The creative process for the Sunday skit is underway and kicking.
The last leg of our missions trip will be in Palos Verdes Baptist Church on Sunday, August 24th. We are scheduled to perform a skit that morning to assist the pastor in his sermon. We were only told that the church's Mexico missions team will be sharing their trip with the congregation and the pastor was still meditating over the message he would speak that morning. No worries, since we have been able to create with much less information in the past.
After a quick dinner over the usual Italian and veggies, our usual suspects + Chao got to work. It always starts with a brainstorm of ideas from everyone. This can be either really fun or frustrating (go read about our Easter skit) to see what would work. Myths of missions seemed to strike a chord in all our heads and we went with it. We started listing out such myths and grouping them into separate issues we can address.
Then came the really fun part of creating the storyline through improvisation. We don't do it very often, but the scenes in this skit were short and interesting enough to warrant it. We paired off, with each acting couple creating two completely different scenes on the spot. Absolutely nothing prepared - only a situation and maybe a setting. You and your acting partner just start bouncing dialogue off each other. It doesn't matter what you guys talk about - the key is to keep moving the scene forward with each others' dialogue. Think of your partner as your prop - the more you invite them to shine, the stronger you get (and vice versa).
If both actors listen and respond well to each other, the result can be ideas you never thought of before, possible story lines, and sometimes, even whole scripts - just from having that freedom to create your own world together. Remember, there is nothing to improvise unless you have someone to improvise with. It's a team effort.
Sure enough, storylines were drawn for two-and-a-half situations, but not without some laughs. Chao came up with the most ridiculous lines in his scene with Latt that left all of us cracking up. Even Marvin caused me to break character when we were acting out our very first scene. The beauty of improv - never knowing what would happen next. =)
If both actors listen and respond well to each other, the result can be ideas you never thought of before, possible story lines, and sometimes, even whole scripts - just from having that freedom to create your own world together. Remember, there is nothing to improvise unless you have someone to improvise with. It's a team effort.
Sure enough, storylines were drawn for two-and-a-half situations, but not without some laughs. Chao came up with the most ridiculous lines in his scene with Latt that left all of us cracking up. Even Marvin caused me to break character when we were acting out our very first scene. The beauty of improv - never knowing what would happen next. =)
After sitting down to write out our script and add more elements to it (dialogue, character depth), it was 9:30 and two draft scripts were on the table. Two more to go for this coming week....
One fun tidbit: our entire cast of nine will be in it! Such a rarity for an AOW sketch, but hey...it's usually two to three actors per scene and the math works among us nine, so why not? More the merrier, as one would say. =)
