Returning to the Stage this Saturday and Working with New Performers

After a 3 month sabbatical, I am finally returning to the live stage at the National Comedy Theatre in San Diego. I must say I really miss performing and I miss teaching as well.  If you are in San Diego or are willing to drive to San Diego, come see my show. The first person to contact me, alan@mypalal.com gets two free tickets.

 

Enough shilling!  I’m a little nervous because I haven’t performed in a while and we have new performers as well, which usually means we have to change our performing style just a little to cover for inexperience and provide a successful environment for the new performers.

 

I really like performing with new players.  I know a lot of people who don’t.  I have a lot of experience in not only adapting to the challenges presented on stage, but to correct scenes as they progress.  I’ve mentioned before that scenes are successful when a good foundation is being built.  New performers have a lot going on in their head that sometimes laying a good foundation is secondary to fighting nerves and the need to be funny.  I understand that and my job as a veteran is to correct the problems of the scene.  By doing this I’m able to teach new players what is needed to build a scene and also give them stage success.  When a new performer experiences stage success they begin to feel confident in their performances.  All improv performers need a high level of confidence or its over.

 

The only thing I ever tell a new performer before the show is that there is to be no more than two people on-stage at one time. Now, there are always exceptions to this rule, but this should be rare for the new performer.  The reason is if the new performer is not on stage at the beginning of the scene, then that performer is trying desperately to find a way to get on stage.  Often they come in too soon and thereby not allowing the first two players to properly establish a scene.  Also, the performer is not paying attention to what is going on, they are just looking for an in.  This always results in the performing coming on stage as a random character or worse the wrong character.  If I’m setting up a scene where two people are having an affair, often the third character is the unsuspecting spouse.  Instead, they come in as the nosy neighbor or best friend of whomever.  Now the story has to take a different path because we did not choose to go with the most logical character.

 

Anyways, let’s see how we do this Saturday.