Michelle Casten Magbanua

October 24, 2018

Lesson 4: Listening, Platform

Today before class I met up with Sharon to talk about some concerns of mine, which

were about time management with teaching the students about improv basics and moving

on to do scene work. I also voiced my concern about classroom management with students

who are off-task. After chatting with her, I decided to change little parts of my lesson plan to

incorporate some of her tips. For example, she had suggested ingraining the basics of

improv - especially the WHO, WHAT, and WHERE of a scene. So, instead of what I had

planned (which was more character work and physicalization) I wrote in some activities to

focus on the 3 elements Sharon had suggested and included some time at the end of the

class for open scene work.

Similar to last class, there were maybe 7 or 8 students by the time 5:30 pm rolled

around. I decided to start the class anyway with a warm-up: Zip Zap Zop! This warm-up is

supposed to incorporate listening and focus skills and must be done with high energy to get

the students energized. While explaining the rules students would slowly trickle in, and it

made it very difficult to get the warm-up going because the tardy students kept missing the

beginning of the instructions. Eventually, students stopped coming in and everyone was able

to be on the same page. I started the activity and noticed that they did not have a lot of

energy, and some students were quiet with saying zip zap or zop. After I realized they

weren’t enjoying it (although I have had nothing but success whenever I introduce Zip Zap

Zop to younger students) I wrapped the warm-up early, but I wasn’t ready to move into

improv just yet because of how little energy the students had. On the spot, we did a warm-up

called “Shakedown” where you count upwards from 1-8, shaking your hand, then repeating

the count with your other hand, then your foot, etc. After shaking your two hands and feet,

you now repeat the whole process, but you now count up to 7, and then 6, until you reach 1

count for each body part. I got the students very energized from this exercise and thought it

was finally ready to start improvising. I got everyone into a circle and I had them play

“Martha’s Game,” which is a variation of the “I am a …” activity that I did last class. However,
 1

I changed the rules to get students to justify their offers: only three students were allowed to

be in the middle of the circle at all times and the offers must somehow relate to one another.

This time, all of the students were engaged in the activity. I had to remind them to share the

space with one another - a lot of them were eager and fast, which meant that they oftentimes

beat the more hesitant students. While observing the offers that students put out, I noticed

which ones were actually listening to each other. For example, student A would give the offer

“I am a tree,” to which student B jumps in and says “I am an apple on the tree.” Student C, if

they were listening may have given an offer such as “I am a person picking the apple,” but

sometimes I noticed students would give offers they wanted instead of giving offers that

advanced the activity. Referring back to the example, if student C wasn’t necessarily

listening they would maybe give out an offer such as “I am a flower,” which relates to the tree

but not to the apple. I started to call out the students who would give offers without listening,

asking how they can justify it into the activity. If they were able to justify it, then I would allow

the activity to continue. If not, I would make them choose another offer. This really allowed

the students to develop their justification skills.

The second half of the class I spent doing open scenes with the students. There

were several excited students when I told them that we were doing open scenes, which

(pleasantly) surprised me since I only have 2 or 3 students with previous improv experience.

In my improv class at the university, I usually have my improvisers volunteer themselves to

act in open scenes - this is what I call “fight for your right onstage.” However, I know that

there are a couple of students who would run up each time, and I also wanted to choose

people who did not necessarily talk to each other in class to perform onstage and see their

chemistry. So I asked for volunteers and chose from those who rose their hands. I had

asked the audience to talk to their elbow partners and talk about some audience etiquette

and what I may be looking for in a “good” audience member. I then turned to the first two

volunteers to talk about how this is the first time we are doing any real open scenes, so it’s

okay if it’s rusty. Before starting the scene, I had my audience share what they came up with:

- “Listening and being attentive”

- “Not talking to our neighbours”

- “Laughing at the right time”

- “Being supportive and clapping at the end”

I made sure to clarify that being attentive means to be looking out for who they are (or their

relationship), what they’re doing, and where they are. This is part of what I call platform, but I

kept it simple and did not introduce the concept, and just kept repeating “who, what, where.”

To get my students into the mindset of being audience members/ improvisers, I had asked

before each scene had started: “Audience ready? Improvisors ready?” This is something I

picked up from when I taught grades 5-9 drama for one of my education practica. I found

that when my teacher mentor did this in performance settings, the students were much more

attentive and focused in the scene.

Each open scene I got the audience to give a suggestion of either a relationship, a

location, or a task that the improvisers onstage had to take. I made sure that these

suggestions were themed, incorporating elements of different fairytales. For example, one of

the location suggestions was “in a candy house in the woods,” referring to Hansel and

Gretel. It was up to the improvisers to show somehow (physicalization, talking about it) the

other 2 that weren’t offered to them. What I noticed in some of the scenes was that some

students were not projecting their voice loud enough for everyone to hear, and it didn’t help

that the stage was very large and the improvisers would often migrate towards upstage,

away from the audience. I also noticed that students would have their back turned away from

the audience. I made notes in my lesson plan about what I need to focus on for next class. In

addition to voice projection, I included giving and accepting quality offers that help advance

the scene. I also took notes on who had good chemistry together, and which students had

stronger skills in progressing a scene naturally, instead of trying to lead the scene the way

they want it to go. I also had the audience give notes to the improvisers, giving them

prompting questions such as “at what point in the scene did you find out who, what, or where

they are?”, “what was unclear to you?” and, “what is one thing that you liked and you think

added to the scene?” I found that students were very attentive, putting their hands up to give
 3

their input and compliment their fellow peers. Eventually, all of the students were putting

their hands up to volunteer and we ran over time of the class so that everyone got a turn

onstage.

Overall this lesson went well, with the occasional hiccup of redirecting some

students’ attention. I am happy with the high volume of interest in just performing open

scenes. I was a little nervous with my students being shy to go onstage, but I think that all I

really have to do is direct their energy to the scene instead of talking with their neighbours.

One of my goals for the next class is to establish warm-ups and activities that voice and

speech. I also am going to focus more on facilitating storytelling by incorporating improv

activities that focus on that skill.