Here are my key takeaway themes from last week for both Performing and Directing/Teaching.

• React/Reaction:
  • have an emotional reaction to every offer in the scene. How the other person “reacts” to what is said brings more meaning to the scene than what is said. Reaction gives meaning to the scene. If you are stuck in a scene and the story is not moving, play the “It’s Tuesday” game, pick a strong reaction and be altered or affected.
  • Be average and do the obvious thing. Look at what happens next in the circle of expectations and do the most obvious thing. Audience always reacts to obvious ideas.
• Affected or Change: 
  • Everything is an offer. Do not let any offer pass. React with emotion.
  • Be altered by everything, your scene partner, environment, objects, sounds, become sensitive to everything. 
  • You can have an emotional reaction or change to anything to a person, animal, environment or things.

• Focus on the Relationship:
  • When two persons are engaged in an activity doing something, do not talk about the activity, talk about your relationship. 
  • Keep the dialogue in the present and about the people in the scene. 
• Be Playful:
  • When you jump in and take risks, something of the beyond (spirit) takes care of you.
  • Do not think, act first, have a physical or emotional reaction first, you can justify later. The physicality and the emotion will drive the words. 
  • Don’t narrate what you are doing or going to.do, just do it! 
  • Play the game, but do not forget the scene. Take more risks, be playful but also remember to play the game so you give the audience what they want. 
  • Understand the rules of the game, but break the rules. Have a mild sense of defiance to what the teacher is asking you to do. If the rule does not work for you, feel free to break it. IF you play to win, you actually lose! The fun and play is in the risks you take and not in playing safe. 

Director/Teacher:

• When directing a scene, you can endow an objective to the players that they will fight for in the scene that the audience would like the players to solve. 
• In a new space, always think about how to design/re-design the space to fit your class objectives. Also factor in the number of students in the class to decide on how you want to use the space. 
• Before directing, pay attention to the person narrating their story, to the performers, and the audience to get clues on picking the right moments or scenes for directing
• Focus on what parts of the story you think the audience might be interested to see or know more of, by paying attention. Pick scenes for the questions that are out there hanging for the audience. The audience is ahead of us and waiting for the answers. 
• Setup scenes that are in the future than that has already happened in the past or facts that has already been established. Pick moments that the audience would like to see in the future. 
• ALways pay attention to the narrator of the story you are trying to direct. Pay close attention to their physicality, movements, gestures, which can act as feedback for you to make adjustments to your scene. 
• As a director, fight for your objective to tell the story, and also give clear objectives to your actors. Clarifying your actors objectives and your main character will help clarify the scene. 

The audience is ahead of us and waiting for the answers. 

React: 

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Cheers,
Kashyap