Improv for the Win

I wanted to work on Act I today, but I did not just do a run through. I ran rehearsal a little differently. I would have them start running it, then I would stop them as a problem occurred, fix it, and then take it back a few lines and try again. We were able to get through Act I without too many problems to fix, so we had time to go through a few basic overarching notes, and run it for a second time. Within a few minutes of starting the second run of Act I, everything started going wrong. Instead of trying to take notes on all of the things they had messed up in the first few pages, I decided to let them have fun with it. I stopped taking notes and just let them do whatever they wanted basically. They still stuck to the script for the most part and went with the story line. They just decided to react to everything they saw in real time and in character, even adding a few different things. One of the funny moments that occurred, was when Emily looks at one of the alcohol bottles while the other girls are talking. Francesca saw this and decided to tackle her out of the chair yelling, “Frances what are you doing? You’re a Christian!” I feel that doing a rehearsal like this actually helped them become more in tune with their characters. The improve that they were able to do helped them make split second decisions based on what they would do in their character’s situation. It goes back to something that I taught them. When I took a script analysis class at Stella Adler, I had one of her own students, Maureen, as a teacher. One of the things that she taught us was that “we don’t play a character, we play a character.” She told us to take our character, and kill them. Then we take everything that makes them human: likes/dislikes, relationships, back story, objectives, personality traits, etc. and we make decisions based on the information we now have. Doing this improve activity, they were able to do just that. They made decisions that they wanted, but still stayed in line with what the people whose lives they took over. I actually did something similar when I was Gwendolyn Pigeon in The Odd Couple. However the rehearsal that we went crazy on happened to be our final dress rehearsal the night before we opened. I feel that having fun and making your own decisions and making stuff up as you go helps you rediscover the humor and the connections with the other characters. Too often when working with a script, especially a comedy, you get too comfortable and the fun just drops out of it. You hear a joke a hundred times, it’s no longer funny. I feel like this rehearsal helped boost the morale of the cast and helped them make new discoveries and aided them in realizing that they are still in a good place with their progress. They rediscovered their characters and objectives, they just went about it in a different way. Improv is a good tool for any actor to have. There will always be times when it is needed in theatre. Something always tends to go wrong, and they need the skills it takes to be able to recover and move on with the plot. If important, information giving lines are dropped, they need to be able to realize that and introduce the information in a relaxed way that the audience will never be able to tell the difference. I am hoping this experience helped in strengthening those skills.