www.plays-in-business.com Photo credit (CC): GPS, https://www.flickr.com/photos/zoxcleb/12708086944/in/faves-58564123@N05/ Michael Tarnowski Drama Babe! Theatre Stage Experience for Agilists Workshop at “Walk the Talk – Talk the Walk” #WTTW, Annual Conference AC NL, 10.Sept.2014 Agile Consortium NL
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Drama babe! – Theatre Stage Experience for Agilists
I presented this workshop at “Walk the Talk – Talk the Walk” #WTTW, Annual Conference Agile Consortium NL, 10.Sept.2014. – The presentation gives you a broad toolbox of communication skills: * How to set the narrative structure your presentation * How to prepare your stage: onstage, offstage, and audience space * How to use light, sound, costumes, and props properly * How to rehearse & improve your presentation * How to use your body language
I structured my workshop as a theatre playbook: Prologue Who is your Performer?Why do Agilists need Theatre Stage Experience? Act I – Scripting the Performance Act I, Scene 1 – Write the Playbook, Act I, Scene 2 – Set the Stage Act I, Scene 3 – Set the Pose Act I, Scene 4 – Direct the Performance Act II – Staging the Performance Act II, Scene 1 – Build the Stage Act II, Scene 2 – Onstage & Backstage, Entrances & Exits Act II, Scene 3 – Set the Light Act II, Scene 4 – Set the Sound/Music Act II, Scene 5 – Set the Costumes & Props Act III – Performing the Performance Act III, Scene 1 – Rehearse Act III, Scene 2 – Find proper Emphasis Act III, Scene 3 – Create Meaning Act III, Scene 4 – Create Emotions and Authenticity
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Workshop at “Walk the Talk – Talk the Walk”#WTTW, Annual Conference AC NL, 10.Sept.2014
Agile Consortium NL
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Prologue
Who is your Performer?Why do Agilists need Theatre Stage Experience?
Act I – Scripting the PerformanceAct I, Scene 1 – Write the PlaybookAct I, Scene 2 – Set the StageAct I, Scene 3 – Set the PoseAct I, Scene 4 – Direct the Performance
Act II – Staging the PerformanceAct II, Scene 1 – Build the StageAct II, Scene 2 – Onstage & Backstage, Entrances & ExitsAct II, Scene 3 – Set the LightAct II, Scene 4 – Set the Sound/MusicAct II, Scene 5 – Set the Costumes & Props
Act III – Performing the PerformanceAct III, Scene 1 – RehearseAct III, Scene 2 – Find proper EmphasisAct III, Scene 3 – Create MeaningAct III, Scene 4 – Create Emotions and Authenticity
Theatre and Stage Experience offers you however a broad-wide toolbox of communication skills:• How to set the narrative structure your presentation• How to prepare your stage: onstage, offstage, and
audience space• How to use light, sound, costumes, and props properly• How to rehearse & improve your presentation• How to use your body language
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Act I – Scripting the PerformanceAct I, Scene 1 – Write the Playbook
Determine your message, i.e. what you want to tell
Create a proper playbook
Write down your text aka the “lines”, i.e. what you want to say
Refine and detail your playbook during your rehearsals continuously
You are author and performer of your show at the same time.
As the author plan and structure your performance, presentation or show. Take notes and scribbles in a kind of playbook or graphic storyboard.
Photo credit: http://www.produktbezogen.de
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“Drama Bow” – Narrative Structure of your Performance
Proudly stolen from Adam St.John Lawrence, Work•Play•Experience, Services Design: boom-yeah-Yeah-Boom
Tell your story like a James Bond movie
Boom!
Yeah!
Boom!
yeah!
Start: impressive intro scene
Highlights: in ascending order of power to build the interest
Spectators perk up when they hear a Problem that holds immediate Risk.
A Resolution creates immediate value for the spectators.Growth and Truth leads to fast identification with the storyline/ characters. Truth gets credibility.
Vulnerability: being honest about the challenges, fears, and failures you/the characters faced gives the story power.
Colours: describe landscape, time of day/year, details of clothing, props, etc.
Make sure that the details you include serve your narrative; cramming too much in, makes your story too long and convoluted.Sometimes you have to “lose your darlings” to keep your stories tight and clear.
b. Identify a Resolution (of the problem) and if you want Growth of characters while standing the risks.
c. Line-up the highlights in ascending order of power/tension – experiment with their order
d. If you want add Truth or keep the story fictitious.
2. Pimp your story – “put flesh on the bones”:
a. Add Vulnerability to the characters
b. Add Colours: decorate the scenes with details to illustrate the atmosphere and scenarios.
3. Keep the story tense and short. You will get more an more experience in knowing how to edit yourself for greatest effectiveness.
4. Rework and refine Start and End – set punchlines for “yeah, Yeah, BOOM!”
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Act I, Scene 2 – Set the Stage
Identify Spaces
• the space you perform – this is your Stage.
• the space the audience is in.
Photo credit (CC): Mohammad Jangda, http://www.flickr.com/photos/batmoo/3735638680/
Affect the Seating
In general the audience fills up from the back and along the aisle. Empty rows and seats in between gives a feeling of an unattractive event.
Choose a room as tight as possible for your predicted numbers
Encourage the audience to fill from the front
Cross the barrier between stage and audience only by purpose and intentionally
Use: lightings; attends to offer seats; reserve rear rows until the rest of the room is full (and fetch "reserve" chairs from another room only when needed).
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Act I, Scene 3 – Set the Pose
The Basics of Business Body Language, Laura Montini, http://www.inc.com/laura-montini/infographic/getting-ahead-in-business-with-body-language.html
(Albert Mehrabian rule)
“More important than what you say is how you say it.”
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The 4 most important Body Language Tips
1. Show Tension. Stature is preparation for everything we do.
When you do so, the body inhales, your core muscles pull up, and your chest expands.
Don’t over-emphasise by pumping up yourself like a body builder
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The 4 most important Body Language Tips
2. Maintain Eye Contact. Like our voice, our eyes convey everything. Eye contact connects us literally and figuratively with one another.
Photo credit (CC): Nick Fewings, https://www.flickr.com/photos/jannerboy62/9739279883
Eye Contact helps you to embody integrity, confidence and authority
Don’t stare at your spectators
Switch between focusing an individual spectator in the front, in the middle, and in the back of the audience
Don’t look in spectators’ eyes directly – look at their foreheads instead
Evaluate when to maintain and when to stop keeping eye contact
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The 4 most important Body Language Tips
3. Make movements (gestures & walks) purposeful. Positively, gestures help you effectively tell the story – negatively, they detract from what you are saying.
Gestures and walks must be purposeful, not random, unconscious or ever repetitive.
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The 4 most important Body Language Tips
3 daily exercises to improve your voice
4. Use Abdominal (Belly) Breathing – not your lungs! Abdominal breathing gets you a longer flow of air. Your voice becomes louder without stressing your vocal chords; and belly breathing calms panic attacks (“stage frighten”) also.
Proudly stolen from Stage Directions Meet Functional Specifications: They Have a Lot in Common, Traci Lepore, http://www.uxmatters.com/mt/archives/2009/03/stage-directions-meet-functional-specifications-they-have-a-lot-in-common.php
Act II – Staging the PerformanceAct II, Scene 1 – Build the Stage
Your customer touch points are your Stage Sets:
• your conference booth, speaker platform, venue
• your retail store(s)• your website/marketing brochure• etc…
Build the stage accordingly to your intentions, and business strategy.
Stage building shall support your message
Stage building shall look professional – avoid clumsy assembles
Use curtains, flames, roll-ups, and lighting
Less is more
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Act II, Scene 2 – Onstage & Backstage, Entrances & Exits
What the public can see is “Onstage”
What you want to hide is “Backstage/ Offstage”
Move on/off stage powerful and confident
Focus your role when entering the stage
Enter stage always from left if possible
Most impressive entrance: “The King’s entrance”, (door) UpCentre
Choreography all entrances and exits
Show the audience the backstage machinery by purpose only – e.g. in case of “Making of…” shows.
Use line-of-sights, curtains, etc., to hide the backstage.
A powerful entrance impress the audience and gives power to yourself.
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Act II, Scene 3 – Set the Lights
Photo credit (CC): Dan Brady https://www.flickr.com/photos/djbrady/2068433063/in/faves-58564123@N05/
Use natural light as often as possible
Use spotlight to highlight you in a crowd
Use (spot)light to emphasise special experiences or sequences of interest: e.g. light coming from the side wings; light in your back dazzling the audience when you enter
Red & Yellow: warm lightBlue & White: cold lightBlue & Green: light difficult to handleAll mixture of colours: interesting – experiment with
Light creates atmosphere easily.
Light kills atmosphere fast: cold, hard, white light.
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Act II, Scene 4 – Set the Sound/Music
Sound creates atmosphere easily – even shrill, loud, sound/music.
Sound kills atmosphere fast – even melodic sound/music.
Sound/music create tension.
Sound/music gets meaning.
Use sound/music by purpose only – define their meaning upfront
Sound/music shall pace your movements and props properly: in introducing/closing or during a movement
Chose sound/music decisively – think twice in selecting them
Sounds/music are potentially under copyright – use royalty free sources
Photo credit (CC): MaDonna via http://www.fromquarkstoquasars.com
Some royalty free sound/music sources:• http://www.grsites.com/archive/sounds/• https://soundcloud.com/• http://www.freesound.org/
Costumes serve as a kind of branding. In marketing events they function as corporate identity (CI).
On stage each costume communicates: it determines certain stereotypes, it addresses punchlines, it defines the personality of a character, and, and, and...
Props (properties) are identifiable (real) objects used during the performance.Like costumes props communicate as well.
Props create meaning and WOW-factors
Be spare with props – each prop on stage has to be used, has to have a function/has to have support other props.
Eliminate all non-used props
Costumes create meaning and WOW-factors
Be exuberant in using costumes
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Act III – Performing the PerformanceAct III, Scene 1 – Rehearse
Performers rehearse and train again and again.They train consistently their text, their movements, and the exact timings for the punchlines.
Like theatre rehearsals your rehearsals should also progress from early free-form rehearsals through technical rehearsals (lighting, sound/music, special effects) up to final on-site rehearsals with all costumes, props, and all technical machinery (light, sound, special effects, etc.).
Prepare yourself: topic of your show and ways to perform
Rehearse and improve yourself over and over again
Rehearse with a peer to get real feedback
Don’t shoot the peer for the feedback
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Act III, Scene 2 – Find proper Emphasis
“The tone creates the music”
You are author and performer of your show at the same time.
As the performer test different ways to pronounce and to intonate your lines. – There are more than 100 variations in presenting a line!
Test force/strength of your movements.
Evaluate the timing of your movements and lines
Evaluate intonation changes: speed, melody, loudness, energy, timbre, and resonance of your voice – experiment and play
Evaluate how pauses change/force meaning
If needed, rewrite your lines to strengthen your message
“On stage Everything gets a meaning”You can’t avoid it: the audience noticeseverything and interprets everything: the performer’s anxiety/nervousness/uncertainty, movements/gestures performed unconsciously, a clumsy designed stage, improper used light, and sound, and, and, and...
In a fraction of a glimpse the audience will decide when something in your performance supports or contradicts your message/intention.
This document may be further distributed free-of-charge in its original, complete form only. Please credit Plays-in-Business.com.All images used are – if not stated otherwise – from my theatre productions with the German off-theatre groups diegewissen and “Junge Bühne Schlangenbad”.