“First 30 Seconds” & “Approaches to Longform Improvisation” w/ Joe Bill

The First 30 Seconds

In Improvisation scenes, the ending often lies in the beginning. I will show you how to begin your scenes with focus & playfulness and how to begin to bring your inner Engineer & Jazz Musician into Harmony through the way that you listen. We’ll focus on the first 30 seconds of a scene to discover your characters (How they do, What they do, is Who they are) evolving from the recognition of “How am I?”, “How are you?” & “How are WE?” I’ll help increase your awareness of the 2 types of dialogue, (Circumstantial & Interpersonal) to give you the best chance to play an honest grounded scene, rooted in depth and discovery AND how comedy & story can come as a consequence of connection, rather than goals that you’re desperately chasing.

Approaches to Longform Improvisation

In this workshop I will have you work through some of the basic ideas that are explored in American Style Longform. This will be a mix of both some quick demonstration AND working through things according to the interests of the people in the workshop We’ll start by covering ideas around Deconstructing Source Scenes and Monologues. Then we’ll move to alternate sources of openings that I use when I direct including Invocation, Daisy Chain, Scene Painting and Interview/Documentary starts. Finally I’ll show you the Hexagon that can be the shape that all longform and Narrative can fall into and how to recognize patterns that emerge and then consider those patterns in both Narrative Brain and Organic or Harold Brain. Students are welcome to come to the workshop with questions about specific format shapes and I’ll do my best to address those as well. This is a 3 hour redux of a full day workshop so I will let the interests of the people in the room be the driver for the things that we cover. In the 2 hour version of this workshop, students should come prepared to let me know the specific questions they have about long form. We’ll take 15 minutes to discuss those and the rest of the time I will answer your questions through demonstrations in workshop. My goal is to have students leave the workshop with some tools to begin practicing the longform of their choice.