Annoyance Level One - Week Four

Class started off as it always does in order to get us in the groove of things with a series of open warm-up scenes.

After a number of these scenes, once we were all loosened up a bit, Dan, our teacher, went ahead and told us to start initiating vocally in some way the moment we stepped off the back line. So we could instantly start saying something – or simply make a sound, but it had to happen the moment our feet moved us off the back line.
It lead to a few instances of people almost talking over each other at the top of the scene however - even the most seemingly contrary comments worked themselves out because both players remained committed to their choices.
For example: "Good day for fishing isn't it." paired with "Give me all your money." Leads to a fun scene where a fly fisherman is mugged out in a forest as he stands in a river.

After a little bit Dan had us pause and let us know he was going to start calling people out two at a time to start these scenes and as soon as you heard your name you were to step out and initiate instantly. This served two great purposes - first it helped get the few people in the class who weren't as comfortable (or just as quick as some of the others to just jump out and initiate - and it kept all of us from really being able to pre-plan opening lines or whatever for when we stepped out.
This actually lead (for most of us at least) to a lot more of verbal initiations that weren't dialog (such as sighs, screams, laughs, etc).
These initiations had by far the easiest times adapting to one another - and were (from what I experienced and saw at least) were the most fun to play with, as they gave an instant point of view/attitude to play with in the scene (and of course from that an instant character).

After we had a run through a number of those Dan had us pause again and told us what we'd be working on for the rest of the class: Environment work (dunh dunh daaaaaaaaah - I ad the suspenseful music - note it sounds very suspenseful in my head at least - sense for a lot of improvisers environment and object work is a bane - I know I too often ignore it in my own work).
Dan broke it down in a way I had never had explained to me in class before (at least in terms of environment).

There are basically three types of environment to work with:
Primary: the room, immediate space you are in and the objects contained within.
Secondary: Building containing the room you are in (in the case of a scene outdoors the space beyond the confines of the stage - so the rest of the field/forest/ocean/etc.) and the objects contained therein.
Natural: Temperature, Time, Weather, etc.

Now I've had teachers talk a lot about the Primary and Secondary environments in classes and workshops - though the secondary one comes up far less often (and usually in relation to the note: "If you're going to mention going to the {so and so place} I want to see you go there - you don't have to stay in the room you are in..." or when talking about entering and exiting).
However, very rarely has anyone really talked about initiating the natural environment (oh I know almost every improviser at one point has done a scene where you're both cold - be it out in the snow or trapped in a freezer - but how often has the weather really played a role in one of your scenes - I know for me not that often). It really opens up a whole new layer of fun - and things to play with besides merely the objects you might find in your primary space.

We jumped right into scenes now where we could only talk when we interacted/added to the environment somehow (I've played a similar exercise before where you can only speak when you create a new object - however now our environment includes the weather and reacting to it - woohoo). The first few scenes for a few people were a little rough until everyone realized that they didn't just have to worry about creating new objects or stepping around chairs.
It was really eye opening in a lot of ways - asking someone to turn on the light completely adds a new dimension to a scene (especially if it's half way through it), taking off a coat when you enter through a door can say so much too (even more if you shake the water off it, or dust off some snow first).

Next Dan had us work more on our object work (dunh dunh daaaaaah) we were told that off to either side of the stage (well honestly room, but eh) were magical boxes filled with any and every item we could ever possibly need and that during the scene anything we needed we could get from there instantly.
Again at the start there it took a little bit for people to get used to the idea but soon we were having really object rich scenes (sometimes maybe a little too object rich) and we got to see how useful it is to have various objects in your environment as you can quickly go to them and use them to breathe more life into your scene work.

For the the final exercise of the class Dan had a third of us stay on the back line, while everyone else sat down. He had the people up one at a time enter a room and create an environment (he gave us a location and set one thing in it - and then one by one each person went in and created at least one new object and interacted with two things already there - the first person had to create two objects).
After the group had finished going through and basically fleshing out the environment they were in - they had a series of two person scenes in that environment.
Then after everyone had a at least one scene - that third sat down and another group got up and did the same thing - then once they were done the final group went.
Dan then had the whole class hop on the back line and we were told that for the last few minutes of class we were to do open scenes where we could be any characters we wanted but all of the scenes had to take place in one of the three created environments.

A few things we took away from class:
Initiate ASAP - it'll jump start your scene
Words Aren't the Only Way to Initiate - sounds, body language, physicality, object work, etc work just as well (and sometimes better)
There are Basically 3 Types of Environment to Play With
Anything/Everything You Need you Can Create Instantly on Stage - the art is learning when something is actually needed
You're Playing in an Entire World, Not Just a Space That Fits on the Stage