Flexibility built in
To improvise is to be given basic information and to invent a character and make up dialogue/conversation, as if it were 'for real'. Our actors are so versatile that they can do this on the spot.
This adds a highly flexible element to training and is particularly useful when ideas that need tackling come out of forum discussion or individuals have particular issues they’d like tackled using role-play.
Give our actors a character, a scenario and an idea of the issues that you'd like to come up within the scenario and it can all be handled in the same way as any pre-set scenario would be in forum theatre.
Let's explain what this is like.
James works for a bank. He's at the theatre one night and is watching a play about a character who has a similar job to his. The characters have played out a scenario familiar to James. The director has stopped the action and introduced the audience to the idea of forum theatre, whereby they have become involved in discussing the scene with the characters. Having evolved strategies to tackle the issues inherent within the scene, the director asks if there are any other issues that the audience would like improvised and played out in the same way. James suggests another situation that he has come across at work, that he'd like to see tackled. The director asks him to describe briefly what it is about and provide a brief description of the characters that are to be involved. The actors set the scene and begin to improvise - bringing the scene to life. Again with support from the group, James thinks, ‘I can see how to tackle this sort of situation , when it comes up at work again'.