RealPlay Class Guidelines

RealPlay Guidelines

In RealPlay Performance classes, structures are given as portals to fertile realms of expression. This is a laboratory of contemplative, expressive and compositional skills — of exploration, innovation and play.

What's it all about? Intentional play, a new way of relating, and embodied improv style… or what? Yes, and…

The intention is for each of you to acquire movement and theater skills and develop a group connection as we hone this innovative art form. In the beginning of class we are getting into a playful state, more deeply in touch with our physicality and our subconscious creative sources. We then progress towards exercises and skills, then to performance scores, and constructive feedback.

We are developing skills to communicate to an audience as well as having great fun. This work/play is therapeutic — it isn't therapy — yet many of us come for the self-discovery, catharsis, completion and self-mastery we find here.

**Guidelines** create a container that supports safety for fellow players and for the audience.

The Container

Respect your fellow players. We are all taking some risks here, breaking common social confines to allow for more creative states.
A group field is being created. We are all dropping in to contact our muses and meet in this rich zone. Your coming on time really contributes to this in a positive way. Please let me know if you need to be late or leave early.

Creating Great Improvisations

Your emotions are your palette of colors. Create fictional contexts. Look for a balance of containment and risk in your emotional expression within the improvisation. Storytelling is often enhanced by leaving emotional expression out, and communicating through descriptive narrative.
Sometimes we draw on autobiographical material. Choose material you are ready to move and play with. Do not choose something that makes you all blubbery or that you feel extremely unresolved about. (A little unresolved could work well.)
Touch is dramatically potent in improv. Firstly, make sure your fellow player is ok with it.
Give the moment of touch time for each character's reactions. If your character is expressing strong emotions of aggression, or lust, give yourself the parameter of not touching your fellow players.
What we express towards each other within an improvisation is not intended to be personal. Do not use the improv to get feelings out about other players, or make comments about them. Best to address other players with fictitious names within the improvisation. Make it about your character or about the "me-not-me".
The "me not me" is the self you come from when using personal material — it is you, yet you have enough distance to be able to self-witness, play with, and make art out of your stories or truths.
Generally, make statements rather than asking questions. Questions ask the other players to create the improv.
We try not to actively deny a reality another player sets up. In general, avoid saying to your fellow players, "No it's not" or "I didn't see that". However, in this style, you do not need to adopt the reality established by another player for yourself. Your character might be in a different reality than others in the improvisation.
Minimize the use of second person — unless you are in a scene talking directly to another character, or addressing an audience.
Minimize the use of "it" and "and". Leave out filler words such as "sort of", "you know", etc. Better to pause, and tune into your body, or just wait in those moments.
In general, avoid pantomiming objects. This is the mind directing the body to move in a certain way in order to get an idea across, rather than a communicative, integrated mind and body state.
Keep walking/pacing to a minimum. It is usually a movement that supports thinking more than really tapping body intelligence.
Based on the improv principles named here and my intuition in the moment, I often coach during improvisations.
Let the inner judge take a vacation! We are all here to learn, play, explore, and create. After the improv, I sometimes invite feedback from the group. We might speak of what worked for us and perhaps what left us wanting more (even if it's more space or silences, we speak in terms of "more.")
Take care of yourself physically and emotionally. If you find yourself in an uncomfortable situation you might try to handle it within the improvisation or exercise, and it is fine to speak up, sit out or call a time out.
If you are concerned about something in class, you may speak up in class or after. Naming and addressing issues briefly can really help. Please speak in "I statements".
Wear comfortable clothing you can move in. Dress in layers for temperature comfort. And, sorry to have to say this — please attend to personal hygiene.