Use Your Braaaaaaiiin
I like making stuff up. Sometimes it’s with pen and paper (keys and metal?), sometimes it’s just with an audience. I find both to be much the same. One of the differences is that if I’m on stage I can’t just wander off and make a cup of tea or play Plants vs Zombies for an hour. Well, I could, but I’d have to justify it pretty hard. I like the live stuff – there’s no possibility of editing it unless I think about the story as I go along, and it’s probably quite clear that I don’t think ahead. What does work is setting the scene. Once I’ve done that I can come back to it again and again. As with everything we begin with words and add more. Remembering what has happened so far is important on stage because I can’t flick back through the story so far for names and places (I fail at one of those in this story!), partly because repetition is important for reinforcing a theme and reminding the audience (and me) what is happening.
Word Lies
I’m not a very visually-oriented person; when I imagine I don’t see pictures often, I mainly see the words I’d use to describe it. Some words seem weighted – “dawn” is one, and it was the first word that popped into my head at the start of the monologue below. From that all sorts of nonsense is drawn forth. The style of monologues we often do during MissImp in Action are what we call ‘insert word’ stories. The audience are given magazines and when pointed to during the story they provide us with a few random words or phrases, we have to seamlessly fuse them into the story. I use them to twist and tilt the stories – I like to use those phrases to justify or explain. That inevitably leads to some mental contortions as the plot changes completely. It’s fun.
Sad In The Rain
Hope you enjoy the story:
[youtube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JtaWrg_VU7o&w=420&h=315]
MissImp in Action is performed on the last Friday of every month at The Glee Club in Nottingham by MissImp, Nottingham’s improv group.
