Advanced Scenework, Class #5, Scott Jennings

Ok, one more and then I’m all caught up.

This was the last Advanced Scenework class, and I was sad to see it end. The commitment of the people in this class has been phenomenal and so valuable to us all getting the most out of it.

Scott made me start the warmup, which for some reason made me feel self conscious. Isn’t that strange? So we played zip zap zop. Spell Check says zop is not a word. Hah! I fixed it.

Scott told us he wanted us to do scenework that would stay with us for a lifetime. Or something like that. I have to stop waiting a week to write up my notes. We rocked some awesome scenes and had a lot of fun. I can’t say enough about how concentrating on the relationship has made me feel more confident in my play.

I believe I attempted to seduce Dave in at least two scenes. Ahhh, tradition.

We sat down and had what has apparently become the obligatory talk about why we do improv, though it was my first time doing it in a class. I knew when it came to be my turn I would have the sappiest reason and be the most emotional about it. How very girly.

The guys were nice though, and didn’t roll their eyes or anything. After all, Dave and Eric were in my earliest classes and witnessed a couple of very real emotional breakdowns. It was Eric who snapped me out of the screaming rage trance (Rage?).

I’m sure poor Austin has no idea what a mess I was when I began, which is funny, because he actually bore the brunt of the one really therapeutic scene I had, where I yelled at him for being shallow and manipulative. I think I hurt his feelings.

Scott opened the floor to questions, and Eric asked how, if we wanted to ground a scene in relationship, we should play with a scene partner who was just using exposition. Scott was inspired to try this as an exercise.

He had us do two person scenes where one of us would keep starting with the same who, what, where initiations until we were able to successfully yes, and with the relationship instead of more who, what, where. It was challenging, but really fun and a good learning experience.

It was during this exercise that Tom gave Scott a twenty minute warning. “You only have twenty minutes left to make her cry.”

He never did.