Improvisation

Acting and voice training with Jason Bennett

Forget the lines for a moment. Find the encounter. Work through sound, movement and your own words, then return to the text with something alive between you and the other actor.

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What is Improvisation?

You work through an encounter as it develops. You may use your own words, movement, sound or an agreed situation to investigate what happens between you and your partner. You have something to pursue and someone to respond to. Your choices can change as the encounter changes.

Improvisation can be used to develop your imagination, increase access to your emotional life, to approach working on a script and performance, or to make comedy.

Jason Bennett, from the original The Principles That Guide Our Actor Training.

You can use improvisation for comedy, for character work and for rehearsal with a script. A scene may need more than a discussion of what the relationship means. You can try the relationship, the wants and the circumstances through an exchange, and see what becomes available when you do it.

What happens in the room?

You prepare your voice and body and work on connecting with the other actors. Jason Bennett's rehearsal handout includes ensemble theatre games and telling one another the story of the play in your own words. These are ways to begin working together before you repeat the scene's written dialogue.

You may improvise the scene through movement and sound, or speak it in your own words. You can go back and forth between your words and the lines of the play. You can also investigate meaningful events in the relationship that take place before or beyond the scene, using the circumstances of the story to guide the work.

Improvise the scene with sound and movement, forget the lines.

Jason Bennett, from Rehearsal Process and Techniques.

You then return to the scene or monologue, keeping what is useful from the experiment. You might notice a different action, a more particular need or a change in how you receive your partner. Test those discoveries against the writing. An exercise becomes part of your craft when you can use what it gives you in the material.

Play can take you deeply into a character while letting you enjoy the discovery. You can pause or decline an exploration. You do not have to disclose private experiences to prove your seriousness. This is actor training, not psychotherapy or medical treatment.

Who is this work for?

You may be building an acting process or bringing years of training to a scene that has become fixed. You can work on a role, a monologue, a song or the way you rehearse with other actors. Your starting point is the work you want to do and what you need to investigate.

You might understand a character intellectually and want to experience more of the relationship. You might keep repeating one delivery of a line and want to test other actions. Improvisation gives you a way to try those possibilities, receive a response and bring the discoveries back to the scene.

Begin with a conversation

Study Improvisation with Jason Bennett. Begin with a brief phone conversation.

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Read further

Improvisation in the Encyclopedia of Acting gives you the definition and its place among other acting tools.

Scene Study Isn't Enough takes you further into the relationship between imagination, acting tools and the demands of a scene.