You Already Know Enough
Leverage your personal knowledge to make your characters interesting
I started teaching a Level 3 class for Highwire Improv last week. We have only offered this level a handful of times as we build our education program, and this is the first time I am teaching it. However, I did help write the curriculum for this level.
As I sat down to look at the lesson plan for the opening class, I had second thoughts about one of the exercises I included. I suggested a different exercise to my co-teacher before the class, but she liked the original exercise so we decided to keep it in.
This is an exercise I came up with on my own. I think I developed it for the monosene team I used to teach. l used it as a way to give characters depth and bring specificity into our sets.
It is a two-person exercise that starts out very neutral. Early in the exercise, however, one person (predetermine who does this before you start) says something along the lines of "do you know anything about (blank)?" They fill in the blank with something they know a lot about. For instance, I would say "do you know anything about R.E.M.?"
The other player admits they don't know a lot about that topic and then the first player talks in great detail about this topic. The second player can ask questions or express surprise about some new information, but the main goal is to have that one player show off their real world knowledge. The topic can be anything. They don't have to have an encyclopedic knowledge, but they should know a bunch of things.
Like I said, this can help bring depth to a character and give their personality that little bit nudge necessary for monoscene. This can also encourage people to play close to self, which was the goal for the first session of this Level 3 class.
I felt a bit of imposter syndrome as they started to do the exercise, but it really worked. We didn't have time to go through everyone because it is a big class, but the people who did it really showed off their fun pockets of knowledge, and it got the class talking to each other. I didn't expect it to help with cohesion, but I think it did.
I love when you find something extra in an exercise like this. So I'm going to keep it in the curriculum and also look for more ways to do it. Feel free to use the exercise yourself or offer some ideas.