How to create a full work with the actors?

March 15, 2006 5:30 PM

How to produce and direct an collaborative, actor-created work?

A cohort and I are heading up a project in which we would like to gather a group of eight or so of the best actors we know and to create a script and a universe with them. Through improv, guided improv, working from outlines, and so on, we'd like to begin with filmed shorts and, eventually, a full theatrical work from our combined efforts to evolve their characters, relations, and situations, and blabbity blabbity blah and other poncey stuff.

Long story short: we'd like to create the characters and their relations with the actors, and then build plots from there.

Anyway, what I ask for is guidance. We've done many similar things in the past, but nothing quite on this scale. What are people's experiences with regard to such things, whether in film or theater? What techniques, structure, and exercises would you recommend? Or to avoid?

Any examples, pitfalls, words of advice, tricks of the trade, or plaintive ocarina tunes would be most welcome.

posted by Sticherbeast to media & arts (6 comments total)

No experience of my own to offer -- but I wonder if the book 39 Microlectures: In Proximity of Performance would be useful. And here's hoping some other answers appear in this thread; I'm interested.
posted by hathaway_green at 8:45 PM on March 15, 2006

That sounds like a superb idea. I've got no experience of such a project, but if I was running one, I'd not start the creative process til a few workshops in - give people time to get inspired and start to get the hang of what you're doing, as well as to find group cohesion.
Two other tips - make sure everyone has a journal of some sort for recording their thoughts, and tape your sessions - I'm sure your actors will find watching themselves back absolutely invaluable in evolving their roles. I did a little improv some years back, and it made a great way to get feedback - one was a series of three or four workshops evolving a character from two concepts, a simple word and a one-line description (anything from "cowboy" and "doesn't like beer" to "vivacious" and "lost their life savings in bad stocks").

Good luck!
posted by Incharitable Dog at 1:02 AM on March 16, 2006

I think you need to ask yourself why you want it to be collaborative. If you want to break down the artificial distinction between actor/writer/director ... then I've got no advice for you. Maybe someone else can help. If you've got a group of talented actors and you want to find a way to maximize what they, specifically, as a group can bring to the stage ... maybe I can help.

First suggestion: limit the nature and degree of the collaboration. Have a writer. Have a director. Improv is a wonderful thing but dramatic improv is incredibly hard to do well. Develop your piece through improv, but then have your writer write it and your director direct it. Every actor benefits from experience writing and directing (and writers and directors from acting and so forth) but ultimately people specialize for a reason.

Second suggestion: give yourself some room for development in the rehearsal process. If you normally take 4 weeks to rehears a full length play, give yourself 8. Separate the development process from the rehearsal process, mostly for the actors' sanity (see next point).

Third suggestion: reassure your actors. At first they'll be thrilled to be working on this exciting project. At some point they'll be absolutely terrified that the whole thing is going to shit - "we open in two weeks and I don't even know who my character is!" Set a script "lockdown" date and stick to it.

Fourth suggestion: have something in mind before you start, whether it's a theme, a character, a specific situation - maybe the beginning of the play or the end. If you start with a completely blank slate you're going to waste a lot of your development time just figuring out what it is you want to do. And you'll have a harder time recruiting people for the project.

I've worked on a number of project like this, from pure (comic) improv to to scenario -based commedia dell'arte to guided play development to script written in rehearsal for the company. I've witnessed several others. The single biggest key to success is having a director. Projects without a director were not only bad but miserable. Projects where everyone had to contribute in equal fashion (as writer/director/actor) were exercises in frustration.

Note: your director doesn't have to be authoritarian, if that turns you off. A friend of mine (Joey Michaels) puts it this way: I'm not the sculptor who will mold you all like lumps of clay, I'm the lens that will focus you all into a single, brilliant point of light. Similarly, the writer in your collaborative project need not impose anything on your effort (or censor anything) but take what comes out of the development process and make it consistent and economical, and, well, make it sing.

I don' t mean this to sound critical at all (especially if your answer to my first question is "yes"). I'm sure a purely collaborative project could be done. I've just never seen it done succesfully so I couldn't tell you how. On the other hand, the semi-collaborative projects with a discrete writer and director have been some of the most exciting productions I've participated in.

Good luck with yours.
posted by zanni at 2:28 AM on March 16, 2006

Sticherbeast, I noticed from your profile that you live in Brooklyn. I do too. And I'm a theatre director. I'm very interested in this type of project. I've never done anything quite like it, but I do use improv as a rehearsal technique -- and at some point in the future, I plan on doing a project like this with my company.

I'm not saying all this to push myself on you. I'm just letting you know that you have a colleague nearby if you want to "talk shop" and brainstorm ideas.

I'm in complete agreement with zanni that the key to this is STRUCTURE. You won't have the usual structure of a script, so make sure you have other (strong) structural elements, like a writer and director.

I have no idea if you're working with trained actors. If not, you should acquaint them with Stanislavsky's techniques. I recommend a great (short!) book called "A Practical Handbook for the Actor." This is another structural element which will help keep anarchy and fear at bay.

I'm not sure if it's in print, but if you can find it, look for a book called "The Nicholas Nicholby Story," which details how the RSC developed a project like this. Another book, "Dear George," also describes this process. Of course, the King of improved-based theatre is Mike Leigh. I don't think he's written much about his process. But you should do some searches for interviews with him and his collaborators.
posted by grumblebee at 5:26 AM on March 16, 2006

I've been working on a similar project for some time now, and would definitely agree with everything said here so far, but emphasize incharitable dog's suggestion to hold a few workshops before you begin codifying. If it's going to be fully collaborative (which is not a concept mutually exclusive with having well-defined roles, as Zanni's otherwise excellent advice seems to suggestion) it's important to get everyone's ideas on the table to start -- to see them holistically, where things are fitting together, where they break down etc. We began with exercises from Augusto Boal because we were interested in experimenting with participatory theater. As we got into it, his exercises actually proved even more productive for us insofar as deciding upon the thematic and from there the narrative content of our work. In one specific exercise adapted from Boal we created abstract/presentational improvisations based upon newspaper articles -- 'found theater' if you will. In allowing everyone to react to the same concrete utterance we were able to discover a lot about what we as a group wanted to do, and where we wanted to take our project. Truth be told we're still in the middle of this project, so I will also be watching this thread closely, an exciting question!
posted by jrb223 at 7:24 AM on March 16, 2006

I fully agree with zanni's suggestion to limit the collaboration, and grumblebee's point about structure. I attended a theatre school that focuses on actor-created work, and the ubiquitous problem was that actors felt the material we were creating was ours to modify at all times, including in collaborative situations.

Have clearly-defined roles from the outset: so-and-so is the director. The actors' input is essential and valuable but you have to draw the line somewhere to craft a performable work. Otherwise you will spend 8 weeks trying to draw consensus among a number of creative people, each of whom is very attached to what s/he has created. This consensus rarely happens organically; someone needs to sculpt the material into a compelling piece.

Also, on a logistical note: if you are working on this project outside the confines of a full-time theatre or school, establish a firm rehearsal/performance schedule early on and make sure everyone is fully committed. This will prevent people from having to abandon the project because of scheduling conflicts. It's common for a couple of people to leave a collaborative project because they find the process frustrating or the material turns out to be not interesting to them... but it sucks when people who are productive and talented end up not being able to participate because they don't know in the beginning what the commitment at the end will be.

I'm nearby, too, if you want to talk further about collaborative process.

I might as well put my training to good use, since I quit the biz shortly after finishing the program! But I still like to talk shop.
posted by hsoltz at 9:15 AM on March 16, 2006