Story Robot

This mind-blowing exercise I learnt from Patti Stiles at last years NZ Improv Festival.
Again I think this ties in well with the other exercises I’ve been talking about, but I might not play them in this sequence, I might do this one, then the others, then this one again to see if it helps.

Here’s how it works;
Everyone in pairs, find yourselves a space in the room. Person A is going to play the role of the worst improviser imaginable. Person B is going to play the role of the best improviser imaginable. A, try and make the scene fail. B, try and make the scene succeed. Go!
After a few minutes I’ll swap them over without discussion.
Then we talk about successful strategies for both roles. Then we try it again, encouraging each side to try different approaches, and pointing out that if they can succeed when someone is actively working against them then improv will be easy for the rest of their lives.

It’s impossible to describe all the possible ways this game can go, but I assure you, the first time you see the good improviser flip things on the bad improviser so that it looks like they’re both working together (and making them both look brilliant) you’ll be hooked.

It’s a great proof of the fact that No one can block you but yourself (As Jeff Wirth said in this wonderful but long lost article), and that if you treat your partner like a genius and a poet then they will become one.

Following on from stop at the same time, I enjoy ‘leave for the same reason’. This is an exercise I’ve read in Impro for Storytellers many times, but never tried until recently. Turns out it was just what I was looking for.

How I play it,
Four chairs in a line. Four people up. The aim of the game is, everyone must leave for the same reason. But! No talking.
Some groups will get this first time, others will struggle a bit. Once they’ve succeeded a few times, usually as a result of very strong mime offers from one person (miming a bus timetable, checking watch, everyone gets on the bus) we add in another rule.
Now, just like with stop at the same time, you’ve got to make it so I can’t guess who’s idea it was.
This is where things get really interesting. The players have to totally focus on what the others are doing if they want to succeed. If they’re struggling I’ll either either side coach a little (“Dan just yawned.” “Emma just scratched her arm”), or we might stop and ask the audience what possibilities they saw. I’ll also rewind them if I can tell one person is leading. After a while we start to see players amazingly in sync with one another, picking up and amplifying offers made by others (one of my students very astutely compared it speak in one voice). An exciting discovery we might make at this point is that other players are always making offers, even if they don’t realize it, we just have to look for them.

I sometimes teach this along with the Sandy Carroll games from the Improv Handbook (also known as ‘Yes, Sounds good to me, I’ll go along with that’).

I like this warm-up/exercise. Not sure where it came from, though I learnt the variations from the excellent Dan Allan.

Everyone walk around the room, if you see an open space walk into the space.
Now when any person in the group stops, I want everyone to stop. When anyone starts walking again, everyone starts walking.
(for young students I’ll first have them start and stop when I start/stop. I’ll also ask them only to the be the leader once each).
Good. Now try and make it so that I can’t guess who’s idea it was to stop or start.
Same thing, but let’s move faster!

Extra for experts. When you’re stopped you also have the option of all jumping at the same time, or all lying down at the same time.

Anytime I get into a conversation about the possibilities of taking improv in new directions this book always comes up.

I love this book. It describes different ways that audiences can participate in a theatrical experience, to quote the improv encyclopedia it includes;
* Environmental theater, in which the audience become characters in a semi-scripted role-play, together with actors
* Playback theater, in which actors `replay` scenes from the audience`s experience
* Forum Theater, or Theater of the Oppressed
* Theatrical Freestyle, developed by Wirth himself, in which audience members join actors on stage to play full-length performances.

It’s also loaded with techniques for working with audience volunteers.

A friend was telling me about a performance he saw of Cinderella;
Cinderella: I don’t know how I’m going to get all this cleaning done in time.
Little girl: *jumping out of the audience* I’ll help you! And so will everyone else.

I think the actress was a bit thrown by this, but it’s exactly the sort of situation that I think Jeff Wirth would relish.

One of the more unusual jobs I do is working as a ghost walk guide (actually, pretty much every job I do is strange). Essentially, I take people around old buildings and tell them ghost stories.

This has taught me a few things about fear. Particularly the art of getting people scared but not too scared.

Below is my theory on fear mongering. Simply, people like to be scared in a safe environment (hence Scary movies and rollercoasters). So, my strategy is to keep pushing people until they get to the sweet spot (it’s hard to check for goose bumps so I tend to judge it on how much laughter my lame jokes get: more laughter=more tension). However on some nights I seem to spend my time just saying calm, soothing things, they’ve already got themselves worked into such a state that my only job is to try and stop them going over the edge. That is to say, I try not to make anybody cry.

A couple of other notes

-People scare easier in hot weather. My theory, a hot humid night makes people sweat a little which people interpret as fear, thus feeding the cycle. Cold weather makes people shiver, which they interpret as being cold, thus making them miserable.

-Most of the work gets done before and after the show. Anticipation is key. The best audience has been thinking about it all day, wondering what will happen. The few groups who have come along as part of some surprise event have not enjoyed it, partly due to the lack of anticipation.
After the show people’s memories build things up to be more impressive than they really were. I remember a boy who had been on the tour describing how a dead body had fallen from the ceiling and landed on someone (if this really happened, I probably would have heard about it).

I sometimes write myself notes to tell myself what I think about certain things. Here are my notes on Pre-show warmups.

First of all, as far as I’m concerned a vocal warm up is mandatory. It’s not enough that an audience can hear you. If I have to take a moment to reconstruct your sentence in my head, then it’s much less likely that I’ll laugh at your joke. The moment will have passed.
Nothing too elaborate, a little can make a big difference.
Like Keith says ‘the voice has to be a whip to discipline the audience’.

By the same token, a few stretches wouldn’t go amiss. Or have you already decided that you’ll perform all your scenes tonight standing casually in the middle of the stage?

As for the classic improv warm up.
My number one rule. If someone in the group wants to do a warm up, I’ll take part (enthusiastically I hope). Improv is about being there for other people after all.

If there are some technical aspects to the show then I’ll want to work on those a little. If there’s going to be rhyming then a rhyming game will help. When we were doing a Shakespeare show we made a simile game that worked very nicely.

Other than that, I like to hang out with the other players, and being improvisers, it’s not uncommon for a game of some kind to develop organically which is always more satisfying.

Finally, a tradition we got from Patti Stiles. Just before going onstage give each person a hug and tell them ‘I’ve got your back’.