Advanced Journal Prompts

Please submit through Canvas.

Looking forward to your responses in canvas. We'll chat about your responses on Monday, Sept 29.

These can be video, audio, drawing, lists, ANY WAY you'd like to respond. Find a way to keep your entries together and archived. Past students have kept a handwritten journal and uploaded photos.

Journal #6: September 22, 2025

This week we're doing it: we're going to do our first of TWO Harolds. To sum up, we covered

Opening Games: Take the audience suggestion and expand it to 5 - 7 GAME starters
Beats: There's 3:
1. find GAME;
2. time dash/analogous & build world;
3. make connections
Group Games: revisit the 5 - 7 GAME starters in a group sketch that either starts
1. non-verbal or verbal
2. add-on or all at once

Which do you find the most challenging? Can you find GAME? Is there a different way you'd describe GAME?

Journal #5: September 15, 2025

Sam Rockwell likens acting discipline to Jedi training: what we learn offstage (Luke training against droids) and in-the-moment onstage (a Jedi/Sith battle) teaches us about life, conflict, hierarchy, ego and more: our techniques and training give us tools to live in and experience our world. We practice observation and listening for our work onstage, as an example, and maybe that makes us really good listeners in real life...?

Choose someone in the group whom you can watch perform improv during class. Keep it a secret. When improvising, what content do they use? How do they perform? What are they're motivations when they talk? When they perform?

Looking forward to your responses in canvas. We'll chat about your responses on September 22.

These can be video, audio, drawing, lists, ANY WAY you'd like to respond. Find a way to keep your entries together and archived. Past students have kept a handwritten journal and uploaded photos.

Journal #4: September 8, 2025

Del said "Nothing is ignored, nothing is forgotten, nothing is a mistake". Yep: you have to observe everything, foot note / post it note everything, all in the moment. As young improvisors, this may be a step beyond your current challenges: once you can leave your own mind ("the funniest idea," "everyone's looking at me," "I'm not getting up enough") you can start practicing observation and retention.

Be honest: Are you "stuck" in your head? Are you observing yourself more than your ensemble?

Looking forward to your responses in canvas. We'll chat about your responses on Monday, Sept 15.

These can be video, audio, drawing, lists, ANY WAY you'd like to respond. Find a way to keep your entries together and archived. Past students have kept a handwritten journal and uploaded photos.

Looking forward to your responses in canvas. We'll chat about your responses on Monday, Sept 8.

These can be video, audio, drawing, lists, ANY WAY you'd like to respond. Find a way to keep your entries together and archived. Past students have kept a handwritten journal and uploaded photos.

Journal #3: September 2, 2025

Del Close called it the "Group Mind," Mike Myers called it "the trance," Tina Landau called it "in the zone", Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi called it "the flow": when you're Ready with technique and practice and get really good at controlling your attention- becoming one with your ensemble and your space- there's this Hive Mind state where you're networked together communicating not by vocal language, nor body language, nor facial expression only but all of them combined. You're in scene, you've been set up for a PERFECT ending, you take your swing and another ensemble member edits you at the PERFECT moment. <so good>

Observe Group Mind: locate it, feel it, watch it, write about it.

Journal #2: August 25, 2025

Nice job on your 90% independent revue. :) If you want to write about your experience, YES. That is paramount. Especially if you're planning to become an actor. If/when it felt good, you were doing it- in the flow, in the moment- pay attention to when it didn't fee good: the answer will always be technique. Your technique. You are beginning to establish your rules for performance. And the journey begins.

If you don't have a thought about improv technique - "Improv's improv, whatever happened that's it" - then here's a prompt:

List and describe your top FIVE improv characters. Like yours. You created them, you've worked on them.

Looking forward to your responses in canvas. We'll chat about your responses on Tuesday, Sept 2.

These can be video, audio, drawing, lists, ANY WAY you'd like to respond. Find a way to keep your entries together and archived.

Journal #1: August 18, 2025

I find acting is in part Artistry as well as Technique. Both parts are challenging, and at times conflict: Artistry's challenges include vulnerability, message, communication, specificity, observation, unique-humanness; Technique's challenges include mastering time-worn, hard-learned lessons, discipline and form.

Technique is what school is for: either you learn from those who came before you, or you prepare to learn the same tradition on your own through trial and error.

What are your challenges with your Artistry?
What are your challenges with your Technique?

Looking forward to your responses in canvas. We'll chat about your responses on Monday, Aug 25.

These can be video, audio, drawing, lists, ANY WAY you'd like to respond. Find a way to keep your entries together and archived.

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