October 8 下北沢 Workshop - Presents

A nice mix of returning champions - many of whom had never met before - and a new challenger! Many people very busy recently working on projects both in and out of the acting world. As always, keep us up to date and we will cross post to our facebook page.

We worked on a wide variety of presents games in order to work on being present in scenes. The basic game is popular with improvisers. (Here it is on the Improv Encyclopedia.) We worked on variations to adjust for who you are and where you are and what expectations you might have and - well - a lot of different variations. The important thing to focus on is that you don't have to think or to plan, just react to the present your partner gives you so that you can give them a present back. All we're doing is exchanging presents.

After the break we worked a scene by Garry Michael Kluger from his book Fifty Professional Scenes for Student Actors. Similar to the mock scenes we've worked with before, Kluger's scenes can be used to audition for more complete scripts. We also worked a scene from the cult classic Office Space. In both scenes it was very important to give your partner a present - something they can react to - and then to keep the cycle going.