|
Week 1 Warm up--Name game with gesture and Get to know me? The game we played where you introduced your partner and included one lie. Purpose-to work on believeablity. Afterall, aren't all actors liers? COR(R)E Principles Concentration-Ha Ball and Heartbeat Game Purpose-allow yourself to do two things at once, a task all actors have to deal with. Observation-Mirror Games (Regular, Delayed, Vocal) Keep in mind that you want to work WITH your partner. "Follow the follwer", in other words, we shouldn't tell who is leading. Relaxation-Tension/Release and Breathing (Ah, Ee, Ooo) If an actor is to be effective on stage, they have to first be relaxed and comfortable with what they are doing. Risk Taking-Everyone Let's... and What Are You Doing? Juming in and making a choice is a skill that all actors should work on. As an ensemble we will learn how to accept the choice, yield to the choice, and advance the choice.
--------------------Week 2 The focus this week is on improvisation. By the end of today, I want you to be able to give and accept offers from your partner. Remember, acting is action and reaction, and if youre not open and available to give and receive, your scenes will go nowhere. Warm-up: Name introduction Introduce yourself and meet everyone else. (A says his name, B says her name, A says Bs name, B says As name) Knife and Fork: Without talking form the following. Go for the strongest offer: (whole group) square, circle, rectangle, P, Q etc (in pairs) Be sure to make eye contact and promise to save your partner. Make the following: knife & fork; rose in vase stamp on envelope; cup & saucer; pair of hiking boots,; thread & needle; button w/ button hole unbuttoned; paste on toothbrush; baby seat; towel on rack; CD player running; telephone; burning match; TV pair of contacts (in fours) golden gate bride; a pyramid; statue of liberty; big banana; an octopus; childs mobile (whole group) upright piano w/ player and candelabra; a guitar; speedboat pulling 2 skiers; a Viking ship; helicopter w/ fluffy woolen seat covers Naming the Obvious: 1) walk and name things (be simple not clever; vary pace; change level 2) describe objects w/ short sentences (very loud; whisper; gibberish; singing) 3) describe objects in detail (color; shape; texture; you are the expert) Repeat the above but name things they AREN'T One Word At A Time: Find a partner and link together side by side. Move together throughout the space. Find a rhythm to your movement and remember that you are ONE person. Begin the Name The Obvious exercise, but do so alternating with your partner one word at a time. Meet In Pairs: Now that youre comfortable speaking one word at a time, meet another pair and have a small exchange between the TWO of you. (Remembering that you are one person.) Focus on eye contact; share control; speak in present tense; say I; save each other) Find A Letter: With your partner, you will enter, see a letter on the floor, pick it up and read it. How you interact or ENDOW the letter will tell us what kind of letter it is. (a secret note; a treasure map; a love letter) Variation: read in Dr. Seuss style or in Shakespearian text Treasure Map: With your partner, find a map and go on a quest. Don't discuss what you're looking for ahead of time. Procedure: Find the map; endow it somehow; read and follow the directions (move 3 hops right); once you find the treasure let it have an effect on you. Rooms: In two groups create two separate rooms in a house. You can quickly discuss a time period and room with the group, but spend most of your time creating the room with your body. Only one human and the other members are objects in the room. Each object can have a sound and should be used by the human. Reveal a story (beginning/middle/end) as the human goes through the room. Present Game: 1) In pairs give your partner an imaginary gift. Partners must pay attention to the size and weight of the box given by your partner. Name the gift and what it does. (ex. Oh, its a light bulb and it glows green) 2) Repeat above, but this time without words 3) Repeat again, but using gibberish One Word At a Time/Present Game: In partners, give gifts to another person. Rules are the same for the present game, name and describe, using one word at a time. Listen to each other; watch for offers given by other person; deal w/ one offer at a time Yes And/But: Now that everyone is giving and receiving offers, we are ready for some scene work. With a partner, you are going to begin a scene, the only catch is that before you speak, you must say YES AND. This will help you accept your partners offer. Repeat above using YES BUT to help change or yield offers given (In this part, go for the unusual or unexpected rather than blocking) Story: Four people up. Begin a story going down the line one word at a time. Listen for offers and work as a team. --------------------Week 3 Warm up: Machines-First as whole group then as smaller groups as appliances Focus on using movement to create character Pathways: How does your character move? (locomotor movement) And what path does he/she take? (straight, curvy, ziz-zag, or spiral) Centers of Energy: Where does your character find their center of energy? And what organ of the body is related to that? (head, chest, stomach, pelvis) Laban's 8 Effort Actions: Time: Sudden vs. Sustained Weight: Heavy vs. Light Space: Direct vs. Indirect Explore all of these basic concepts and then put them into the 8 effort actions Who Am I? Students grab a "who" card and create the character based on how they move. Students have to identify the path on which they move, the center of energy and the effort it takes for them to move. HW-Character Observation --------------------Week 4 Warm up-Zip Zap Boing: Focus on concentration and ensemble work Movement: In the Manner of the Adverb: Students move around the room using suggestions that are given (i.e. Quickly, lazily, slowly) Teacher begins and then allows students to call out suggestions. Improvisation: focus on character and receiving from your partner(s) 2 Up 2 Down: Two players sitting and two standing behind. Players in front are in control. One person sitting begins a random movement and sound, which the other three try to copy exactly. At any time, the other sitter can take over. Play should continue back and forth with little breaks. Objective is to have four people moving in unison. Hitchhiker: 4 players. One drives and the other three are passengers. As soon as the driver begins, he pulls the car over and lets the first passenger in. The passenger has some kind of physical or emotional trait that the driver immediately takes on. Play continues until all three are in the car. Every time a new passenger is added, the players in the car take on the new emotion. Play continues until all are in and then all are dropped off in reverse order. Focus on accepting offers and committing to the emotion. Four Corners: Room is divided into four quadrants with each quadrant given a specific emotion. Two players are given a situation. They begin in any quadrant they want. Throughout the course of the improv they have to visit all of the quadrants. They may go to one more than once and the players may occupy the same square if they wish. Acting work- Moment before/after: When a character enters the stage, he/she has to do so for a SPECIFIC reason. When you are working with a scene, always ask yourself, what is bringing me into this space AND where did I just come from. 3 Entrances: Individually students enter the space using three separate but distinct entrances. Work on your imagination to create the circumstances that bring you into the space. (i.e. Robbing a house, or coming to take a test) Status: When you create a character you need to work on the physical (see week 3) and the sociological. In other words, where does my character fit into society? What are her political/religious beliefs? What is my status? JUSTIFY/JUSTIFY/JUSTIFY Status Game: Students hold hand out forward, palm up. Teacher gives each student a card from a regular playing deck, face down in their hand. On the count of three, students place cards on their foreheads so that hey can see each others but not their own. Next, the students pretend they are at a party and interact with each other based on their status. (King is high, Ace is low) Variation: repeat without words or change the setting, or using gibberish
--------------------Week 5 Warm up: Negative Space: Person begins in a stature pose. Next, a member of the class fills in the negative space around the person. Everyone adds in until the whole group is in a large sculpture. Kitty Wants a Corner Laban movement: 8 effort actions: Flick, Float, Glide, Punch, Slash, Press, Dab, & Wring. Gesture: 1) hostess/guest-You and your guests have been waiting for 3 hours for the guest of honor to arrive. What happens when he/she does? 2)physical action toward another person as an animal (intimidate, seduce, reject, approve) Types of Gesture: a)illustrative-pantomiming ("This big by that wide.") A combination of words and gesture. b) indicative-points ("Right over there.") Almost pure gesture. c) emphatic-subjective ("Now listen here!") Characterized by a voice change. d) autistic-to self or hidden. Introduction of Tactics/Actions: Gimmie the keys: Situation: One person has the other persons keys because they had borrowed the car earlier. Person 2 has an extremely important appointment/date that he/she has to get to. Person 1 cant stop to give #2 the keys because the Guiness Book of World Records is coming over to see the tallest house of cards that he/she built. (Of course it just fell over, and #2 has to rebuild it right away!) Its Not What You Say: One person on a chair, the other members of the class go up to that person and say the following using different tactics: "Oh. I didnt realize you were coming too." (to belittle, to build him up, to charm, to scare, to snub) "Did you say what I think you said?" (to threaten, to discredit, to delight, to overwhelm, to shock) "Dont worry, I'll take care of it." (to dismiss, to reassure, to unsettle, to terrify, to take him down a few pegs) Others: "I wouldn't lie to you, would I?", "You probably shouldn't have done that.", "I thought you were my friend.", "I can't wait 'till tomorrow.", & "You're such an interesting person." Action Improvs: In pairs, choose an objective (to go on a date, to borrow money, to get the other to lie for you) and then pick a tactic that will help you succeed. Make it possible and related to you and make it important. Pick a strategy to succeed (ex: to get Sam to take me to my folks house by promising him dinner there) Feel free to shift the strategy if not getting what you want. (Partners should remember to say yes to offers given.) Repeat the above using an inner monologue: As your partner reacts, read their reactions and adjust strategy to pursue objective. Open Scenes w/ Tactics --------------------Week 6 Warm-up: Clap circle, Group Jump Given Circumstances: Review moment before Who: Relationship between your character and others in the play General-two sisters (gossiping, catching up on things) Specific-that which is unique to those two sisters in the script Where: both the physical (hot, humid etc.) and the social (place in society) When: time of day and year also the historical time (manners, values, beliefs) What: structure of the action (action verbs) ACTION/OBSTACLE/OBJECTIVE Party Quirks Thanksgiving Dinner: Students walk around the space thinking of different relatives and the qualities they possess. (bully, glamour queen, mischievous 8 year old, joker, mother hen, loud mouth) 1) move as themselves to get the mental picture 2) transform physically/emotionally 3) line up (ask questions of each-How is the company? Food? Occupation?) 4) dinner (improv dinner with conversation) Open Scenes: Putting it together-Use the open scene format but really work to establish the given circumstances and the actions Introduction to Beats: Using a scene from Antigone, map out the beats and assign actions to them. --------------------Week 7 Warm up: Zip Zap Zub Focus on scene work and applying the principles of ACTION/OBJECTIVE/OBSTACLE to their characters. Divide the group into pairs for their scene.Directions: 1)read for meaning and understanding 2) find first 6 beats 3) assign actions 4) get on feet and try it out-telegraph the beat changes by having one or both of you change your blocking when the beat changes (i.e. if both of you are standing, when the beat changes one of you sit; if you are both standing close together, one of you move away when the beat changes) 5) after a significant amount of time and checking in with each group, have every pair share the first 3-6 beats of their scenes and debrief each one HW-work on memorizing the first page of dialogue if you can --------------------Week 8 Our last class. Today we continue to put the ideas we have discussed together. Warm-up: Across the floor: Divide the class into three groups. Their objective is to get across the room as a group that is in constant contact with every member of the group. Once an idea has been used by a group, it can't be used again. Scene work: Divide into pairs and continue to work on the scene from last week. Focus: Action, Character, Obstacle and using movment/blocking to designate beat changes. Final sharing: Each group shares their scene and we discuss each. The group can do the entire scene or what they feel like sharing. Monologues: Brief discussion on auditioning and how to find material. (Would like to have more time for this.) |
