Your Improv Brain Emotion in improv: when to start big and when to stay grounded
Emotion connects you to your scene partner, your character, and the audience. It gives a scene depth and grabs attention fast. And if you use it at the top of a scene, it can set the whole thing up in seconds.
In this episode I talk about using emotion as part of your base reality. Most scenes start grounded, and that's usually what we're taught. But sometimes breaking that rule and starting at a full level 10 emotional reaction to something completely mundane creates something you remember for years. I also get into alexithymia, which affects about 10% of the population, and what it means for improvisers who have difficulty processing or labelling emotions. There are workarounds for all of this, and I've never once had an improv teacher bring it up in class.
Two exercises in this one. The partner version, It's Tuesday, practises pairing a mundane statement with an extreme emotional reaction (and then flipping it). The solo version has you assigning emotions to sections of your room and launching into monologues at full intensity as you move between them.
This is part of a series on the top of the scene, initiations, and base reality.
Resources and downloads: https://improvupdate.com
Article for this episode: This episode is part of a four episode series available on YouTube and audio podcast. You can find an article for this episode, and links to the full series on both platforms, here.
Episodes about alexithymia and a big text-based overview here:
https://improvupdate.com/emotional-processing-acting-and-improv-part-one-and-two/
YouTube version of this episode: https://youtu.be/rwgBDmUqHEo
Newsletter: https://improvupdate.com/newsletter
Chapters
00:00 Why emotion matters in scenes
01:29 Initiations and base reality series
01:35 Delayed emotional processing and alexithymia
03:24 Workarounds you can use yourself
03:54 Starting grounded vs. starting at a 10
04:53 The chair scene I still remember
05:22 Why big emotional starts are worth practising
05:52 Partner exercise: It's Tuesday
07:20 Flipping the exercise
07:48 Solo exercise: Emotion quadrants
08:50 Training without a scene partner
09:20 A note on alexithymia and having each other's backs
10:48 Wrap up
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About
This podcast was created, written, and is hosted by Jen deHaan. You can find her bio here.
This episode was and edited and produced by StereoForest.com.
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