Rehearsals #7 and #8: Drama is scarey

We had a pick-up rehearsal on Monday night in which we did nothing but play. No singing. No playwrights. Just lots of free form short improvised scenes. We also went over stage combat. Everyone had a good time.

Then last night we did two first halves of shows again. For both we used Arthur Miller as the suggestion. I ended up the protagonist in the fist and I definitely learned a few things about improvising drama.

Years ago I used to direct a show for Un-Scripted called Fear wherein we improvised horror. Drama is a lot like horror with two differences:

1. In drama, the protagonist isn’t in danger of having their face eaten off by blood sucking zombies, but they might be in danger of dying.
2. The “bad thing,” be it death or what have actually does happen to the main character. The buxom teen-age heroine doesn’t summon the strength and determination to kill the blood sucking zombie. In tragic drama, they get eaten.

Knowing this, I can now use techniques from Fear to help my drama, such as talking about how nothing bad could possibly happen to me, right? There’s no reason not to go down in the basement. Let’s split up. (All translated in drama speak, of course: My boss wouldn’t screw me over. You cancer will stay in remission. I can afford to buy that home because I know I’ll get that raise soon.)