Move, move, move

Yesterday we focussed on movement and action.  Before we got to that, however, we had an extended warm-up exercise.  We played the game "I know people who have...."  The premise behind the game is this:
One person is in the middle, and everybody else in the class is seated around the middle person.
The person in the middle says something about him- or herself, but phrases that statement, "I know people who have...."
Anybody seated who has also had that experience has to get up and take a new seat and the person in the middle can snatch a seat.  The person left standing is in the middle.

Confused?  Here's an example:

A is in the middle and B, C, D, and E are seated.

A says, "I know people who have masturbated during their lifetime."  Obviously, that statement is true of everybody in the group, so everybody scurries for a seat. B is the person left standing.

B then says, "I know people who were born in Michigan." B was born in Michigan, and so was C.  So, C has to get up, B takes C's seat and C is in the middle.

C then says, "I know people who have had a jelly donut and chili dog with Mel Gibson and Paul Ryan.  C is the only person in the group who has done this, so he remains standing and gets a round of applause from the group.  (And, unfortunately, this factoid can't be shared with the public at large because what is said in the circle of truth stays in the circle of truth.)

So, we played this game for a good while, which was pretty cool from a class bonding perspective.

We then did montages.  The goal was to practice juggling our variation of characters and not getting into a rut performing the same type of character.  A highlight of this exercise was Mario as a teenager talking to one of his friends.  Mario's mom had found his stash of pot and thought that he was suicidal, so his friend suggested killing Mario's mom.  (As you do.)  The murderous friend got tagged out for a new friend who was talking to Mario about how his mom was overreacting to think that just because she caught him masturbating, that he wasted to kill himself.  The solution? Well, go into your mom's bed and whack off. (Duh.)  That friend was tagged out for Mario's new friend: Geez, just because your mom caught you trying to hang yourself, she thinks you're suicidal.  Mario's classic response: I know, was just doing that for a better orgasm.  (Scene.)

Our work with action consisted of raising the action in the scene and going from space to space on the stage.  The action is supposed to pull the actors from part of the stage to another (or even off stage).  This makes sense.  Action keeps the actors moving around the stage and the audience has something to look at.  A scene with two people planted in the center of the stage talking for two minutes gets a little old and stale.  In the sketch world, scenes like this are criticized as "talking heads."  It's very easy to get trapped into writing a talking heads scene, and perhaps it's also easy to get bogged down with a talking heads improv scene when the actors are trying to focus on emotion of character traits too much.  (In my experience (albeit limited), the main culprit in getting stuck in the talking heads muck is focussing too much on plot.)

All in all, it was a great class, even though it was far from being our funniest class.  It's hard to believe that next week is the last of our eight weeks of tutelage with Tim.