This was our last rehearsal before the non-teaching break.

The bulk of the rehearsal was various exercises based on team work and characterisation. I had prepared a list of exercises from ones that I was familiar with myself plus some new ones that I discovered on drama websites. The best site was Improv Encyclopedia which lists hundreds of exercises sorted by category. It's a great resource, and I will be keen to use it again.

The first exercise was Fuzzy Ducky.
The group has to count one at a time progressively around the circle, however and number that is a multiple of three of contains a three becomes 'fuzzy', and number that is a multiple of or contains 7 becomes 'ducky' and any number that is a multiple or contains both becomes 'fuzzy ducky'. It requires concentration as a group, and encourages actors to work together to achieve a goal. We repeated this exercise a 3 or 4 times, until we managed to count up to almost 50.

One Duck is a similar exercise using words and patterns around a circle. Instead of counting, players each offer one word of the prescribed pattern: One duck, two legs, quack. Two ducks, four legs, quack quack, and so forth. The players thus have to work together to keep the sentence going seamlessly around the circle. It requires concentration to keep track of the mathematical calculations (how many legs in total the group of ducks have) at the same time as focusing on the proceeding word. It helped the girls to work together, and achieve a goal as a team.

Alien, Tiger, Cow was the next exercise. A variation of 'paper, scissor, rock', the options are instead alien, tiger and cow, and each must be said with an appropriate action. Unlike PSR the object of ATC is to present the same creature as the other player. Lee and Shannon were fairly in sinc with each other (without cheating) and I felt this achieved the proposed goal of unity and synchronisation.

Yes Lets is an exercise based on accepting offers in improvisation. Although improvisation should not be needed in our scene to create dialogue, this again was aimed at improving team work and working on following ideas from another person. It operates by a player verbally offering an action ("Lets ...") then physically commencing the action. The other player must join in the action for awhile, then create their own offer, which the first player must accept. Shannon and Lee used actions such as shopping, jumping and sleeping. I think this exercise worked best on the day to make them more comfortable with performing different actions in our group setting.

Columbian Hypnosis was the final team work exercise used. The second player must maintain a constant distance from the hand of the first player at all times. The first player is therefore in control of the movement of the second, and can lead them and push them without touching them. Shannon and Lee demonstrated how well they work together through the success of this exercise. They both applied full concentration and tried to make the task challenging, but not impossible, for the other actor. They each had a turn at leading and following. The activity showed me the link that the two girls share and their willingness to both lead and follow the other's direction. It com firmed that they will work well together throughout this entire task. They indicated that they enjoyed the exercise, and that it was one of their favourites for the afternoon.

Nuclear Bomb Chicken was used as an introduction to characterisation. The actors are told that they are to act as chickens in a coop which is to be struck with a nuclear bomb in 30 seconds. The aim of the exercise is to increase awareness of the difference between what an actor knows and what a character knows; the chickens cannot have any idea that tragedy is about to strike because chickens have no concept of nuclear bombs. The actors know, but the characters do not. According to the Improv Encyclopedia the first time this exercise was used all actors bar one became frenzied chickens preparing for disaster. Both Lee and Shannon behaved as normal chickens for the 30 seconds, so they were impressed when I told them they were more clever than the initial actors. I told them to remember that the characters do not always know everything that the actors know - they do not know how the play will end. Therefore when they are performing this scene, they must not give any hint of proceeding actions.

I used Pauze to get the girls to consider dialogue, and the meaning of each sentence that they say in the scene. The two players must participate in improvised dialogue with each other, however they must pause for 3 seconds before verbalising their response. Shannon had the most difficulty out of the two with this exercise simply because she would forget and try to respond immediately. The first round through the girls improvised a fairly calm, normal conversation, so I asked them for a heated argument the second time to add variety. I gave the scenario that Lee was Shannon's younger sibling and had stolen Shannon's clothes from her room when she was out. This was harder then a calm conversation, as they wanted to respond quicker in a tense situation. They both said that it did make them think about what they were saying before they said it, and this made their statements more direct. All responses held more meaning, which is what I wanted.

Fast Food Stanislavski is designed to help create characters by giving actors a
subtext in addition to a location/scenario to improvise a scene. I gave Shannon the subtext of trying to seduce Lee whilst waiting for a bus. This was chosen as it parallels the action in our Twelfth Night Scene. Lee was then a pessimist in a doctor's office. I noticed that Shannon tends to dominate in a scene, predominately because Lee becomes a quiet character. This happened in a few scenes in different exercises, so I will need to watch that it doesn't happen in the actual scene. I think Lee will embrace the stronger character when she is given it, however it has alerted me that she might be easily dominanted on stage.

The final exercise was Coming Home. Both girls were to pick an anonymous person that they know and improvise them returning home at the end of the day. They both picked boys that they knew, which was evident in the rough manner of movement and behaviour. The exercise was repeated using the Twelfth Night characters. Shannon highlighted Olivia's lady-like behaviour and Lee highlighted Viola's tomboy tendencies.

Finally, we read through the script and discussed any words that were unclear, to ensure a complete understanding of the dialogue. More dialogue work will be carried out after the holidays.


I was pleased with the characterisation that the girls developed through the exercises in this rehearsal, despite their eagerness to move straight into the actual script and the blocking. Some of the exercises the girls found boring, however I think that the rehearsal as a whole achieved my aims. Perhaps I should next time intersperse exercises with blocking and script work, so that they feel we are making progress with the actual script. I understand this impatience as I feel it too, however I am forcing myself to examine other elements first as this was modelled in the study of professional directing methods in tutorials and lectures.