Sometimes the picture that I'll choose for the lead in to the class posting is just too obvious. Here, Scott, Marika, Li-At, Ben and Kenna are in a School Picture to Scene character exercise with their assigned group being the Fencing Club. If you'd like to see more pictures from the class (with fewer of Scott nekkid') then check out the album.
A fairly large class this time with 21 players. We had a bit of a bumpy opening but got in some 1-Word Story warm-ups as well as a round of 3-Part Narrative.
The night focused on character development, and I think there was a lot of great work (other than the Jalan character). We started with School Picture to Scene and in addition to the Fencing Club, we saw the Rugby Club, 4-H, Track and Field, and ROTC clubs. It was a good warm up.
The next exercise was great. Last week's "homework" was to focus on a friend or acquaintance and identify aspects that can be used for a character - how they talk, carry themselves, interact with others, the way they sound, their obsessions, etc. This week, I gave each character a chance to introduce themselves and then interact with a couple of others in a scene. For those who didn't know about the homework (or forgot about it), they had to throw something together quickly. The point was to closely base the character on someone real. And wow, there were a lot of great characters. Interesting, compelling, and complete in the sense that they were able to stay completely in character during their interactions with other, very different characters. They were really interesting. Well done.
After those scenes, we got in several rounds of Irish Drinking Song and they were surprisingly toned down - less bawdy than usual. I'm not sure whether that's good or bad - but I generally enjoy different.
We finished with some Montage scenes. We didn't start with a 3-Line Drill, so I wanted to see how everyone did when they went right into open scene work without any "warm-up". And folks did pretty well. The more open scene work we do, the better.
I did give out another homework assignment. This time, I want folks to concentrate on "opening lines". Other than "hey Bill", how do you start interacting with friends and acquaintances when you first see them? How do those opening lines depend on common but unstated knowledge (we rarely narrate things we both already know)?
Since I've had to cancel the next class (Oct. 24) and I'll be out of town for the next couple of weeks (but there will be other instructors for the workshops while I'm gone) we won't get back to this assignment until the end of November (when I'm back).