Improvising

Improvisation

Improvisation is a powerful tool for both exploring and creating a script.
To improvise is to invent and create content on your feet.
Improvised drama is work that hasn’t been scripted but is made up as you go along. It’s important not to block members of your group when improvising but accept and try out their ideas. This will encourage you all to run with an idea rather than try and direct or plan the improvisation.
Improvising is an excellent way to generate new content and explore ideas when devising drama. The beauty of it is that because it’s unplanned you never know entirely where the scene might take you or what the other actors you are working with might say. This can make for an exciting and fun way to experiment and create work.
Improvisation can be divided into two types:

Improvisational methods to use in rehearsal

Even if you’re using a script, improvisation can be a wonderful way of discovering things about it you had not realised before. It’s also a superb way of freeing up actors or breathing new life into a scene that has become stale. Try these exercises:

1. Taking characters out of context

What happens if you pick up the characters and put them in a different place or time? Improvise in a strange setting like a spaceship or a submarine! Look at Explorative strategies to find out more.

2. Using verse

Try to improvise while speaking in a rhythm or using rhyme. This can be helped by actors throwing a ball from one to another to change the pace. You might use rhyming couplets or lines that rhyme with each other. This forces the actor to think in a different way and use words that they might not usually consider.

3. Adding a style

You could improvise in a set style or genre that’s very different to your original script or devised piece. This can really free up the work and generate new ideas for performance. Here are some examples of genres you could consider:

4. Experimenting with status

Status is the level of power or influence a character has. You can achieve interesting and often comic results by changing the status order in your drama when you improvise.
Imagine an office scene. The managing director is trying to make an important phone call. However, the cleaner wants to clean his office. What happens if you switch the status so the cleaner is the most powerful character in the scene?
Another good status exercise is to improvise when the actors are unaware of the status of the other characters but are forced to react according to the clues they are given. Playing cards are a useful tool for this. Each actor draws a card (king is high, ace is low) and must improvise in role according to whether they were awarded a high or low card. The director, Max Stafford Clark and the Out of Joint theatre company use cards regularly to explore status and relationships in rehearsals.

5. Three touch drama

This is an exercise where the actors improvise but can only say three words at a time. It’s very good for exploring the essence of a scene and really focuses actors and forces them to think creatively.

6. Alphabetical improvisation

The actors can use as many words as they like but the lines of dialogue must start with consecutive letters of the alphabet.
For example:
Don’t be afraid to use improvisation to experiment and generate content. Sometimes the best ideas are unplanned.

7. Role play

This is the act of pretending to be somebody else, of taking on a role. The role may be from a script or a character you have created. Thinking, acting and even feeling differently to your ordinary self can help you empathise with that person and better understand an issue or theme.
This explorative strategy would be effective if you were using the work of Konstantin Stanislavski as your chosen style. He took the approach that the actor should inhabit the role that they’re playing. The actor shouldn’t only know what lines they need to say and the motivation for those lines, but should also know every detail of that character’s life offstage as well as onstage.
You could use a role on the wall diagram to help you. Divide an outline of a person in two from top to bottom. Write down what the character thinks and feels on one side and what other characters think and feel about your character on the other side. You can also include factual information about the role you are playing around the outside of the figure. This will help you understand your character better.

8. Still image

This is a frozen picture which communicates meaning. It’s sometimes called a freeze frame or tableau. It can provide insight into character relationships with a clear focus upon use of space, levels, body language and facial expression.
Still images can be used in a variety of ways. During a long speech they might be used to punctuate the words with clear imagery, making the drama onstage more interesting by adding a visual dimension to the work. They can also be used for marking the moment to explore a key moment in time.
You could use still images to create a photo album as an insight into a character’s past life and relationships. It would be possible to use them to break down a complicated plot into clear snapshots of its key moments in development. Still image is also a useful way to storyboard early devised work.
Still images can be naturalistic, a photograph of an important moment or abstract, more representational of feelings or an event.
A picture paints a thousand words. Condensing emotions, events or relationships into an image is an excellent way of ensuring these are communicated in a detailed and effective way.

9. Thought-tracking

A thought-track is when a character steps out of a scene to address the audience about how they’re feeling. Sharing thoughts in this way provides deeper insight into the character for an audience.
In rehearsal it’s an effective way of exploring characters and scenes in greater depth. Stopping the action and sharing thoughts enables the actor to fully understand how their character thinks or feels at any given moment. Sometimes the character might feel something different to the words they’re speaking. This is called subtext and thought-tracking is a useful way of exploring it to realise the many layers within a scene.

10. Hot-seating

Illustration to represent 'Hot Seating', of a man sweating, sitting on a chair on fire
This is an exercise to deepen understanding of character. An actor sits in the hot-seat and is questioned in role, spontaneously answering questions they may not have considered before.
Hot-seating helps an actor become more familiar with their role. The questioners should also act as observers as feedback can be very useful.
Ask questions that force the actor to consider the life of their character in depth and beyond the world of the play. You could ask them about home life, childhood, family relationships, hopes, fears, hobbies and how they feel about other characters.
Make a note of any mannerisms that emerge which can be incorporated into performance, such as twisting hands out of nervousness or speaking slowly with a serious tone of voice and fixed eye contact. If something works for the character you are playing, keep it.

11. Cross-cutting

Cross-cutting is a device to move between two or more scenes staged in the space at the same time. It’s important that the audience know which part of the action they should follow so one part of the action remains in still image while another scene is played out, directing the audience’s focus. Using this technique you can move backwards and forwards between separate locations and time frames.
For example, a theatre company is creating a piece of work exploring Christmas. The production team want to show the differences between a rich and poor family on this day. Two separate scenes are developed and placed onstage. Instead of playing simultaneously the rich family scene plays first with children opening many presents. This freezes in a still image and the poor family come to life with their simple gifts providing a contrast. This scene ends in a still image and the group cross-cut to the rich family once again who are having a lavish Christmas dinner. They freeze and the poorer family’s dinner is enacted.
Cross-cutting is an excellent way to explore the contrast between situations by making differences clear for the audience. It can also be used to give them additional information. It enables performers to move quickly between locations and scenes without interrupting the flow of the drama they’re creating. Whilst it’s a performance technique it can also be used within a workshop to place characters within different time frames for explorative purposes.

12. Narrating

Narrating is adding a spoken commentary for the audience about the action onstage. A narrator is like a storyteller informing the audience about the plot.
Narration is useful in making a story more understandable for the audience. It also makes the drama stylised. This means that it becomes non-naturalistic because the audience are aware throughout that a story is being told and the fourth wall is broken.
Narrating can make a drama more understandable or stylised in a number of ways:
This explorative strategy would be effective if you were using Brecht, Theatre in education, Musical theatre or Artaud as your chosen style. Try it out in rehearsal to see if it works in your performance.

13. Marking the moment

This is a way of highlighting the most important moment in a scene in order to draw the audience’s attention to its significance. There are various ways of marking the moment:
Marking the moment is useful in rehearsal as it helps actors consider the most important moments communicated within a scene and ensures their impact is not lost upon the audience.

Improvising successfully

Firstly…

Never ’block’. This means if another actor throws you an idea, don’t refuse it, but explore by reacting to it in role. A key to successful improvisation is for all actors to accept rather than block the ideas of others.
You may have a different idea about where you would like the scene to go, but if you can respond to new ideas and react in the moment, you may discover something interesting that you hadn’t thought of before.

Always…

Stay open. Experiment, play, and respond generously in role to the ideas of others.

Finally…

Let go. Try to turn off the part of your brain which might judge yourself negatively. There is no right or wrong when exploring spontaneously. If you can be imaginative and enjoy the process then creativity will be the result. It’s a time to try out new ideas, however strange or outlandish they may seem! Some of the best ideas come from ‘mistakes.’

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