This week I've had a quick refresh on stage directions particularly focusing on where we stand on stage.
This is a really important topic for performing improvisers. I've often seen improvisers huddled at the back of the stage doing a scene that feels very removed from the audience. Sometimes this is due to a lack of awareness and sometimes it's due to fear. But either way it makes it harder for the audience to hear and connect with the scene.
So let's look at the basics of stage directions.
We can divide a stage into 9 sections and each section has its own name. This is very useful in the theatre and allows directors and actors to decide where the actors will stand on stage.
The stage directions are always taken from the actors point of view as if they are standing on the stage looking out at the audience.
The very front of the stage is called down stage and is where you are standing right in front of the audience.
Then we have the centre stage which is in the middle and up stage at the back.
It can be a bit confusing having the area at the front of the stage being referred to as down and vice versa. But the reason it is called downstage is that it was once common practice for stages to be raked, so higher at the back and lower at the front.
This means the stage was on a slope with the highest point being at the back of the stage and the lowest point being at the front of the stage where the audience is. It can be useful to think of the stage as a hill!
We then have the left side of the stage and the right side of the stage, again from the actors point of view as they face the audience.
Don't worry if you struggle to get your head around all this, I still do! You can try pacing it out at home, or even make a game of it where when someone calls out a stage position you have to go and stand on that spot.
In improv we don't need to concern ourselves too much with stage directions because obviously we're making it up as we go along and don't need to pre plan our characters movements.
But it is a good idea to have an awareness of where you are on stage. As I mentioned earlier we can find ourselves creeping to the back on the stage to do scenes if we're feeling anxious or scared, we naturally seem to drift there to try and get as far away from the audience as possible.
The area highlighted above is an area we should try to avoid improvising in, purely because it takes us too far away from the audience (assuming we're stood on a stage bigger than a postage stamp!).
It's a great area to have improvisers stood ready to jump in or they can also stand on either side of the stage. It's also a good place to stand if you're on stage but not having an active role in scene, e.g. the scene is in a coffee shop and you're another customer or the barista.
But we want the main body of the action to take place in the front 2 sections where we can be seen and heard, where your talents can shine!
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