Improvisation

A Practical Guide

Jason Moran

• Publisher: The Crowood Press
• Year: 2021
• Print ISBN: 9781785009310
• eBook ISBN: 9781785009327
• Topic: Media & Performing Arts
• Subtopic: Acting & Auditioning

Improvisation is a highly creative and collaborative art form, encompassing the skills of storytelling, character creation and stage presence all in the moment. However, with an array of styles and techniques to choose from, it can be hard for new practitioners to negotiate the moving parts and find their own individuality. In this practical guide, Artistic Director and improv expert Jason Moran explores the basic pillars of improvisation and explains how to practically apply these in an improvised scene, game or situation. Each chapter showcases a different pillar and offers a practical checklist to make each scene interesting and robust. This helpful book unpacks and analyses real-life improvised examples from the stage, rehearsal room and classroom, illustrating to the reader what works well and what could work better, making it essential reading for actors, presenters and anyone who wants to increase their confidence in public performances.

1

STORYTELLING

What makes a good story? Ask this question to a group of your friends and their answers will probably include ‘drama’, ‘comedy’, ‘funny characters’ or ‘something interesting happens’. All these are components of a good story, but what is missing? What always stands out to me is ‘detail’, because it is the detail that draws in the listener or audience and keeps them interested.

I grew up in a rural town in the west of Ireland, and I have never come across better storytellers than the people I grew up with and who still live in this town. There, a story – any story – contains plenty of detail; it is a tradition that has come from somewhere and has remained. Ask anyone in the local bar what they got up to on Saturday night, and the way the story is woven out is mesmerizing. It’ll more than likely begin with what they were doing before they went out, who texted or called them, or what function they had already planned to go to. Then who was in the taxi, who was driving it, and where they were all going – even what they may have been wearing.

By the time they get to the part you were interested in or had talked about, you could have been twenty minutes talking and not been bored, because now you are ready to really understand the story. You know how they were feeling and why they felt that way (you’ve been given the context to what they were doing earlier and what their frame of mind would have been), and what experiences since leaving home had led them to this point (whom they may have met would have influenced them, whether the person was annoying, or funny, or told a sad story). In short it means that now, you care about the storyteller. You have an insight into why they might have said and done whatever happens next.

From a cultural perspective, and looking at how my background in storytelling shaped my own style, I began thinking of this in terms of improvisation.

IN PRACTICE: THE ‘WHO, WHAT, WHERE’

A common approach with beginners in improvisation is almost always to jump straight into the drama and open with an argument, or blaming someone for something, or with a disaster. There is a belief that we need to grab the attention of the audience early and keep them interacting – and if we don’t, they will get bored and lose interest. There may be an element of truth in this, but there is a whole series of detail that is missing, and without that the audience won’t care.

As soon as the actors step on the stage, the audience have a series of subconscious questions they will need answers for. Who are these characters? Where are they? And what are they doing there? Without knowing who the characters are, where they are in that moment, and without having an idea of what is happening, it can be hard for the audience to connect with the story that is unfolding on the stage. So how do you get round this?

Most improv teachers, schools or actors will advise setting up the ‘who’, the ‘what’ and the ‘where’. Even in the stories we share with each other, we always start with setting the scene: for example, ‘I was on my way to work this morning and as I approached the bus stop, I saw a police car suddenly speed around the corner.’ Without some context building it can be hard for the audience to get into the story.

Improvised storytelling should start simple and take its time drawing in the audience. The audience gives the suggestions for the story, so start simple: as here, the actors are starting this story in a steady space.

If we look at the journey of the hero or protagonist in a story, we see that the story starts in their ordinary: today is a normal day for our hero(es). Now this does not have to be boring. A normal day for a pirate would have a lot of things happening that would not happen for an office worker. If our hero is from a mythical or alien place, we still need to see what ‘ordinary’ life is like on any given day.

We have a focal point here for both actors as they are working with an external point off the stage. It is the agreement between them that is drawing in the audience.

One actor makes a choice to drive the story forwards with a physical offer; at this point the actors should be aware of the audience, and know when to pick up the pace of the story.

A strong physical sign from an actor. However, this could be too soon, and could derail the story. Improvisers should always try to stay aware of where they are in the story so they can continue to bring the audience along.

In Star Wars we first meet Luke Skywalker working on his uncle’s farm and carrying out the daily chores he would usually get on with on a day-to-day basis. Even though Luke as a character has his own aspirations – which we learn through the dialogue – nothing really happens to him until he meets his mentor and the stakes are raised. The fact that he aspires to higher goals is part of his character background, something we will explore in Chapter 6, Making the Audience Care.

Also keep in mind that a mundane day for one person can be a break in routine for another. Thus a normal day for a firefighter is saving lives, but this is an extraordinary day for the person they rescue. The ordinary day of a brain surgeon is performing an extraordinary skill, yet this is a far from ordinary day for the patient. Understanding who our protagonist is, and how they behave while living their ‘normal’, is a big part of storytelling.

In improv, using the full journey made by the hero may be too much for actors to follow and keep track of, even though it is not impossible. To keep the story simple, I keep an abbreviated version in my head to keep track of where the storyline is.

Beginners should remember the notion of incorporating these elements into their improvised story. The difficulty lies in avoiding the quick win or early disaster to get the audience interested, because without knowing the normality of the main characters, the audience will quickly lose interest. As a teacher, I see this a lot. If the story is a bank robbery, students go straight in with a shoot-out, or if it is a romantic day on a yacht they go straight in with a shark attack.

Avoiding the quick win or early disaster can be a good way of getting players to see the value of the normal in the scene. Players with more experience will see the big offer as a normal day for some extraordinary person, and will play that.

With the bank robbery scene, if the robbers rob banks regularly this could be their ‘normal’ – but they would still need to plan the robbery, which could be a more interesting way of opening a story like this. This way we would find out who they are, why they need the money and where the robbery will take place, as well as where the hideout is.

In the shark scene, the extraordinary character is most likely to be the sha...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Halftitle
• Title
• Copyright
• Contents
• Acknowledgements
• Preface
• Introduction
• 1 Storytelling
• 2 Yes, And…
• 3 Using your Body and the Space
• 4 Spontaneity and Listening
• 5 Finding the Game
• 6 Making the Audience Care
• 7 Improv Beyond the Stage
• 8 Teaching, Coaching and Directing
• 9 Corporate Improv Training
• 10 Index of Games
• References and Bibliography
• Index