Lesson 18:

Making and Accepting Offers

Copy and paste the following notes into your digital logbook under the heading 'Making and Accepting Offers'.

Making offers is the ability of the actor to be imaginative, make positive and active contributions to the development of the plot, and establish character, location and time. An offer may be verbal or physical. Accepting an offer is when the performer ‘gives way’ to another performer’s offer without blocking. In a sense it is like saying yes to your fellow performer.

Warm-up: Yes, Let's

Students stand in a circle. Starting with one volunteer, each person says ‘let’s…’ and then fills in the blank (making an offer), for example, ‘let’s jump up and down’. The remaining students say ‘yes let’s’ and engage in what the first student had said (accepting the offer). This continues around the circle until everyone has had a go.

Activities on Making and Accepting Offers

Knock at the Door

In pairs, decide who is going to be Person A and who is going to be Person B. Starting with Person A, you will be given a scenario by the teacher in which you are to approach the door of your partner, knock on it and then proceed improvising the scenario given. These scenarios could be like the following:

You have come to welcome Person B to the neighbourhood
You have come to tell Person B that you have run over their cat
You have come to question Person B about a robbery in the neighbourhood.

The activitiy will alternate between Person A and Person B being the person to knock on the door and initiate the improvisation.

Word By Word

Work with a different partner. You are going to work together to create one character. You will be doing this by taking turns to say words that when joined together create a sentence. Stand shoulder to shoulder and put your inside arm around your partner's waist. Move through the room together describing everything you see. You may only say one word at a time. For example, the two of you could say:

"The-curtain-is-dirty-and-needs-cleaning".

Expert Double Figures

Four students at a time volunteer to be part of this activity. An interviewer and an interviewee sit on two chairs with their arms behind their back. Two other people will sit behind them and act as their hands and gesticulate exactly what the two talking characters are discussing. The interviewer starts the improvisation by introducing their show and the guest they are interviewing. They continue to ask questions and then finish off by thanking their guest. Throughout the improvisation the hands must listen to what the talking characters are saying so that they can accept any vocal offers and the talking characters must also accept and physical offers from their hands.

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