iO Level Four - Week Three

Today in class we focused heavily on openings for our Harolds. Basically an opening is simply a group idea generation for the rest of the piece and can really be anything (from word association, to a scene itself), however the trend currently in Chicago (and honestly it's a bit more entertaining to watch than word association - also it gives you more elements to work with too) are organic group "non-scenic" situations - more on that bizarre phrasing later.

To start off class Bill had us play basically a big game of follow the leader - which is actually a perfect metaphor for how organic openings can work: one person makes a move and the group quickly supports them (the differences are two fold - one there is no set leader, just whoever makes a move should be supported - two supported doesn't always mean copied, though that's a great way to support).

Next Bill let us in on two big myths about opening and gave us a few tips:
Myth #1: We Have to generate information
(Anything you do on stage will provide information that you can use, so don't worry about trying to create some)
Myth #2: We Have to cover a broad range of things/ideas
(Delving deeper into a couple topics will provide far more than skirting over a thousand)

The big pieces of advice were three-fold:
Listen to each other & react to each other
If you think organic openings are "gay" (stupid) the stop doing stupid things in your openings
Don't feel like something has to happen

After this Bill gave us a heads up on a few common types of non-scenic situations that could be used in openings:
Press conference: one player is leading the press conference (he's the sane player) the rest are the reporters (absurd players). All about the Frustration game: group deliberately misunderstands one aspect of the sane player's statement and the group then explores that to death.
Scene/Character Painting: Players lay out details about an environment, character, whatever so the audience can visualize it.
Create Environments/objects with your bodies: Individual players can become objects in an environment - or entire group can become one object
We see Eight (or however many you have): Each individual in the group become a similar character - saying related lines of dialog. Example: We see Eight Pirates, everyone assumes a pirate character - one pirate then says a suggestive line of dialog (I'd like to search your booty) - suddenly it's eight pirates making suggestive comments.

The key with all of these above techniques is that they are there as a training tool - as an actual organic opening can really consist of nearly anything - and by combining elements/ideas of each (say the Scene painting with creating an environment with your body - so as people paint the scene actors step in and become it - or Character painting with we see eight - so after a character is painted one person becomes them and says something, perhaps the rest of the group mirrors that) along with other inspiration an opening is easy to create.

After practicing these Bill ended the class by having us divide into groups and practice doing an opening with three disctinct beats (using one of the above techniques as each beat) and he left us with this final bit of advice: Openings (and entire shows sometimes) are a series of Rooms & Hallways, with the Hallways being transitions.