Scene Work By Numbers – Saturday February 27th
by Piero Procaccini

Have you ever been lost in a group scene – not exactly sure when to speak and when to hold back? Have you ever watched or participated in a scene that felt great but you couldn’t figure out why? This is the class for you. In this course, students will be introduced to techniques developed to navigate 3-person scenes and then those fundamentals will be used to explore the rhythm and musicality of dialogue and scène work. It’s as simple as 1-2-3.

BIOGRAPHY-

PIERO PROCACCINI has been studying and performing improv and sketch comedy in Chicago for 10 years. He has taught classes at IO and Second City and offered workshops at theatres around the country. He was Assistant to the Director for “From Fear to Eternity” in the Second City ETC Theatre and has directed many improvisors who have gone on to perform in the touring company and on resident stages in Chicago. While in Chicago, he spent several years performing with Johnny Roast Beef and American Dream and coaching Otis and Carl and the Passions. Most recently, he has been cruising the high seas performing for Second City aboard Norwegian Cruise Lines.

Notes for posterity:
Piero did a great job of breaking down the anatomy of group scenes and how to transfer focus from two people to another. It was an easy way of recognizing how to work your way through a group scene by knowing which number you were in any given scene. The person that was number 1 in the scene – the scene was about that person. The 2nd person had to make the scene about person 1 and the third person would be active “scenery” (in the scene but not participating in the discourse – until the numbers were re-distributed within scene context). The most interesting part of it for me was the idea that you didn’t have to be involved in what was taking place between the main characters (#1 and #2) but could relax and just interact with your space work. With the shoe on the other foot, it was great as well, because when you were a main character, you didn’t feel the need to “include” in your conversation the 3rd person onstage. Everyone onstage was aware of each other but didn’t feel pressured to interact immediately with each other, so the scenes could play out naturally.

New Exercise highlight:
He also introduced us to a new exercise of talking without self-editing and blurting out the first thing in our head. Two people would sit in chairs, and he would be right in front of them, “directing” them to elaborate on certain things that they said without stopping to think or themselves from editing their dialogue. The talking was non-stop, no pause in style. So in all likelihood you didn’t have time to think.

I transferred these from an email I received today. I don’t have the “warm” memories (too young) but I’m in awe of the way things have changed here in Honolulu, Hawaii, in such a short time (the oldest picture here is less then 70 years old). Absolutely amazing and one of the things I don’t want to forget. Thank you Susan Sumida (whoever you may be) for sharing these wonderful photos.

Great pictures of the past……some warm memories!

Trader Vic’s at the corner of Ward Ave. and King Street. It is now the location of the Honolulu Club and the now closed TGIF restaurant.

Statehood celebration at the old Honolulu Stadium. March 13, 1959.

HRT bus barn on the corner of Alapai and Hotel streets in the 70’s. The Honolulu Police Dept. is now this corner.

The HIC later renamed the Neal Blaisdell Center is under construction in 1963.

1957 photo of the Ward estate. The entire estate was demolished in 1959 to make room for the Concert Hall, Exhibition Hall and the Blaisdell Center. It covered the entire block of Ward Ave., King St., and Kapiolani Blvd.

Aloha Motors at the corner of Kapiolani Blvd. and Atkinson Drive is now the site of the Hawaii Conventon Center.

Corner of Beretania and Richards Streets where the Schuman Carriage building and a doctor’s office was located in the 1950’s and 1960’s. The entire block was torn down to build the State Capitol Building. This photo was taken across the street near Washington Place.

Kapahulu Avenue in March 1959.

State Capitol under construction in the background. Photo taken on Kapiolani Blvd. and Drier St. The Advertiser Building is on the left. March 27, 1967.

Fort Street looking mauka (mountain-view) from King street. Nov. 8th 1959. Today Fort Street is a pedestrian mall.

Hawaii Kai in a 1960 photo as Henry Kaiser was beginning development of the area.

Honolulu Iron Works 1960. Today it is the location of Restaurant Row.

Waialae Shopping Center, which eventually became Kahala Mall, was celebrating its third anniversary when this photo was taken in 1961.

Construction of the State Capitol building July 5, 1966. Punchbowl and Hotel Street corner is at the bottom right. Hotel Street is now the pedestrian walkway between the Capitol Building and Iolani Palace .

Bishop Street, looking mauka toward Beretania Street in this 1959 photo. The street eventually continued to Vineyard and Pali Hwy. Bishop St. became one-way makai bound. Across Beretania now stands the Capitol Place building.

1959 photo of the old Sears and Roebuck building, which eventually became the headquarters for the Honolulu Police Department and then a high-rise condominium.

March 19, 1959 photo of the old Sears and Roebuck building and parking lot on Beretania, Young and King Streets and later, in 1967, it was converted into the Honolulu Police Department. That building was also eventually torn down and a high-rise condominium is now at that location. The parking lot in the foreground is today the Pawaa Neighborhood Park .

1970 photo of baseball fans line up on King Street and Isenberg at the Honolulu Stadium box office to purchase playoff tickets.

The annual Thanksgiving Day high school football championship game at the Old Honolulu Stadium on Isenberg and King Street in 1963. Today this is the site of the Honolulu Stadium State Rec. Area or as many call it, the Old Stadium Park .

The old Civic Auditorium at 1314 S. King St. being torn down to make way for progress, in April, 1974. Built in January 1933, it hosted many functions through the years.

The water fountain at the entrance to the Honolulu airport in the 1960’s. At night the water fountain was lit up with orange colored lights, it looked like a volcano eruption.

Kapiolani Drive Inn on the corner of Ala Moana and Ena Rd in July, 1968. A popular hangout in the 50’s and 60’s it was demolished in late 1960 to make way for the Wailana condominium.

Tops Coffee Shop in 1956, on Ala Moana across Ft. DeRussy.

The Kau Kau Korner on the corner of Kapiolani and Kalakaua in the 1940’s. The business was torn down in 1960 and replaced with Coco ‘s Coffee House, which was torn down in 1986 to make way for The Hard Rock Cafe which is currently on that location (HRC will soon be moved into Waikiki – updated March 2010).

The last day of Coco’s Coffee House, Aug. 31, 1986. After 26 years of business on the corner of Kapiolani and Kalakaua, it made way for a new business, The Hard Rock Cafe. Before Coco ‘s, The Kau Kau Korner was in that location.

Construction of the Keeaumoku Street overpass on April 14, 1960 looking towards the Diamond Head direction and from right to left, makai to mauka.
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(Courtesy of Susan Sumida, time-traveler and collector of vintage photographs)– 🙂 !

Before I would have said that it is possible with no need to explain. But now I think I need to elaborate, the people have to trust each other for this to work and have a common goal. When people are forced to interact and work with each other that’s harder to accomplish.
People get different things out of improv, I get that. It can range from wanting to be a star to just wanting to have fun on stage. But where does that leave the people that just want to be good at it?

Okay, let me first preface this with the thought that we don’t have a leader in this group. Our group was created with the intention to perform the Fishbone and no other reason. So that being the case, we have no director or coach. What does this mean? We are rehearsing strictly with the idea that the tools and skills we learn in rehearsals will be used to do this form.
Positive – our form has a very simple idea at it’s core for us to follow (we follow the cause and effect of something from one scene directly into another and explore how it affects those new people and their relationships) which makes it easier to incorporate the skills and tools into it and see if it works.
Negative – because we have no coach it becomes a problem of what our focus is supposed to be and when that’s forgotten it takes a herculean effort to get back on track.
Problem – we have rehearsals and when things have been less structured, things have veered off course and sometimes things get personal (never good).
Opinion – I am of the opinion, if we have no coach, we need to have a group focus (much like with what we have to do in a group scene.) Without this group focus, people will do and say whatever they want in the name of change for creativity and growth. Which is a bad joke.

On the agenda tonight were work the intro of the Fishbone, relationship scenes and silent scenes. Silent scenes were put on the back burner till next week. We worked on the relationship scenes because it proved to be better at making us focus on, what we as individuals, needed to do and our weaknesses that affect our growing in our onstage relationships. Again, the nemeses proved to be our common ones of planning, and as a really close offshoot, inventing a past that didn’t add to our “now” relationship but created a “let’s talk about what happened in our past to make our relationship right now.” What I will call “past planning.”

We did a spin on what we had worked on at the last rehearsal and it went pretty well, we definitely added a new element of giving feedback. It was good. Why did it work though? I think that when we work a lot with a group of people there comes a time where we need to start being honest with how we feel and what we need. Like all good relationships trust is built through healthy communication and a solid foundation. Improv is the same. It could easily be abused but with the intentions being to help each other excel, we grow as a group and individuals.

Common things people needed to work on to further the relationships.
Accepting the offer
Past and pre-planning
Eye contact
Listening
Adding the “and” to the Yes (giving)
Who, what, where (establishing it in the beginning)

7 strong last night. We concentrated mainly on our relationships. Most of the scenes involved two people up, sitting in chairs and focusing on relationships.
1st series of scenes – were basic two-person scenes where the people sitting would ask for a suggestion and try to find the relationship.
The first two scenes of this series demonstrated that people will often go to the past to find that information and do a lot of inventing to establish who they are to each other now. Once I recognized that, I tried to avoid it, instead focusing on what we can do presently to establish who we are to each other.
Second series of scene – spin-off of the first series. We added some rules, get the who, what, when, where out of the way as soon as you can, no arguing, and working through 1-10 in emotion by call-outs from the audience.
This one was hard for me. It really kept me in my head a lot of the time and focusing on what was happening outside of the scene. Sometimes the outside call-outs were hard to hear and then at one point I got confused on what my name was and the name I gave my partner and couldn’t figure out who they were calling out when they gave us numbers to play. It was a good game though. But in general I don’t like directed edits because I think most of the time people don’t know when to use them correctly (to enhance the relationship of the people on stage) and do it instead for their own benefit.
Third series of scenes – were nuggetting so we could really focus on listening to what the other person said. I think that this was a good intro to listening to your scene partner although most of the scenes turned out to become more comical. What I did like about it is that we got to the point of whatever we were doing REALLY FAST.

I am a fan of Peyton Manning of the Indianapolis Colts and am ecstatic that they’ve been able to make it to the Superbowl for the 2nd time in 4 years. For the record, I’m not thinking that I’m the best or most hard-core fan in the U.S., I only started watching them regularly in the past 5 years.
That happened because I was trying to be a good wife. You see, I was trying to meet my husband half way by watching the football games my husband watched, although I was very specific – we could only watch the games that his team was playing. He is a long-time football fan so this was my attempt at compromise. But one day (about 8 years ago) while we were watching his team play, I saw the quarterback of the other team stop at the line of scrimmage, start gesticulating, and made the people on his side move around. Which pretty much amounted to me saying, “Who’s that guy waving his hands around, he looks like he’s doing something.”
My husband then told me that, “That is Peyton Manning, he’s the quarterback.” and that he was really good. I then told him that I like him and I’ll watch him because he’s doing something. That turned into (8 years later), my husband being able to watch more than one football team on tv and radio, me knowing a little bit more about the football game, a respect for what everyone on the Colt’s team does that makes them such a good team, and sometimes even being able to tell that people are moving on both sides of the ball. Yep still not the best fan.
However, I have also been listening to the Indy (The Fan) radio, Kravitz and Eddie, and between the moments of Colts news, sometimes they say some things that have much more weight. One broadcast that touched a cord dealt with a focus on what is really important about being exceptional in something. It doesn’t matter if you receive fame or fortune from it. If someone is exceptional at something it is because of who that person is. Which translates in my mind into, it doesn’t matter if you do it for free, pay for it, get paid doing it, or even do it for the attention, people that excel at pretty much anything don’t see themselves as better or worse, they are looking at themselves and what they can do to better themselves so they continue to grow and that is what makes a person stand out in a crowd, on the stage, or even on the line of scrimmage – to someone with little or no idea of what is going on out there. And that is what makes a person truly exceptional.

The things I’ve learned from, of all things, “football” and the hope I have for the Colts to get another Superbowl ring! The Colts are going to Miami! Woohoo!