Too many times improvisers fail to make a choice when they step on stage. Specifically, they will walk out, look at each other, and then wait for the other person to make a move. There will be a good 5-10 second stare down straight out of the movie, The Good, The Bad, and the Ugly. If no one makes a move, both of those improvisers will stand there blankly while the audience watches what hell on Earth really looks like. Eventually and hopefully, after a short period of time someone will say something or someone else on the side will edit, but it’s essential that someone brings something, really ANYTHING WHATSOEVER, to the table. No choice is a bad choice. I repeat, no choice is a bad choice. The only bad choice is to not make a choice at all. I’ve learned the hard way that not making a choice will leave you WAITING for someone else to make a choice. With no choices, you’ve generated a pretty nice recipe for disaster. Below I’ve provided 3 tips that have worked for me when helping to make a choice at the start of a scene.
Object Work
Reach for something, grab a hold of something, or pick something up. One of the biggest hurdles I had to get over in my own improv (and something I still struggle with at times) was object work. I would rely on my voice, brain, characters, and the ‘talkiness’ of the scene to get by. I was a talking head. Talking heads are when people just stand around and have a conversation in a scene. It can be boring and your audience didn’t just pay to watch you sit and talk. If they wanted that, they’d go peer through a window at a therapist’s office. Give them action. I had an improv teacher once who forced me to grab something at the start of every scene. He said, “I want you to walk out and start touching something within the suggested environment and then begin your scene.” If I started talking without touching or grabbing something, we would have to start the scene over. He would literally say, “STOP. Start over.” I did it over and over and over until it was beaten into me that I needed to start doing some damn object work or I was going to die out there. Over time, I started doing it more often and by the time my arm was fully extended, I knew exactly what I was reaching for. It’s also a choice that can help both you and your scene partner in establishing and progressing the scene. For example, you reaching for something up high could queue your scene partner to say, “Leave Grandma’s ashes alone Terry!” Yep, an award winning scene right there.
Body Posture
Change your body posture at the start of the scene. Specifically, enter the scene with a different physicality or physical character trait than just walking on stage as yourself. If you decide to dip your shoulder down, give yourself a hunchback, or walk with a limp, you’ve just made a choice that helps to inform your character. If you walk in leading with your belly, chin, or groin, you’ve made a choice. It’s also giving both yourself and your partner something to work with. Let’s say you enter a scene with a hunchback, your partner might say, “Quasimodo this paper is due tomorrow, we really need to work on it.” Alternatively, they could also say pretty much anything and completely disregard the fact you have a hunchback, but the fact of the matter is you’ve made a choice for yourself which you can use throughout the scene. It’s all about the little things. That hunchback character could end up being the basis for the show you and your team are about to create.
Names
Name your partner or at least give them a title at the start of the scene. Give them something…anything. If you walk into a scene and just stare at them you’re both going nowhere fast. However, if you walk in and say, “Mrs. President” then we are definitely headed somewhere. I repeat, you can say ANYTHING and after you say it your partner is going to love you. Naming your partners or giving them a recognizable title is ESSENTIAL. Why? Because later in the show if you want to call that character back it’s going to be a whole hell of a lot easier to just say that NAME instead of pointing across the stage and waving at that improviser like a crazy person. Something I once did to help me get over the name barrier was an exercise I created, called the ABC’s of Naming, where I forced myself to name my partners at the start of every scene. What I would do was start with the letter A and know that going into that scene my partner’s name or title was going to start with the letter A. I would then continue through the alphabet with later characters so if I was in another scene that character’s name/title would start with B. So for example, my first scene might result in my character’s first name being Arthur and then let’s say I’m in a scene later with 2 characters who I would name Barron and Count and if another person entered they might be Dracula. You see what I mean? I would go through the alphabet when naming by scene partners. Obviously, once that character has been named, I would keep that name for callbacks, but new scenes with new characters mean new names/titles. Over time I got into the habit of naming my partners and didn’t have to force it by calling them by a name that starts with a specific letter, but doing the exercise was what helped me to get there.
In conclusion, those are 3 tips that worked well for me and could potentially work for you as well. Making a choice, any choice whatsoever, at the start of a scene is essential. No choice = hell. If you’re wondering, but what if 2 people make choices? That’s GREAT! The more the merrier. That changes nothing and in fact adds even more to your scene. If one person walks out with a hunchback and the other is washing dishes, you have both brought things to the table to help establish that scene. Obviously, that scene is about Quasimodo catching Terry washing the vase Grandma’s ashes were in. I told you, an award winning scene right there!
