun. How do they stand? How do they move? What do they sound like?

SCENE STEALING – Two players do a scene. Two different players redo the scene, repeating and heightening details, characters, stakes, and emotion.
Lessons:
• We remember the good stuff – they’ll drop questions, carry over specifics, and remember good stuff, point that out.
• The bad stuff becomes good when we repeat it – make each other look good! The first time is “random”; the second time is “purposeful”; the third time is “expected.
• Don’t skimp on the emotion – Player Two might have been simply overwhelmed during the Offer dialogue, but Player Three and Four heighten the emotion of being overwhelmed characters.

Feb 18

Heightening With Tag-Outs exercise

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 he/she will replace on stage.
Lessons:
• Being a bigger version of Player One; Do what Player One did bigger – always a trusty default (You were excited by snails? I’m going to be really excited by snails).
• Keep it Active / Avoid Being a Psychiatrist – we don’t want to rehash the previous scene (“Tell me about your feelings for snails”/ “Remember? In the last scene when you liked snails?”). Initiate with active elements that can affect characters emotionally in the present moment.
• Wherever You’re Taken, Trust In You – If Player Three takes Player One’s snail lover to see the animated movie Turbo, Player One is expected to heighten his excitement. Player One can relax in knowing that wherever he’s transported he just needs to trust in his emotional reactions.
• Elevate the Details – A player who fears action figures can be terrified of all little versions of things. A player obsessed with her eyebrows can obsess over everything she trims. A tenant complaining to her absentee landlord can also complain to an absentee God.

Jan 29

Self Contained Emotional Statement exercises

Self Contained Emotional Statements: Emotion should be the base of all the improv we do. A “Self Contained Emotional Statement” establishes a stable starting point without dictating a direction and therefore is the initiation most conducive to patterns’ possibilities.

Suggested Exercises:

SCES CIRCLE I – Around a circle, everyone makes a Self Contained Emotional Statement. It can be as simple as “I love it here,” “I hate the arts,” or “I’m uncomfortable.”
Lessons:
• It’s a statement. Not a question shifting the responsibility of providing information to your partner. There’s a period. It’s definitive.
• It’s an emotional statement. Emotional reaction is one of our three key tools; let’s get to it. You need to feel and, for the reaction, you need to give that feeling a direction. Give X the power to make you feel Y.
• Being self-contained, the statement places you on solid ground without dictating the scene to your partners. Mick Napier urges us each to “take care of yourself” without confining the scene. Allow your partner the choice of whether to mirror you in some fashion or to take on something entirely their own. Being self-contained is increasingly an imperative the larger a group you have on stage.

 

SCES CIRCLE II – In a circle, one person leads with a Self Contained Emotional Statement. Then progressively each person to the right heightens the perspective by agreeing with it – essentially with a “Yes, and.” “I love the beach.” “Yeah, I love the white sand.” “Yeah, I love getting my tan on.” Etc. The initiator gets the final addition. And then the person to their right starts a new SCES.
Lessons:
• Repeating Agreement is funny – what’s better than one person who believes something strange? Two people who feel that same way.
• Agreement fosters collaborative building – many people united behind one emotional perspective will be able to heighten creative details to apexes beyond the reach of any single person.

Jan 29

One Person Scenes exercises

One Person Scenes: We simplify by minimizing the number of perspectives on stage through agreement. We build collaboratively through enthusiastic acceptance. Emotional reaction is most important piece of content.

Performers are: Steve Curtis, Noel Elias, Nolan Graveley, Andy Lett-Durant, Blake Mirzayan and Emma Trachman

ONE PERSON SCENES – Groups of 5 or 6, line up along an assembly line conveyor belt. Have them mime something coming down the line. When you say, “Go,” someone will voice a SCES which everyone else will agree with and heighten through repetition. Their miming is just an activity for their hands; it is NOT what the scene is about.
Lessons:
• The clearer the emotional perspective the better – if you don’t think it’s clear, clarify it by heightening the emotion
• Like 21, don’t rush to speak – You have something to do with your hands. You also have an emotional perspective to fill your face with.
• Agreeing to the emotion is more important than heightening the details with words – remember an enthusiastic “yeah” will always be funnier than a rambling monologue
• There are no questions in agreement
• Share the air space – Put periods at the end of your sentences.
• Agree despite “sense” – If someone has a tumor, each person can have a tumor. If someone’s pregnant, each person can be pregnant.
Variations:
• If an emotional perspective is heightened to its apex, the group can follow another emotional perspective, but push them to explore the heights before changing.
• Feel free to break them away from the conveyor belt to a new environment, but beware this will cause them to talk about what they’re doing and/or drop physicality – You can use the resultant chaos as a transition…
• Or… you can transition with, “Bored of the conveyor belt? Let’s work on building your own stage pictures with agreement.”

Performers are: Steve Curtis, Noel Elias, Nolan Graveley, Andy Lett-Durant, Blake Mirzayan and Emma Trachman

Jan 27

Organic Group Games class

Objective: Building patterns one step at a time, it doesn’t matter what “type” of game we’re playing.  From any Offer, through agreements’ simplification, repetitions’ clarification and progressions’ heightening a group can confidently navigate and focus “organic” games.

 

5.0  Warm-Ups: Build energy and concentrate energy.

Suggested Exercises:

CRAZY EIGHTS

21

 

5.1  One Start, Multiple Ends:   The rubric game mechanics can be applied to any initiation.  And the combination of mechanics can facilitate organic game play.

Suggested Exercises:

1 SCES TO TtE, HD & HE – A player initiates with a Self Contained Emotional Statement.  Other players build on, working to set and cement toward a To The Ether, Help Desk or Hey Everybody game.  Clear the stage.  Then the same initiating player gives the same SCES and another of the rubric games is built on top.  Clear stage, repeat.

Example: Player 1 enters, holding a mimed map, looking up and around and says, “Man, New York is so intimidating; where’s the Empire State Building?”

  • To The Ether Game – Player 2 enters on all fours, wiggling their nose and says, “Man, this maze is crazy complicated; where the hell’s that cheese?”  Player 3 enters with arms pressed to his sides, wiggling his whole body and says, in an angry character accent, “Man, these fallopian tubes are all dark and twisted; where the fuck that egg at?”
  • Help Desk Game – Player 2 enters and says, “I’ll help you…”  Player 3 watches that interaction, enters after Player 2 finds reason to leave and mirrors certain aspects of the interaction while heightening others
  • Hey Everybody Game – Player 2 enters and says, “Hey, you gots all of New York at your disposal, we’ll get you where you need to go,” effectively calling on additional players who find their own place and filter while respecting Player 1 as the facilitator

Lessons:

  • Clear moves breed clear games – get everyone on the same page and everyone can play; set up a clear progression and the group will be compelled to play
  • The rubric game mechanics are tools to shape any game – the core mechanics give us a way to relate and progress moves, they don’t dictate a game.
      • TtE Core – heightening one perspective/idea?  Build a progression thinking about elevating the relationship between A and B in C’s relationship to B.
      • HD Core – heightening an interaction?  Follow, not just “the joke,” but the full swath of scene elements (dialogue structure, word choice, emotion, pacing, beginning, end, etc.).   Build a progression, heightening elements that change between interactions and repeating elements that repeat between interactions.
      • HE Core – heightening a collection of disparate elements?  Establish stable ground for yourself as quickly as possible with a bold emotional reaction.  Build the progression through repetition of the sequence – players contributing in-turn and heightening through their personal filter.

 
 

5.2  Organic Montage:   Use the combinations of game mechanics to facilitate a varied run of games. 

Suggested Exercises:

ORGANIC GROUP GAME MONTAGE – A run of group games, edited and continued by the group.

Lessons:

  • Variance – vary the emotional energy, scene length, scene type, cast size, etc.
  • Callback – revisit and heighten games from earlier in the run