Workshop Day 7

Late night last night. We're closing in on the end of this session and people are beginning to really open up. Actors and performers in general are a really wonderful group of people to be around. They are just waiting for the chance to love you. As performing artists we spend all our time in a vulnerable state. We are up on stage for the world to see and judge. Actors know this about other actors so they take care to care for you. That is why you see actors always touching each other. We need to send the message that "you're okay" so that we feel safe to show our most vulnerable sides.

The world can be a cold place. Fear is spread like butter on warm bread. You think you need it to make things taste "right" but really it just adds more fat and clogs up your arteries. We need witness to our lives. That is why actors connect so easily to each other and people in general for that matter. If you're not an actor or performing artist this can come across as desperate measures for attention. But, it is all about connection. All people, artist or not, need to connect with other people. Why is social media so pervasive? Because we need other people to experience who we are. That way we know we are real, that our life counts for something. That we have something to say and that it matters. Everyone needs to matter to someone. No man is an island, right? If you're unable to do it in the physical manner you can turn to e-mail, facebook, twitter and skype for the more adventurous cyber communicator.

We spend our days learning technique from Keith and hanging on his every word. We trust him. He's a master at teaching. He has the great ability to make you feel that you have discovered something on your own, when in fact he was guiding you there the whole time. Most teachers want to tell you how much they know. Teachers mess kids up by telling them yellow and blue make green. If you give a kid yellow and blue paint you can bet the kid will discover green on her own. There is a vast difference between telling someone the answers, or what they should/need to know and allowing the discovery to come organically. The process of learning multiplies when it includes time for discovery. The more you discover the more you want to learn. The more you are told what to do the more you become deaf to learning. It's no fun to be given the answers.

We listen to Keith, we respect Keith, we would follow Keith all over the world. What he has to say affects more than what transpires on the stage. It's a model for life. And now, Keith:

You can control the audience and hold their attention.

The American system of improv really comes from Second City. Their work is traditionally less improv and more review.

I don't care if you improvise or not. I just want the audience to have a good time. I really don't want rubbish on stage.

If you start off exciting you have nowhere to go.

The chorus elevates the passion of the main character. People are embarrassed to use the chorus because they don't know what to do with them.

The more stress, the more negative.

Nervous people take negative choices. Courageous people make positive choices.

You don't count individuals laughing, you want beast roars. Don't get distracted by drunk teenagers laughing. It sends you the wrong message.

When you have stage fright you tend to make synchronized movements, like both hands raising at the same time or holding poses. Your left brain and right brain aren't allowed to work separately when you're nervous.

Go places and just listen to the sounds that are naturally made and then go to the theatre and you won't hear any sounds at all, unless the actors are connected to their bodies.

Every day you should do "What Comes Next?" Even if you're alone.

Creative difficulty stems from not wanting to enter the future.

All stories are about people in trouble. Our brains do everything to keep us out of trouble. You need courage to enter the future where trouble lies.

If you act out of character it upsets everybody. People don't like seeing you in a new light.

You can know or you can think. Know. If you know then you don't have to think about it.

A blind offer is a gift to another person

Stop caring so much. (about being right)

There's always an idea if you look for it. But, don't look for it.

In improv sleeping people don't wake up instantly.

The Master/Servant game is rare on stage because people think it's archaic. America is full of Masters and Servants. All over the White House. Husbands and wives, etc.

We think actors are full of emotion because emotion is full of memory. It's memory and we are all full of that.

The birth of Theatre Sports started with trying to make the hat game more fun.

Shakespeare's theory of acting is someone being pulled in two ways.

I hope some of this stuff might be useful. You don't have to swallow the whole kitchen.

I'm trying to screw up verbalization.

If you can screw up, damage, or hinder verbalization in some way the words get more physical.

Lost children survive being lost in the woods. When the path ends they turn around and go back in the direction they came. Adults are crazy. They panic and run and die of hypothermia.

Before age 8 you are perfect (0 if some adult hasn't interfered with your growth.

I never told my son anything about his physical life (sit up, shoulders back, etc.) and he's an athlete.

Teachers tell kids to take out the and's when they tell or write a story and it totally messes them up.

Teachers tell kids that yellow and blue make green. If you give a kid yellow and blue paint very soon they will discover green on their own. Kids are robbed of the joy of discovery.

I've never taken any money from Theatre Sports. Never.

I want to make Theatre Sport a public domain. I would love for there to be 10 Theatre Sports groups in every city and let the best rise to the top. Keeping your product close to your chest guarantees mediocrity.

It is bizarre that cruelty is not one of the 7 deadly sins.

Re: Theatre Sports: The audience wants to make it a real sport, but the players don't want it to be a game. They don't want to lose.

There's nothing wrong with sex before the game. The problem is staying up until 6 in the morning to get it.

We always have popcorn in our theatres, because when you walk in and smell popcorn it can't be culture.

You never use technique unless you're in trouble.

Don't use tricks if you don't need them.

Keith spent a lot of the early years in Improv trying to marry reality with the stage. He wanted to get away from acting and move towards life. When actors get on stage suddenly their voices gets bigger, their gestures obtuse and their emotions magnified. If you witness a fight in real life it's ugly and messy and dangerous. If you saw a fight on stage everyone is yelling in full voice, all movements are choreographed (for safety of course) and the only thing that is magnified is the fact that you are seeing actors and not real people. Keith and his group spent countless hours at bus stops, in restaurants and other public gathering spots to observe how life really happens. After years of watching and then experimenting he came up with Status Games. Get a group of people in a room and you will see people vying for status. Raising their status to be above everyone else (alpha male), raising other's status to be included and liked (submission), matching other's status to be equals and therefore safe.

We do this all the time. It's survival. If we do it in real life, why then shouldn't we do it on stage? It goes back to basic acting principles: what does my character want? how does my character go about getting it? Status, that's what, that's how.

We ended the evening by watching an episode of Taxi Cab Confessions. I was enthralled with the stories. A little embarrassed and sometimes saddened. Young women and men so desperate for love they take extreme measures to connect with other people. People so unable to connect with other people they use drugs and alcohol to numb their existence. One woman, a cancer survivor, living her dream and grateful for the opportunity. If I were to watch this again, I could concentrate on the behviors and clues that each person gave off telling the listener who they really are and what they really need.

In the age of reality TV we think we are seeing people as they really are, but when you know the cameras are there you no longer get a natural and honest portrait of human behavior. Reality TV is heavily edited, scripted and soaked in alcohol. Nothing natural about that. I'm not condoning the random and secret recording of people (the people in Taxi Cab Confessions signed off on their experience) but I am encouraging actors to study real people and honest human behavior. I have always said that acting is the study of people in relation to each other. The word is your classroom. Go out, sit on a park bench and see what people do. Nobody looks like an actor when they're living real life, why should an actor look unreal when they're on the stage?