Musings
an Online Journal of Sorts

By Alyce Wilson

I've had a busy week getting ready for my mom, my sister, and her husband to visit, so I've missed a couple days of Musings.

In improv class this week, we worked on entrances and exits. We started off, after a warm-up, with an exercise designed to practice finding the right time to enter and exit a scene.

The activity was called 2-3-2. You start out with two people on stage, and then a third person comes on. One of the three then leaves, so that there's two again. It doesn't have to be one of the original two.

Our setting was the information booth at a mall, and it started with Colleen greeting Liza and telling her that she'd come highly recommended as the best personal shopper. That went on for a short while, and I decided they needed someone to shop for.

So I went on stage holding a small dog and said I needed to find a sweater for my dog to wear to a pageant. So Liza went offstage to look for something, and I tried to show the dog, tucked under my arm, to Colleen. But unfortunately, Sparky bit her.

This led to chaos, as Colleen loudly accused me of having my dog bite her. Then Megan came on as a police officer, trying to take care of the disturbance. She took out a pad to get our story. I insisted it was just a misunderstanding.

Colleen left to get medical attention. Liza returned with the dog sweater, and I handed her the dog and took off. Carol came on-stage then as Megan's mom, and said that she'd been waiting in the car for Megan. Megan left to file a report.

Liza started a conversation with Carol and agreed to get her a makeover. So they walked to a makeup counter and Lori was the makeup person. Then Geoff came on as Carol's husband and was upset that he'd been waiting for her in the car.

So we all got a chance to both enter and exit. We tried it again. This time, the setting was a train station.

I was a conductor, calling for people to get on the train. Lori came up as a passenger and asked if I'd hold the train for her, because she had to use the bathroom. I was considering it, but Colleen came over and announced the bathrooms were all closed. Lori decided to get on the train anyway.

Colleen and I started talking, as coworkers. She asked if I was all right after last night, and it came out that we'd been taking drugs. This time around, our instructor, Mary, was doing more direction, so she paused us and told us to consider what we'd set up: using illegal drugs: "What's the worst thing that could happen? Get caught. So let's see it."

Next, Carol sauntered out as another coworker, who was looking for drugs. I told her we didn't have any and then passed a doobie to Colleen. Right then, Megan ran out on the stage and told us to halt. We all bolted.

She was on-stage by herself, and we thought one of us had to get back on, but Mary told us to trust her. She started crying really, really loud into her hands. That's when Liza came on and consoled her, telling her, "It's OK. It's a training session. They're supposed to run away."

"But I almost had them that time!" As Liza was soothing her down, it turned out that this wasn't the first time she'd failed during the training. Megan kept crying until she was down on the floor wailing. It was really inspirational, because when I saw her doing that, it made me want to pull out all the stops for the rest of the class.

Liza took Megan to the crisis center, where Geoff was working. He reassured her and told her she could be good for the crisis center. Liza left her there under Geoff's care. Megan said that she only scared people off, and he said sometimes you just wanted people to go away.

I decided they needed a crisis. I ran onto the stage, screaming, "My hair's on fire! My hair's on fire!"

Megan looked at me for a second and then pushed me away: "Get out of here." I left with a very confused, upset look.

Geoff told her that was good. Megan asked what they should do next, and he said, "Well, we just wait for a crisis."

So Lori stumbles onto the stage walking funny and says, "I have to use the bathroom!" End scene. Mary complimented her for a terrific entrance, linking it back to the beginning. I was really proud of how this particular exercise went.

Then we did scenes with just three people. Two were on-stage and the third came on when they felt it was necessary. In one of them, Carol was a schoolteacher and Colleen was a troublemaker, who was late to class and smoking openly. The interesting thing was that Carol said, "I know why you're here today. It's because Sigmund is here." Immediately, Colleen starting choking on her cigarette.

Geoff was the third person, and I thought he'd come on as Sigmund, but there never was a good opportunity.

Then was my turn. I was working at a car wash, and Lori drove up and said, "So good to see you... at a car wash." Mary asked us to think about why that would be surprising. As she was giving me her order, I told her she'd been the best baby-sitter I ever had.

Carol came on as my supervisor and was very unhappy with my work. That put me in a position where I was just out of ideas. I tried to appease her, but she wasn't happy with any of it.

Finally, it came out that I needed the job to prove to my rich dad that I could make my own money. Then I had a thought: "Hey, does he know you're treating me this way?" She was still very critical, not backing down. I felt sort of painted into a box, both as a character and a performer.

Then Liza came on-stage and said that she needed a urine sample from me to see if they could get me out of the halfway house. She said she didn't have to watch, so I went in a room, closed the door and filled it from the sink. End scene.

I did another scene with Megan in a produce section. Mary told us that the first thing out of our mouth should be what we wanted or how we felt about the other person. She came up and said, "I need pears. Get them for me or I'll hurt you." I said, "I need to give you pears."

Mary paused us and told me that we'd just established that I was afraid of Megan and she was going to hurt me if I didn't get her pears. "So what do we want to see? You making the most mistakes possible."

I started trying to fill her cart with apples instead. She kept insisting she wanted pears. Then she demanded, "Did you wash your hands?"

"Yes," I said, and starting licking my palms. She shouted me across the stage to a place where I should wash my hands. Mary said, "There's got to be something in the grocery store you can attack her with." Mary started crashing a grocery cart into me.

Finally, as I was loading her cart with apples and she was screaming she wanted pears, I begged for mercy: "We're out of pears!" I think that was one of the best scenes I've been involved in.

Next was an interesting game called Replay. We'd do a scene and then replay it two different ways: first with an emotion and then with a movie or book style.

I was on-stage with Carol, and the suggestion was an orange grove. So I picked an orange and threw it to her and said, "Catch." She caught it and threw one back: "Catch." We threw it back and forth and then she said we had to get to work.

Megan came on and said, "Catch" and threw one to Carol. I was in the middle, and Megan said, "Monkey in the middle!" I jumped up to try to catch an orange she threw to Carol.

Then Carol insisted we should get back to work, and I threw an orange into her face: "Catch!" Megan threw one hard at me, and I fell to the ground. Then she said, "Don't retaliate", and I got up and threw one in her face. End scene.

We redid it with the emotion loathing. This was basically the same, except that we really disliked one another. The best part was the third time around, when we redid it as a romance novel. So Carol and I were being very giggling as we threw the oranges around. Megan came on riding a horse, her chest puffed out like a romantic hero: "Catch!"

When she said "Monkey in the middle", I swiveled my hips at her, batted my eyes and undid a button on my blouse. We were very flirtatious with the orange throwing, and when she hit me and I fell to the ground, I acted overcome with ecstasy. Finally, I threw myself at her and said, "Catch!"

Geoff and Lori were in a deli. He was a butcher and she was a little old lady who kept demanding he slice her meat thinner until she was happy. Then he offered to get her some cheese. Colleen burst on and said she'd have to write him a demerit for putting cheese on the meat machine. End scene.

Then they redid it excited, which was silly. Finally, they did it as a Kung Fu movie, which was funny because they kept doing kicks. When Colleen came out, she put the smack-down on Geoff. That was pretty hilarious.

Megan, Liza and Carol did one where the suggestion was a coral. Megan was bathing a horse and Liza came on and said they were glad she'd joined the Mustang Ranch. "But it's not all about horses here, you know. We have other customers, too."

Carol swaggered on and said she was looking for a filly. Liza said, "Let's get you in the saddle" to Megan. Megan pulled her aside and told her, "I'm afraid of horses." End scene.

They redid that as an emotion and then as a horror movie. When Carol entered, she came on as a ghost and frightened them.

After that, we did a different replay game where you do a minute and a half scene. Then you do the same scene in 45 seconds, then in 20 seconds, then in 10 and finally in 5. I started out with Lori at a salad bar. I sneezed openly, wiped my nose on my sleeve and continued filling my plate. She complained and I kept doing it.

Carol came on as the manager, and I shook her hand and then sneezed in Lori's hair. End scene. We had a lot of trouble doing it faster, but we tried our best. I about threw my neck out with all the fast sneezing!

Colleen, Geoff and Liza did a really fun scene. Geoff was in a dunk tank and Colleen was throwing balls at him, saying how it was the best first date ever. He got knocked in, and she helped him out. Just then, Liza came on and said, "What are you doing here with my sister? At the dunk tank, in front of the whole town, in your bathing suit?"

Colleen came over and instituted a group hug. But then Geoff said he had to tell Liza something. He put his arm around Colleen and said that she was pregnant. (Some first date!)

They had a rough time doing it in 45 seconds, but then Mary told them they'd have to drop words. They actually did a good job of doing it much, much faster. In the fastest version, Liza came on and just said, "Sister, dunk tank, bathing suit!"

Geoff grabbed Colleen and said, "Bad news. Pregnant!"

We usually run through so much in class that I have difficulty remembering it all later. Sometimes they pop later. For instance, I remember a game we did the previous week. It's called 185, and it's a joke telling game. Basically, you get a suggestion for a topic, and people jump in when they have a joke on that topic.

The basic joke is, "185 whatevers walk into a bar. The bartender says, 'I'm sorry, we don't serve whatevers.' And the whatevers say, 'Punchline.'"

Colleen knew the game and said she didn't like it, but she was very quick with responses, as was Geoff. We all came up with some good ones. One of my favorites was when the topic was underwear, and the punchline was, "But I'll be brief."

At the close of class, we went down a list of the games we'd done in class and rated our favorites. Mary will use that to put together our performance run-down for our open class. The week after our final class, we'll be doing a performance open to our friends and family. Should be fun!

More Musings from improv class:

Improv Class Musings Index

Copyright 2006 by Alyce Wilson

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