Feel (Emotions)
Emotions in Scenes
Improvisers should start with strong emotions in scenes to get them activated quickly. On a scale of 1 to 10, we recommend starting at a 6 or 7 so it’s super clear to your scene mate and to the audience. Strong emotions also play better on an improv stage because they tend to project voices more.
As you start a scene or respond to someone who starts the scene, think about ‘how does my character feel right now?’ and lean into that emotion.
Initiating a Scene With Emotion
You can easily start a scene with just an emotion. The following emotion initiation is like training wheels for now, but it makes it very easy to follow for both the person starting and the person supporting the scene.
One person comes out to the center of the stage area. They are going to show a strong emotion, but have no dialogue of any substance yet. Make the emotion big and easy to identify. You can grumble, make noise, cuss, etc., but don’t say WHY you feel this way. Your scene partner gets to gift that to you.
Once you’ve established your emotion, the second person will come out and join. They start the scene immediately saying exactly why you feel the way you do in their first line. Be very specific.
“Oh… you got a D on your report card…”
The first person agrees to that reality and the scene progresses from there.
Sweep Edits
Once a scene is over, it is up to the rest of the troupe to edit it in order to end it and start a brand new scenes. There are a several different ways to edit a scene, but Sweep Edits is the main one.
A Sweep Edit (also called a Wipe) works like this:
Once a scene is over, someone from the back line runs across the front of the stage to signify that it is done and a new scene should begin immediately. By doing this, you are the human equivalent of the line that transitions from one scene to another on a movie screen. In Star Wars, the scene is on Tatooine and the line moves across and now it transitions to the Death Star. You’re the human equivalent of that line.
Sweep Edits will happen when…
- A button line is found – a funny moment that is the perfect end to the scene.
- The scene isn’t getting traction after a minute or so – go ahead and get it out of there.
For Intro, we want you to learn to trust and depend upon your scene mates, so we’re going to ask that you stay in a scene until someone from the troupe’s back line (anyone not currently in the scene) runs across in front.
Meh scenes happen sometimes. Don’t beat yourself up over them. I think every ‘meh’ scene, is a sacrifice to the ‘improv gods’ and later on you’ll get a lightning in a bottle awesome scene in exchange. Stephen Colbert calls this ’embrace the suck’. It’s part of the price of making this stuff up on the spot.
Show Format:
The Sweep Sandwich
The Sweep Sandwich is a simple show format that gives performers practice for sweeping scenes.
Start with four or five people up front.
The person on the far right side of the stage (facing the audience) will be the person assigned with sweeping the scene.
The two or three people in the center are going to have a scene together.
The person on the far left gets to chill for now.
Get a word from the audience and the center improvisers have their scene together. When the person on the far right feels like they have reached a button line or natural ending – or if it doesn’t work – they will run in front to the other side, becoming the new person on the far left. That scene is now over.
Everyone moves down one spot. The person now on the far right side will wipe the next scene. The remaining player or players in the center will stay the same character they were – if they were the mayor of the town, they are going to be the mayor of the town in every scene they are in for this show format.
The new person in the center will be a new character. The person now on the far left gets to chill while the center group plays their scene until it gets wiped and everyone moves down one spot again.
Rinse and repeat. Everyone should have a chance to be in at least a couple of scenes, and also a chance to wipe the scenes. The characters that are created stay the same for the entire run of this show.
When you return to the original center group, they get a bonus scene to wrap the story up and everyone says “THAT’S OUR SHOW!” to end it.
Video: Give Me Back My Son!!!
Zach Woods (The Office, Silicon Valley) teaches Conan and Andy a stupid emotion improv game.
Improv Games
Here are descriptions of some of the improv games that were played this week if you want to share them with friends and family!
First Line Last Line Scenes
A really easy introduction to doing improv scenes for new people in a low stress way. Stand in a circle. One person starts with a normal sentence and the real name of the person they want to do the scene with. That person engages in a short scene, making sure to agree, honor and add.
Let the scene play out for five or six exchanges and then someone will take the last line of that scene, along with the name of another person in the circle, and start a scene. Except for using the words of the last sentence, it’s otherwise unrelated to the previous scene.
Chain several of these together and then call the show by saying “THAT’S OUR SHOW!!!”