Improv & Props

Not only will this workshop offer anyone interested in improvising, acting and story telling an  opportunity to improve their: 

• listening skills
• spontaneity and observation
• ability to connect with their scene partner 
• create truthful scenes, and 
• engage with their audience. 

But you will also learn how to use props to enhance your improvisation and bring authenticity and truth to your character's performance.  Realistic improvisation needs real props, not mime!

So bring a prop that needs active manipulation for example: knitting, shoe cleaning, drawing - wool, needles, polish, cloth, pencils, paper ...

Mark Phoenix has been developing his own style of dramatic improvisation, based on the Meisner Technique, for over 20 years, making the impossible look easy!

Here is how Mark describes his approach:

"Most improvisation rules were historically developed for fast and funny scenes, rather than emotionally connected sustained dramas.  Mark's approach to dramatic improvisation is from an actor's perspective, rather than a comedian's.  He discovered his taste was for truthful egoless acting, reliant on a good connection between the actors: so, some rules for improvising needed adjusting and others thrown out completely.  

On discovering the Meisner technique, he found a perfect match for acting and improvisation to cohere, where the information was in the other actor rather than the self.  The Meisner repetition exercise, focuses on the emotional state of the other in each current moment of time.  The more truthful the interaction, the more interesting the audience finds it.  The actor values the sensibilities of the intelligent audience and uses that to create stories.  

Meisner said,"Acting is living truthfully in imaginary circumstances".  Mark has added, "Use the truthful living to create the imaginary circumstances."