Strategies for Starting a Scene

Today I rehearsed with my Level 6 Magnet Team, so far we are unnamed but we had a subsititue coach, Sebastian Connelli who just simplified a few exercises that helped us out a lot and also kind of revealed a lot of things about improv to me. If you ever get a chance to utilize him as a coach, I'd definitely recommend it. 

He viewed our team and found that we were getting a little writey and also we were saying "no" a lot. 

It's a funny thing that as you get more advanced, you become more and more okay with saying no, to the point that you make scenes harder on yourself.

Here was a simple exercise he gave us, one person will initiate with anything at all and the other person just repeats what they say, to the point that they are just acknowledging the situation, that in itself is the game. With advanced players, we really hooked into this. It's actually much funner than the Yes And game which ends up beng very heady and almost more complicated. For example.

"It's cold today."

Response, "The temperature definitely has gone down since yesterday."

"I don't wanna go out in this weather."

Response,"You are hesitant my friend. There is a definite forecast of non-enjoyment out there,"

"I'm staying."

"You have decided, my friend. That is the way things will be."

It's almost inherently funny.

I test drived this in a 401 UCB class. I just repeated what the other person said. It was surprisingly easy and worked with all kinds of situations.

"Will that be all"

RE: That is the question isn't it? Is that an adequate meal, and if not am I willing to come back to the counter and reorder in the future.

Do you need more time? People are waiting.

RE: The pressure is definitely on.

Pretty awesome eh>? I've got a few more lessons from Sebastian but this was particularly fun. Especially when you have NO clue what the call back was.

So sir, you are converting this dungeon into a sushi bar. 

That's absolutely right. I am converting this dungeon into a sushi bar. That is what I want to do.