Links

Deny the Mistake→

Everything you do on that stage is correct. If you forget a character’s name, you’d better keep forgetting it because your character has a bad memory. If you stumble on stage, barring an actual medical emergency, you’d better keep that stumble as part of your character.

Neil Casey 401 Notes Day Three→

  • Group games are all about making small moves following the patterns listening to what everyone’s doing.
  • Terrible group game is character a and 7 character b. bad is joke a person in a line. Not terrible but we can do that. Third bad one everyone talking over each other.
  • A group game is not just a scene it can be but a good group game is when the intellect and ability of ability of 8 improvisers following a simple pattern. A lot more ouija board than video game
  • Everyone’s tempted to take control but you’ll find something much more interesting if you’re just reacting, just like follow the follower: you did something and I’m going to do something like it not the same because I’m me

Gillian Jacobs: Learning How to Act Like Myself→

I started obsessively running through scenarios of what would happen if I were expelled. Would I still pursue acting? In my mind, Juilliard’s approval meant I had talent, and without it I should probably give up. The rational part of my brain knew this was stupid — many now-successful actors were expelled from Juilliard and did just fine. Would I reapply to an academic institution? That was going to be tricky, because none of my credits from Juilliard would transfer, and I’d essentially have to start all over again, as though the last two years had never happened. I felt my only option was to white-knuckle it through the second semester and try to become whatever the hell they wanted me to be.

Lessons from Different Theaters→

I’ve long held the belief that the difference between top performers/shows at any given theater aren’t that different from one another, no matter how much the philosophy differs.

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A lot of times students of improv wanna battle over the “right” way to do it or what improv “should” be and that’s just a drag. So tiring. Who the fuck cares? If there IS a “right” way it “should” be done, then it’s a dead artform, incapable of growing into something new, and I reject that idea. Instead, there are preferences and approaches that differ, and, as a student, the more you can understand those differences, the more you’ll be able to figure out what YOUR preferred voice and style will be.