How can improv help us understand theme, plot and characters? How does improv help us think quickly and creatively? How can improv help us with our public speaking skills?
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performing arts student intern
Prospect Hill Academy performing arts
Blog Archive
Branigan LaCount
performing arts student intern
Branigan
My name is Branigan LaCount and I am the performing arts student intern at the PHA middle school. I am very excited to be back at PHA after graduating from the school in 2005.
I am currently in my senior year at Emerson College in Boston. I am a BA Theatre Education major with a performance emphasis and upon graduation will receive my MA teaching license. I have been involved in theatre for as long as I can remember and have been teaching drama related classes since my sophomore year of high school. I've acted in over 40 different productions, both musicals and straight plays, and have performed in three different countries. Theatre and education are very important to me so I am very excited to be able to combine them in my work as a student teacher at PHA!
Outside of PHA, I am involved in several other areas: Currently, am working toward my goal of founding a children's theatre organization that specializes in working with mentally and/or physically challenged children, by developing a program that meets these goals. My aim is to have the program up and running within the next two years. I am also a drama teacher with the Boston Children's Theatre, working with 4-11 year age group, and I am manager at Coldstone Creamery, where I train new employees, make ice cream, and decorate cakes.
I look forward to a great semester at PHA!
I am currently in my senior year at Emerson College in Boston. I am a BA Theatre Education major with a performance emphasis and upon graduation will receive my MA teaching license. I have been involved in theatre for as long as I can remember and have been teaching drama related classes since my sophomore year of high school. I've acted in over 40 different productions, both musicals and straight plays, and have performed in three different countries. Theatre and education are very important to me so I am very excited to be able to combine them in my work as a student teacher at PHA!
Outside of PHA, I am involved in several other areas: Currently, am working toward my goal of founding a children's theatre organization that specializes in working with mentally and/or physically challenged children, by developing a program that meets these goals. My aim is to have the program up and running within the next two years. I am also a drama teacher with the Boston Children's Theatre, working with 4-11 year age group, and I am manager at Coldstone Creamery, where I train new employees, make ice cream, and decorate cakes.
I look forward to a great semester at PHA!
Unit 5 Living History Museum
Students in 5th grade are exploring movement, vocal expression and costume elements as they create a performance as their biographical character during exhibition night.
UNIT 4 Script to Stage
The 5th grades are reading and revising a simple script that they will perform. They will be learning new vocabulary while using stage directions, theater terms and their acting skills. Students will build on the improv work with fairy tales.
Improv - vocabulary
Accepting - Improvisors need to create a reality that is not really there, without knowing what other reality the other players have in mind. In order to clearly show one united reality, improvisors should be accepting. That is they must listen carefully, play, react, and build every idea they hear or see from each other.
Blocking - not accepting other players` offers - contradicting and destroying what fellow players do or say.
Canceling - destroying what has been established. Try to use all elements that have been introduced by fellow players and realize that contradiction isn't interesting.
Offers – any action or dialog that gives an idea to fellow impoviser and will advance a scene. Usually a good thing. Offers are supposed to be accepted. A strong offer is an offer that clearly gives a direction into which a scene might evolve. An Open Offer is an offer that leaves a lot of possible directions for the scene to evolve in.
Players - students, actors, and people who are engaged in improvising. Schools, groups, actors,theater companies and even companies form "teams" and play together using improv to create scenes, theater pieces and play games.
Wimping – wimping is accepting offers but not doing anything with them. Typical wimp is asking an open Question and leaving the action to be decided by the other player. Another common wimping is babbling without making any offer.
Blocking - not accepting other players` offers - contradicting and destroying what fellow players do or say.
Canceling - destroying what has been established. Try to use all elements that have been introduced by fellow players and realize that contradiction isn't interesting.
Offers – any action or dialog that gives an idea to fellow impoviser and will advance a scene. Usually a good thing. Offers are supposed to be accepted. A strong offer is an offer that clearly gives a direction into which a scene might evolve. An Open Offer is an offer that leaves a lot of possible directions for the scene to evolve in.
Players - students, actors, and people who are engaged in improvising. Schools, groups, actors,theater companies and even companies form "teams" and play together using improv to create scenes, theater pieces and play games.
Wimping – wimping is accepting offers but not doing anything with them. Typical wimp is asking an open Question and leaving the action to be decided by the other player. Another common wimping is babbling without making any offer.
Unit 2 - Improv
Improvisational theater or "improv" is a form of theater in which the actors use simple games and prompts to create a perfromance on the spot. Improvisers use audience suggestions or sometimes well known stories or movies or TV shows to inspire them as they create dialogue, setting, and plot on the spot. These days "improv" techniques are taught in standard acting classes but also are used in corporate settings, college and any place where creative thinking is valued. The basic skills of listening, being clear in thought and speech and confidently intuitive are part of improv study.
Intuition and creativity can be developed. The best way to improve one's improv skills is to practice. Improv is a skill for all walks and ages of life! In the US impov is best known for its comic possibilities. But there is a serious side to improv as well. People who are interested in social change have used improv and theater to help people think and act in ways to change the world. Agosto Boal is perhaps the most famous and his work is carried on here or www.theatreoftheoppressed.org.? Theatre of the Oppressed is a form of public theatre developed by Brazilian director, Augusto Boal, in the early 1970s. People use it to educate and organize.
We will study improv to exercise our positive thinking and to improve our public speaking and acting skills. We will use games and scenes - comedy and drama and we will create it all. Improv is fun, deep and a skill for life!
Intuition and creativity can be developed. The best way to improve one's improv skills is to practice. Improv is a skill for all walks and ages of life! In the US impov is best known for its comic possibilities. But there is a serious side to improv as well. People who are interested in social change have used improv and theater to help people think and act in ways to change the world. Agosto Boal is perhaps the most famous and his work is carried on here or www.theatreoftheoppressed.org.? Theatre of the Oppressed is a form of public theatre developed by Brazilian director, Augusto Boal, in the early 1970s. People use it to educate and organize.
We will study improv to exercise our positive thinking and to improve our public speaking and acting skills. We will use games and scenes - comedy and drama and we will create it all. Improv is fun, deep and a skill for life!
Children's theater
PHA grad, Branigan LaCount teaches acting to children at Boston Children's Theater
http://www.bostonchildrenstheatre.org/instruction_auditions.php
http://www.bostonchildrenstheatre.org/instruction_auditions.php
Listen
“We have two ears and one mouth so that we can listen twice as much as we speak.” - Epictetus (Greek philosopher associated with the Stoics, AD 55-c.135)
Contact us ?
Leave a comment (click on word COMMENTS at bottom of any post) or email Ms. Dooley at: ndooley@prospecthillacademy.org
Unit 1 Storytelling/ Folktales and Fairy Tales
We are studying folktales and fairy tales and learning to use all the expressive tools of a performing artist; voice, movement, facial expression, sounds and music. Check back here often for audio and visual samples of student's work.
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