![]() There were loads of other groups around when they started out but Do Not Adjust Your Stage have just kept it going and constantly learnt from each other and shows.Ĭonstant on the job experience is amazing. ![]() I asked them what their secret of their improv success was and he said they’ve just been going non-stop for a long time. They’ve become an incredibly popular group, they are one of our regular monthly house teams with a large loyal audience and have also been picked up by various international festivals and also been performing sold out shows at The National History Museum. I was talking to Nick Oram from Do Not Adjust Your Stage recently about this. ![]() This takes the pressure of show number three, and show number 23, and means each show is part of an ongoing learning experience. Rather than telling yourself you are going to perform one improv show and see how it goes, tell yourself you are going to perform 1000 improv shows no matter what. I got this from one of Keith Johnstone’s books. So there you go, my most painful and humiliating improv experience also turned out to be my biggest learning experience. That list of exercises became our syllabus for our next two months of rehearsals, which later became our syllabus for when we started running our own improv workshops. Then next to each of those I wrote an exercise that would help us learn how to do that. Luckily I didn’t throw the list away because over the following weekend I wrote the opposite thing against each entry on the list, what the positive version of the show would have been. I grabbed a piece of paper and wrote a list of everything that was awful about the show. The third one however was so awful that half the audience left in the interval! After the show I was so upset I went and hid under a table in the green room rather than have to be in the pub downstairs facing friends who had come to see. ![]() The first two improv shows I ever did went really well. It’s very disrespectful to the rest of the cast and means the team can’t warm up together and form a group mind. Turn up on timeĭon’t turn up late for a rehearsal or show holding a coffee you bought on the way there. Wish you’d done a bunch of other stuff in the show? Don’t worry just choose one of those things and consciously focus on just that one thing in the next show. Did you do it? If so, well done! Congratulate yourself. One conscious thing helps remove fear and distracts our ego so our subconscious can take over and do the fun creative stuff!Īnd after the show just measure yourself on that one thing. But just bring one conscious thing per show though, too many and it’s confusing. This might be things like ‘yes and’, ‘treat it like it’s real’, ‘react and add’, ‘play with character’, ‘build a physical envionment’, ‘be emotional’. When you start performing it’s good to start giving yourself your own thing to play with per show, don’t wait for someone else to tell you, take the responsibility for yourself. ![]() In an improv workshop you have a coach giving you exercises to do and things to focus on. Give yourself one thing to play with per show 12 Extra things that can help you be a successful improv performer in the long-term 1. ![]()
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |
AuthorWrite something about yourself. No need to be fancy, just an overview. ArchivesCategories |