Men With Coconuts are thrilled to welcome Jules Munns and Heather Urquhart to Edinburgh to teach three workshops in April!
They will teach a longform workshop and a narrative workshop on April 9th and 10th, and a personal feedback workshop on April 11th.
Longform Workshop
Saturday April 9th
11am - 5pm
£45
http://www.brownpapertickets.com/event/2515160
Longform improv is a big sprawling beast. From improvised genre pieces to sketch shows and classic forms like the Armando and Harold, it can be anything which isn't explicitly directed by someone onstage. It is an infinitely rewarding and complex artform that is growing at an exponential rate in the UK.
Great longform means working with your team on a number of different levels - filling scene after scene with interesting, fully-realised characters that care about each other while simultaneously (& largely wordlessly) shaping and directing the flow and structure of the larger show. It's about being writer and performer in the same moment, about playing as a team and making each other look good.
Over the course of this day, you will explore a wide variety of techniques that can be used in any improvised show. These include:
Working together as a team
The importance of play
Building a world - supporting from on and offstage
Common structural techniques such as edits, tags and transitions*
Applying these skills to classic improv forms such as the Armando and Harold
*Dont worry if this jargon means nothing to you. Thats what the class is for!
Narrative Workshop
Sunday April 10th
11am - 5pm
£45
http://www.brownpapertickets.com/event/2515162
Narrative Improvisation, for many improvisers is the Holy Grail of spontaneous theatre. Pioneered by the likes of Parallelogramaphonograph from Austin Texas and made mainstream in the UK by groups like Austentatious and Showstopper! The Improvised Musical, in narrative improv, an entire play is created using recurring characters and themes and with one or sometimes multiple threads of story woven throughout.
Great Narrative Improv can be moving, hilarious and memorable and we'll be exploring how to link together multiple scenes and recognise which strands and characters to develop while balancing the challenge of staying present and connected to our scene partners.
Over the course of this day, you will explore a wide variety of techniques that can be used in any improvised show. These include:
Building Platforms
Solid show openings and fully realised characters that the audience want to stay with for an hour or more
The Story Spine: the blueprint on which all stories are built and how we can apply this to improv
Recognising when shows have a linear or non linear narrative and how to recognise protagonists, antagonists and sub plots
The role of narrators and their use of narrative in mid and long forms
Personal Feedback Workshop
Monday April 11th
1pm - 4pm
£30
http://www.brownpapertickets.com/event/2519779
Maybe you've taken a load of classes, but you're frustrated. You feel like you always do the same thing, but you don't know how to break the pattern. Maybe you love what you do, but you have the felling there is something else there. Maybe improv is not quite as thrilling and exciting as it used to be?
If any of the above are true for you, come to this bonus quick-fire feedback session, which will make you aware of your habits and give you quick simple tools to break them.
Heather Urquhart trained in Physical Theatre but after graduation started her lifelong affair with improv joining Kepow Theatre with Kevin Tomlinson in 2004, has been with the Maydays since 2006 and is a performer with the award winning Showstopper! The Improvised Musical.
She has co-written a book on the subject of musical improv called ‘Sing it!’ and has a series of associated podcasts. Heather is winner of Foghorn’s UK Improv Smackdown 2013 and 2015, winner of The Latest Brighton Festival and Fringe awards Best female performer 2013 and the Argus Angel Award for artistic excellence (for The Opinion Makers), 2014. She compliments her improv career with acting, sketch comedy and singing. She has been a performer with Brighton’s satirical comedy sketch company The Treason Show since 2007, as well as a sometimes singer with the mercury music prize nominated Electric Soft Parade.
Jules Munns is the artistic Director of the Nursery and the founder of Slapdash International, London's longest running festival of improvisation, as well as being one of the UK’s most prolific improv teachers and actors. He performs with improvised shows including the Maydays, Happily Never After, Sitting in a Tin Can, Impromptu Shakespeare (which he also directed) and programmes the Nursery Presents.