Workshops

Instructor: Mable Buchanan Palmer

The Second City calls it "writing from abundance," while UCB theatre calls it playing "the game of the scene." At its heart, writing from a place of improv - which has a heart for irony, humor, extravagance, and possibility, especially in the everyday, mediocre, and mundane - is having fun with your art.

Whether we are sketch writers, playwrights, or fiction authors, improv's open-hearted refusal to let us take ourselves too seriously makes us stronger writers by developing our capacity for nimble, creative thinking; allowing us to engage with characters and conflicts in microcosm; giving us the discipline to resist writer's block; teaching us how to recognize the "heart" of a scene from the moment we enter; and growing in us the courage to tell the story well. It reminds us of the wonder we saw in the world and the wild, limitless stories we would tell as children.

Drawing on my experiences studying and performing theater, improv/musical improv, and comedy, and facilitating theater rehearsals and performances in public schools, I'll guide students through exercises and games meant to encourage them to think differently about character, conflict, setting, structure, and emotion in your writing, with writing time built-in. No improv experience is required - just an open mind and brave eagerness to say "yes, and.."

Teens, Adults all Levels

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