Thursday 25 May 2017

Highlights of the Festival Workshop on “Improv for Actors”, with Laura Hall

Laura Hall led our Festival workshop on “Improv for Actors”.  Here are a few of the highlights of the workshop.
"Improv for Actors" workshop with Laura Hall
at Theatre Ontario Festival 2017 in Ottawa
  • Participants offering a stretch for the group while they introduced themselves
  • Exercise: Clap focus – Made eye contact with someone in the circle, passed a clap, then added their names
  • Exercise: “I know we both like…” – Approached the person and try to find something to finish the sentence (found that you could respond to facial expressions if they would accept/reject; laughter on making connections because comedy6 comes from truth)
  • Exercise: “Whoosh” – Paying attention to where the energy is in the room, passing an invisible ball while vocalizing a whoosh, then adding elements that would change direction, skip people, add performative elements, etc. – keeping focus, attention, etc.
  • Exercise: Loserball – Throwing a different ball, never catching it, cheering mistakes – building up as a team
  • Exercise: Proverb – Each person would add one word at a time to create a proverb
  • Exercise: Story – Same, but when coming to a natural conclusion, adding a period while starting a new sentence
  • Explored fundamentals of improv: In pairs, tried three scenarios of “planning a party” where every response began with 1) “No, but…” / “Yes, but…” / “Yes, and…”
  • Explored conveying information in three sentences: Again in pairs, first person who define who they are, second person would define where they are, first person would establish the agreed upon action going forward
  • Exercise: Scene Painting – given the suggestion of a place, performers would try to feed all five senses about the place

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