Last week I had the pleasure of tutoring some High School Theatre Sports teams.
I never know quite what I’m going to teach but I always prepare a list of exercises that I think might be useful that I can glance at when I’m stuck.
My stand out performer this week was definitely ‘make an object, say a line‘.
Make an object, Say a line
How it works: Standard open scene, but players can’t speak unless they have created an object through mime (one object earns you one line).
What it does: mime skills, less talking, less worrying about story, less talking about what you are doing*.
Origin: unknown.
*Players will hopefully work out that if they mime a cup and say ‘I just got a cup’ then they have put themselves back to square one (needing to mime a new object).
August 24, 2007 at 6:17 am
I like this idea of developing a type of currency outside the scene. (And I like this even as just a way to distract my editor-brain during a scene.)
I imagine this could be extended so any two skills could be invovled, one earning another. That said, I haven’t come up with anything as elegantly simple as make an object, say a line. (Left to my own devices, I’d probably go crazy and invent some overly complicated system in which folks would end up calling out “any body got any stage crosses? I’ve got 3 mimed cups and a 3rd character entrance for a stage cross…anybody?”)
August 27, 2007 at 2:10 am
I hadn’t really thought of it in terms of currency.
Now I’m thinking about video games where you have to do something to unlock certain abilities or to charge up your power meter.