February 2020 下北沢 Workshop - Getting to How

No blog post for our January workshop. It was a very small workshop where we focused on monologues.

For February we were glad to have a new challenger and returning champs to show him the ropes. We used a long blank scene as base material to go through our three levels:

What is happening? This is the most basic stuff. Without it, we have to wonder why the scene exists at all.
Why is it happening? This is the more interesting stuff to investigate. It brings people back to watch again.
How is it happening? This is where you get to shine as an actor. This is where you win awards and gain fans. This is how you pass an audition - well, this and a lot of luck.

We went on to explicitly work that through a simple improvisation repeated with different details that drastically changed the way a task is performed.

After the break we went through a very tricky three-person scene from Murder at the Howard Johnson's. Over four pages all three characters switch from low to high status and back again. And again. And again. The key is to understand that the words are just there to support the changes among the characters.

Looking forward to March when we should have yet another new challenger. Hope to see you there!