Improvisation

Improvisation is spontaneous enactment. An extended improvisation is one that is reworked, shaped and refined.

Improvisation will include:

  • Situation: the opening of an improvisation.
  • Offer: one person offers a time/place/situation/conflict and another accepts the offer.
  • Accepting: one person offers a time/place/situation/conflict and another accepts.
  • Extending: developing and further exploring an offer.
  • Advancing: contributing a new idea that shifts the dramatic action of the improvisation.
  • Working with complications:  the discipline in improvisation of the actors finding actions to address conflicts and complications.
  • Finding a resolution: the challenge of finding a way to cue the audience that the improvisation is coming to an end as the conflict has been resolved as far as is possible.

Signalling a conclusion: the dramatic convention of cuing an audience that the performance is over and that they may applaud what they have seen. This includes finding a natural exit, freezing or constructing a final sentence that naturally ties together both the central conflict and narrative using a “simple sentence” structure.