WHO ARE YOU? Building Characters We Care About, New York Improv Theater

At the core of every story is a character. But, sadly, too many improv players waste time talking about stuff. Too many are so worried about the words, they forget to make simple choices a out the characters they play. The result is talking heads with zero emotional skin in the game. We may get a few laughs but WHO CARES a few moments later.

How do we achieve emotionally rich characters with a backstory?

Like everything in Improv, we make one choice at a time?

• Start with a preparation!
• LISTEN AND RESPOND!
• Pivot as needed based on your scene partner choices. Listen for the gifts, choices made for you, purposful or accidental.
• Listen to the gifts you give ourselves. Words like AGAIN, STILL, ALWAYS, etc establish a character pattern. Play the character that ALWAYS does that thing. Play the character that is doing this hurtful thing AGAIN knowing it hurt your scene partner’s character before.
• REACT WITH EMOTIONALLY CHARGED BREATH. A trick we lesrn in presentation and acting is something EVERY improv player should do. Heck they are teaching AI voices to do this. Very creepy hearing AI give a hesitation grunting breath. But for a human character, perfect.
• DO AN ACTION! Acting 101 create business for your character. Use object work to create costumes, props and sets. Building out your physical world will help determine your emotional inner child.

MAKE ONE CHOICE at a time!

Consider what makes you, YOU. This is a classic acting exercise. Answer all the following questions for yourself. Then, when you have a script, answer all these questions for your character. Write a 2 page bio. If doing improv, make ONE choice at a time. One choice leads to another. Combine all the choices by every player and ypu create an original play on the spot with details characters, setting and plot. Often better than a lot of written works out there, organically created in the moment. THAT is the beauty, the art of Improv.

WHO ARE YOU?

• Age
• Weight
• Job
• Relationship
• Who do you love
• Who do you hate
• What are your strengths
• What are your flaws
• What are your hopes and dreams
• What are your fears
• What is your status (on a scale of 0-10 how much power do you have in the space you exist)
• How do you walk
• How do you talk
• How do you breathe

If you have a self tape for a 1 line costar role this helps make you focus and make choices that come alive on camera.

How do we implement these choices: INNER MONOLOGUE / SUBTEXT

The true secret of being fully committed to a scene, scripted or improv, is your inner mental/emotional world. I often stay DON’T THINK, MAKE A CHOICE. But what I really mean, STOP THINKING AS YOU. Let the character drive.

By doubling down on inner monokogue and subtext, we remove OUR ego and insecurity from the equation. We put our character’s world first. It is selfish to hold on to our own fears. It is counterproductive to let our ego drive. Ego and insecurity equally destroy creativity.

Instead THINK in the first person of the character. This is how we become a character and stop “acting”.

Think I NEED, I WANT, I FEAR, I HATE, I LOVE, etc. BREATHE the emotions of the character for real. Don’t pretend to be upset or angry, FEEL IT for real. Let it take over you.

Our consciousness gets in the way. We worry about being funny, or good. We try to impress the audience, teacher, parent or colleagues.

For me, the most joy on stage is why I truly lose myself in a chatacter, no matter how silly or dramatic.

Lastly, when you dive into this rich character life, you create something memorable. When you tell jokes you may or may not get a laugh. When you create theater, rich characters and imaginary worlds, the audience LOVES it despite it being funny or not.

And as my stand up comedy book states, you will FIND THE FUNNY together with your scene partners. But that is for another article. Focus on creating strong WHO choices first.

IN THE CLASSROOM: GAMES TO BUILD CHARACTER

Here are a few games that help teach WHO CHOICES:

SORRY I’M LATE

This is a quick 3 line game to focus on making simple choices

• Player ONE: I AM SO SORRY I AM LATE
• Player TWO:THANK GOODNESS YOU ARE HERE (insert job here)
• Player ONE: YES AND… I MUST NOW (improvise line and start action for that job).

Level up: HAVE Player one make an emotional choice with their first line. How do they feel about being late?

To play this game form two lines. After each mini scene, players go to back of opposite line.

EMOTIONAL CHOICE

Again two lines.

• Player ONE starts scene with simple statement (never a question) I tell them to start with lines that say I WANT SOMETHING… I NEED SOMETHING… LET’S GO SOMETHING
• Player TWO leads with an EMOTIONAL CHOICE at level 10 and monologues until teacher calls SCENE.

Let a couple go by before you offer next teaching lesson. Don’t think about words. Focus on how you feel.

Level Up with a RELATIONSHIP choice. WHO is the person making you feel happy, sad, scared, angry, etc.

Level up with history! Level 10 implies a history. We don’t start at a level 10. There is a pattern. THIS IS THE THIRD TIME THIS WEEK, YOU ALWAYS DO THIS. Dig into more RELATIONSHIP choices establish a character history.

The best scenes start in the middle. We skip exposition and rising action. But we need a couple lines at the top of the scene to establish the BASE REALITY for these characters before fully engaged in the climax of their story.

THREE LINE EXCHANGE

Two lines again…

• Player ONE: Start an action. No talking. Think about who and where you are. SEE the world your living/working. And commit to the action.
• Player TWO has line one.
• Player ONE responds with line two.
• Player TWO hets one last line, line three.

We can use this simple game to work on a number of improv techniques. But I always start with the WHO.

With line one, establish a relationship. Who are you to each other.?

I sometimes I play this game where I say EVERY line has to endow your character with a new trait. OR every line endows your partner’s character. OR every line is focused on building up the character history of player one OR two.

You can do the same with WHERE CHOICES. I don’t worry too much about what choices. New players focus too much on the what. They lack grounding that comes from WHO & WHERE choices so the scenes lack meaning.

WHAT ARE YOU DOING?

This game starts to build physical choices.

• Player ONE: Act out any activity (or get choice from audience/class)
• Player TWO says: WHAT ARE YOU DOING?
• Player ONE says: I AM (insert activity here that is NOT eating you are doing now)
• Player TWO performs new activity.

Level up with never stopping to think. Do your activity. See the world you are playing/working. Stay in that space. As you answer the big question, don’t stop to think. Trust the first thing that pops into your mind.

SET YOUR TEAM UP FOR SUCCESS. Don’t try to be funny. Mean etc.

YOU CAN DO ANYTHING AND EVERTHING IN IMPROV

I am a big guy. Kids love to give me cartwheel or push up. I pick up a cart, point to the wheel. Or I pantomime grabbing a push-up pop from the ice cream cooler at the bodega or 7-11. We can climb mountains. We can fly like birds. Skip the I DON’T KNOW HOW fear reaction and cut to I GOT THIS mantra. YOU will figure it out. And if you don’t WHO CARSS. This is a sage space to “fail”. But for me the only failure is giving up on yourself.

WORLD’S WORST

Not an obvious choice for this list, perhaps. For too many this is a game of bad puns and jokes. BUT if you make it a game about flawed characters, an potentially excellent piece of theater and character work study.

• Get an offer from the audience. A job, an event, an activity.
• Now show us, one at a time THE WORLDS WORST (insert offer here) or THE WORLD’S PERSON TO … or THE WORLD’S WORST THING TO HEAR SAY OR DO AT THE…
• Present a world’s Worst character offer, one at a time (ok to use another actor but challenge you to explore more object work and pantomime. If you see them, so will the audience.)

With this game, as with all others the instinct is to think of a joke. STOP. Start with the world that job or activity exists. World’s Worst Doctor? magine YOUR doctor’s office,

PARK BENCH

This is a pseudo long form game I love to play after an hour of WHO teaching. The game is played one conversation at a time, sitting on a bench.

• Swt two chairs at stage center, facing flat to the audience.
• Player ONE and Player TWO have a 1-2 minute scene.
• THEN TWO & THREE
• THREE & FOUR
• Continue until player ONE comes back for a final scene with the last player.

For EVERY SCENE play a WHO relationship of familiarity. You KNOW the character on stage with you.

Players ONE & TWO have the heavy lift. Everyone else just has to watch and listen. When player three enters the scene make a BOLD choice. WHO are you entering this story. Chances are, Player ONE or TWO created your character for you. They mentioned someone in their story that you can play.

Level Up:

Beyond active listening, while watching the game, see the movie of the story. SEE every choice your teammates make before you enter stage. Imagine the flash backs as they unpack their past. When you enter the next scene you won’t have to think at all. Just play that story, adding your choices to the next chapter.

The entire time you are waiting to enter, make choices about WHO you will play. Someone might beat you to the punch. You might have to shift gears. But constantly imagining that WHO choice will have you ready to Rock when you pop onto stage.

DRAMATIC IRONY

This literary technique is when the audience knows a truth but the character does not. Level up your scenework in this game by making choices about what YOUR chatacter knows. YOU should know EVERYTHING that has been established in the story by former scenes. But your character didn’t necessarily hear those conversations. Using dramatic irony is a great way to get clever with your story telling. The audience will eat it up. This builds suspense. Avoid playing dumb, but inserting ignorance and arrogance into your character can lead to some funny or dramatic layered moments.

EVERY GAME

Now, with EVERY GAME YOU EVER PLAY start with these simple who choices. In short form improv comedy, we deal with a lot of gimmicks. But if you don’t start with great story telling and theater, the games are JUST CAMPY and cheesy. Too many overcome this (usually failing) by leaning into the camp and cheese. But when you fill your mind, body and soul with WHO choices, every moment on stage is fulfilling, regardless of whether the joke lands or fails.

BIG VOICES / BIG CHOICES

You will hear me say this a lot. Too many students AND professional players make small, “cerebral” choices “clever” choices that bore the audience. Make SIMPLE CHOICES and play them BIG. Not necessarily CAMPY or CHEESY, but 100% committed inside and out.

PS ARE YOU A WRITER?

Or do you a writing assignment and hitting writer’s block? Use this method of making SIMPLE CHOICES. You can always complicate matters on the next draft. But TRYING to be funny, clever, great, wtc leads to mediocrity and writer’s block. Keep the creative juices flowing with simple choices.

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