Frank Totino's
Workshop and Master Classes
IMPRO AND REALISM
Behaviour Is Content
Using Impro to investigate Realism in Performance, Spontaneity in Text and Scene Work, and the Discovery of Character.
We want something to happen on stage, or in a scene, and by “happen” we mean that the characters are being changed in some way by each other or by the circumstances.
We read change as behaviour and recognize the meanings of spontaneous behaviour.
Behaviour reveals character.
Spontaneity is real. Truth is spontaneous.
First the investigation of concepts of human behaviour through exercises designed to create experiential learning in this area. Our project will be to apply the behavioural concepts of the workshop to performance. Texts used will stay true to the writing, but we will find many ways of revealing it on the way to something meaningful.
We apply the concepts within the frame of the texts chosen to find out what is possible.
I have known Frank for years (1976), as a student of mine at the University of Calgary and later as a colleague and friend.
As a director he has always had an experimental approach, and has worked on combining improvisation with more traditional methods.
He is a very knowledgeable person, well informed about my work, intelligent, talented in many areas, and very experienced. I have no hesitation
in recommending him highly..."
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Keith Johnstone
Frank’s course is the perfect complement to the teachings of Keith Johnstone - The number of genuinely touching, funny and emotive scenes that came out of the exercises was testament to how effective the course, and Frank’s approachable, collaborative style of teaching, really is."
Director Andy Blackburn London, 2014
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