#171 Improv actor training

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This week, we’re going to hear from the Pretend team about their thoughts on the new 16 week actor training programme that Pretend is launching in September.

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Chris

There’s a lot I was excited about when it finally came to creating our own improv actor training programme. I’m going to make a list in the hope it’ll order my thoughts, as currently they’re whizzing around my skull like someone tossed a match into a cranial fireworks factory.

Focusing up You have to make some decisions. You can’t teach everything. So we made some choices. Firstly, Connection: joy, readiness, listening THEN Stage craft: voice, movement, presence. I love this clarity. It means I can pick my exercises with absolute confidence. I know what we’re trying to do.
Not for everyone … This course is for people who want to get better at improv. They’ll fall into two categories - experienced improvisers who want to get better at theatre and experienced actors that want to access the joy and freedom of improv. I think these two groups will be great for each other. We’ve created an application process and kept the numbers really low (in the 8-10 people range) - we want a room full of people who are committed to improving (in both senses of the word). I love people who come to class to build confidence or blow off steam after a stressful day at work - but this programme isn’t for them, it is specifically for people looking to get to the next level and who are willing to focus and commit fully to it.
… but for anyone It was important to all three of us that the programme be open to as wide and diverse a range of people as possible. Particularly if you’re from the global majority, we wanted to put in place a way to access the training whatever your financial situation. So two places will be made available for free in each cohort - you won’t have to fill in any extra forms or attend an interview, it’s just a few clicks in the application form and you’re good.
Feedback Not a few sentences at the end of the course but a proper feedback loop with the opportunity to perform mid-way through and then time to learn and grow from your director’s notes. This is the thing that I hear most often, people want tailored feedback and the chance to work with their director on getting better. We’re going to provide HEAPS of that.
Delight Often when people start to do dramatic or theatrical improv - they think the fun has to be over and everything gets very serious and pretentious. We aren’t going to be like that at all. Real craft and focus in the service of the silliness, most beautiful life-affirming scenes imaginable is what we’re going for. Be prepared to laugh, share stories, hang out and make friends.
A commissioning We want people to leave our courses and make their own shows. We want to create competent professionals - able to make choices of their own (and not necessarily the ones we made in building our theatre). We hope to give people a breadth of knowledge in terms of the things they can do with lights, sounds, props, costume and staging. We hope people will go on to make things that surprise us.
In theatres And finally we want to put improv on theatre stages, alongside scripted work. We want to champion improv as a valid methodology for theatre making and that means hopping out of improv-only spaces and really showing the wider community what improv can do.

Those are the things that I most excited about. Obviously, as a company, we’re still cooking but every day brings more clarity and more excitement over what we can achieve. We really believe we’ve got something special here, something that our UK (and dare we say global) community can benefit from. Something that lays comfortably beside existing offerings without taking up too much space and that actually elevates the opportunities available. We have our fingers crossed others feel the same way. We’ll find out very soon.

Ali

Can you imagine, as an Improvathon director and improv coach, the joy in my heart when Chris and Liam asked me to join them on this extraordinary adventure? If you know how widely I smile most of the time, double it. I also feel like the gif of the muscly man wiggling his shoulders with excitement.

Okay, so, we’re going to get an ensemble of likeminded individuals together in a rehearsal room for a committed three months and make new improv shows celebrating their strengths and sharing our learning from our improv journeys so far? Erm… yes I am IN.

So who will be there? Geniuses, artists, poets (whether they know they are yet or not), aspiring people, inspired people, kind people.

And we (Chris, Liam & I) share our exercises, hearts and brains with each other to curate an experience for our ensembles that is really fresh and exciting.

And then we get in the room and play.

Magic.