Giuseppe: DSI's premier High School Team

Commit To A Character (Part 4)

Believing is Being

Several times this past week, our characters were half-hearted or mockingly over-the-top.  Neither one of those is believing you’re the character, and neither one is nearly as fun for an audience to watch as a sturdy and 100% commited character.

Characters aren’t just things to play ironically — “Yes, I’m a dorky young girl in this scene, but I want you, the audience to know that I’m not really like this in real life”– they’re who we are for four minutes, tops, and then we’re someone else.

It’s the place where improv overlaps with acting: make me believe you’re a Russian cosmonaut, and I will grin and cheer, but remind me constantly that you didn’t want to be a cosmonaut to begin with, and my excitement will quickly cool.

When the coach says, “Players, are you ready?” and the answer is “YEAH!” the audience instantly is engaged: “These people are excited to be playing this game! They love my suggestion! I can’t wait to see what they do with it!”

So take advantage of that; get excited about doing the scene and actually mean it when you say, “YEAH!”

We often say, never be the least commited person on stage. That’s because our mutual excitement makes us all rockstars.  When only one person gets stoked to be doing a scene, the other person looks like a jerk.  When neither person gets excited…well, I just don’t want to watch two disaffected players try to force themselves to rev up to having fun AFTER the scene starts.

So here’s what :

1) From the second you get up on stage, you are in Rockstar-Improviser-mode. There are people in the audience who want to see you having fun onstage, so DO NOT DISAPPOINT THEM. Get excited about the fact that you’re in a scene, that you’re doing a show, that you’re one of the best high school improvisers in the Triangle.  This is your chance to shine; don’t waste it being ‘too-cool-for-school.’

2) Every suggestion is the most awesome suggestion you’ve ever gotten. Not “Oooh! Look how much I lovey-dovey-WUUUV that suggestion!” but truly ACTUALLY believe that it’s an awesome suggestion. YOU make the scene awesome.  It’s not up to the audience to give you a suggestion you’ll like; it’s up to YOU to like the SUGGESTION.

3) Once you’ve committed to the character of Rockstar Improviser, commit to your in-scene characters. If you’re a mechanic in a scene, BE that mechanic.  Don’t be “a mechanic who just happens to talk and act exactly like a sardonic high-school student does.” I want you to love the details of some grungy, grimy car-fixer from the Bronx who lives with his mudda and wants people to give him nicer cars to fix so he can drive them when he takes women on blind dates. You’re YOU all day long; when you’re in a scene,  you GET to be someone else.