September 10 下北沢 Workshop - Good..?

We're seeing more working actors in the workshops recently, and the work is high level and very exciting. A small group today - returning champions and new challengers. We got pretty far with a few simple ideas.

We first worked with:

This is a good place. Yes.

Then:

This is a bad place. Yes.

Because the audience must be able to see how the character feels about the place immediately. And it's hard to know for sure if you're showing that. And then, of course, how the character feels about the place might just change over the course of the scene...

As we went on, the variations started to pile up:

You are a good/bad person. I am a good/bad person. This is a scary/safe place. This is a sad/happy place. This is a familiar/strange place.

We got a lot of work done on all that and found what was clear to each other and what would need some dialogue or action to communicate clearly.

We also had just enough time to work on the challenge of separating what the actor knows from what the character knows with a simple math pattern. Harder than it looks.

After the break we worked on scenes form The Zoo Story and "The One About the Dead Dog" episode of The Truth. In both scenes there were good and bad people - liars and those who didn't know if they should accept the lies.

We wrapped up with good performances and then sat down to network, talk about upcoming shows, and enjoy the food and drink at Good Heavens.

Looking ahead to next month's workshops in both 下北沢 and 永山!