Notice Everything
During improv shows, our scenes can often suffer from too much going on, or from vital cues not getting picked up. The stress of being onstage gets to us and we either try to overcompensate by adding more, or miss the offers our partners make. But how can we keep our brains from going into overdrive and truly stay in the moment with our partners, reacting to what is already there rather than inventing new things? How can we trust that what we have is enough? This workshop will focus on exercises that will help slow us down, quiet our inner critic, heighten our perceptiveness and keep us attune to the rich world that has already started unfolding in our scene. We will create scenes that prove that we are all we need.
Split Screens & Funky Scenes
Impro has a magical, immersive and convergence-y quality that few other artforms can imitate. We not only see different worlds come to life, but quick shifts in perspective and impressive ways in which the improvisers blend the codes of theatre and film for their audience. Some of the most fascinating ways in which we can tell our story is through simultaneous scenes; when it works, we see several improvisers performing different scenes seamlessly onstage at the same time, never missing an ounce of information while staying in their separate world. But how can one initiate these complex scenes without them being mistaken for an edit or the entry of a new character? This workshop will unlock a whole new world of scenework; we will experiment with splitscreens, barndoor edits and we will discover through trial and error a bunch of other funky parallel scenes in the process!
by KELLY AGATHOS