Scene with Emotional Shift

This exercise is the same as the previous one, but each character has a different emotional base. One character might be angry, the other giddy. Practice playing the extremes of emotions, as well as subdued expressions of emotions. Some improvisers will yell at top volume when they are playing anger; others will lock the emotion in and quietly whisper through clenched teeth. Depending on who you are, you may tend toward extreme outward expression or hold it in and

let the emotion out a bit at a time. Both are valid ways to express anger, but practicing the one that is less comfortable for you is truly beneficial.

After you feel confident in this foray challenge yourself by declaring the more gray emotional states, like jealousy, indifference, and angst. For a greater challenge, improvise a scene by yourself where the characters are distinct, but share the exact same emotional state.

Purpose

Anything you can do to stretch your emotional range while impro­vising is valuable. The emotional states you can pull from, and the way that you play those emotional states, will inform many an improv scene as to what it's about and the characters' points of view. Most people stay within their own comfort range when it comes to emotion; opening that up now will bring you great rewards later.

Scenes of Status Shift

Improvise a scene by yourself, as before, but instead of emotion, shift between high and low status. Start with a distinctly high-status character (e.g., a professor) and a distinctly low-status character (e.g., a student).

As you create more scenes, muddy the line between statuses until you create two characters with nearly the same status. Even though you are improvising a scene alone, watch as the two charac­ters vie for the upper hand in the scene.

Purpose

Many, many, many improvised scenes are about status. It's a powerful thing to know how to play. Status and point of view go hand in hand. Either a character is trying to get more status or is fighting to hold on to their status or lying about their status. Status is often what the scene is actually about. Practicing all the permutations of status will help you when you come across it in a scene. Improvisers also tend to make the same choice: either high or low status, each time they improvise. Analytical people tend to improvise in high status, often objectifying what's going on in a scene. (I used to be this guy, so I'm really aware of it.) For example, one character says to another:

"Let's go play in the sandbox." The other character might say:

"OK, Billy, I'll bring a shovel." or objectify the experience by saying:

"You play in the box and I'll watch."

Objectifying is often clever, but it sets you outside the scene, commenting on the experience, as opposed to playing within the experience. The objectifier usually takes on a high status role. Some people find more strength in creating higher status for themselves in scenes; others get a lot of mileage from low status. The ability to play from either status, or everything in between, is the best possible tool to have. Think for yourself which status extreme you tend to play more, then challenge yourself to play the opposite.