An exercise for deeper listening and for being aware that the audience is waiting for someone to be unusual.

Two people up. They get a suggestion and then they take a starting position, look at each other and wait. The starting positions don’t have to take into account the suggestion, and they should be small choices: sitting in a chair with a slight slump; standing up straight, or maybe hands on hips.

The teacher times out 30 seconds. The students do not start the scene. They must be able to see each other. During that time the students just regard each other. Again, the scene does not being. No object work, no starting. Just this initial position, looking.

After 30 seconds, before starting the scene, the teacher asks the class to vote on “Who’s Unusual?”. There are four choices.

Person A is unusual Person B is unusual They both are. Neither one is.

There is no right answer. But the interesting thing is that people will have opinions. Just based on how you stand, how you look at each other – the audience is starting to see and feel things. The actors should also be in tune with this.

Now, let the actors do two lines. An initiation and a response. The initiation should take the suggestion into account, and should also take into account how they are standing and facing each other. The initiation doesn’t HAVE to address how they’re standing, but if it feels like someone is an authority figure and someone is being submissive, the initiator should take that into account with how and what they say.

After these two lines, the teacher takes a vote again. Same four choices. People will be more unified now.

Now, make the two actors do 4 or 5 more lines. Then take the vote again.

The point here is that the scene begins as soon as the actors leave the backline. The scene is much more than what you say in your first line. It’s in the way you walk, the tenor of your voice, the expression on your face — even the plain base expression when you think you’re not doing anything. These things are all part of the scene.

I was lucky enough to be on a Harold team with a group of people with very pronounced personalities. Everyone brought such a distinct energy – before the scene even started – that it was impossible to not let that affect what you were going to say. Our scenes got going very quickly. We felt funny, even when we didn’t have good ideas.

This exercise is to get in tune with that – the intangible hard-to-describe vibe which exists beneath and around the words that you say.