How to Improvise a Full-Length Play: The Art of Spontaneous Theater [Paperback]

Kenn Adams (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: October 16, 2007

Forget the script and get on the stage! In How to Improvise a Full-Length Play, actors, playwrights, directors, theater-group leaders, and teachers will find everything they need to know to create comedy, tragedy, melodrama, and farce, with no scripts, no scenarios, and no preconceived characters. Author Kenn Adams presents a step-by-step method for long-form improvisation, covering plot structure, storytelling, character development, symbolism, and advanced scene work. Games and exercises throughout the book help actors and directors focus on and succeed with cause-and-effect storytelling, raising the dramatic stakes, creating dramatic conflict, building the dramatic arc, defining characters, creating environments, establishing relationships, and more. How to Improvise a Full-Length Play is the essential tool for anyone who wants to create exceptional theater.

Editorial Reviews

Review

“I didn’t want to put this book down! But I did, because I couldn’t wait to get started on the exercises. What Kenn Adams offers us here is of enormous value to the creation of scripted as well as spontaneous theater. He charts a process that helps playwrights, dramaturges, directors, and actors—as well as improvisers—find their stories and grip their audiences. Oh, and . . . I laughed out loud!” (Laura Livingston, Artistic Director, Freestyle Repertory Theatre )

About the Author

Kenn Adams is an award-winning playwright whose work has been produced on stages throughout the U.S. The director of the Lila Narrative Conservatory Company and youth director for the Willows Theater Company, he lives in LaFayette, California.

Product Details

• Paperback: 208 pages
• Publisher: Allworth Press (October 16, 2007)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1581154933
• ISBN-13: 978-1581154931
• Product Dimensions: 5.4 x 0.5 x 8.6 inches
• Shipping Weight: 8.8 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 3.8 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (4 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,323,338 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

Discover books, learn about writers, read author blogs, and more.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

5 of 6 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Better for writers than for actors, November 14, 2007

By 

Bob Bedore (West Jordan, Utah United States) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: How to Improvise a Full-Length Play: The Art of Spontaneous Theater (Paperback)

As a long time improvisor, teacher and author of a book myself (101 improv games for Children and Adults), I try to read everything I can on improv. I feel that you can never learn from one source and should try and get as many sources as you can and take away somethng from each. That is how I developed my improv style. That being said, I was very excited to see this book.

As the title of my review indicates, this book is really for writers. It's actually only about 150 pages of content and almost all of them detail the story structure, or Story Spine, as Kenn calls it. And, in truth, it is very good. I've written over two dozen plays and several screen plays and he has it right on the money. If you are looking for a direct, step by step, book on show to set up a story, this is a great one.

But I think it failed on teaching how to actually move it to the stage. That's a big problem with improv teaching. When this is just something you've gone on stage and "done", it's hard to remember to teach it, especially in words. Kenn obviously has a great deal of experience and passes my 14 years by quite a few, but that should have helped this book.

I wanted to read about how he got his first cast to agree to this, what they went through in the original rehearsals, and the mistakes they made along the way. I wanted to know how they knew to improve and the different steps they took to get there. I wanted more than a one paragraph bit on "Practice".

I also had many questions. I've run all sorts of improv and have never done a full play. I wanted to know thngs like "what suggestions do you get at the beginning?", "How many people make up an ideal cast?", "Is it good to have a 'clock' in mind when doing this so you know you're on pace?", "How do you know that you're at the end of Act One?"... and many more. And those are just the "performance" questions. I had many more about the rehearsal process. Saddly I found myself not getting that with this book.

Kenn does add his email address at the end of the book and invites questions. I think this is great, and I would have done it if I just had a few questions left. Right now I have so many that it would take a book to answer them all -- and that's more or less what I thought I was getting here.

I still give it four stars because it is well written, it's a great book for any playwrite looking to get story structure down, and because I know how much work and personal worth you put into a book. Also, as I stated at the beginnng, I believe you take somethng from everything. I found a few great warm up exercises and I love that one of his three rules of improv is "Always make your partner look good".

Now... go out and support improv and live theatre where ever you can!

1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Best source for improvised plotting, February 2, 2009

By 

Timothy J. Palkovic "Tim Palkovic" (Plattsburgh, NY, USA) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: How to Improvise a Full-Length Play: The Art of Spontaneous Theater (Paperback)

I find "How to improvise a Full-Length Play" to be the best formula that I have found for improvised structure. I have read many books on plotting and improvisation in my thirty years of teaching. This presents a simple and compelling plotting scheme.

The idea of the protagonist creating the climax of the play by acting on a third character, alone, is worth the price of the book.

I have used this structural idea in both straight improvisation and in devising a rehearsed play in which the students use their own words. In this latter case I plot out the shape of the plot from student created characters and situations.

Students are delighted that they can have considerable latitude in either improvised or devised pieces as long as they hit the basic plot points.

I find myself checking the structure when watching films and plays. It seems to work more universally than any other plotting scheme that I have found.

This one works.

3 of 4 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars This is a must-have for every serious improvisor or playwright!, October 20, 2007

By 

Michael G. Burns (Saratoga, NY USA) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: How to Improvise a Full-Length Play: The Art of Spontaneous Theater (Paperback)

For the experienced improvisor, this book is essential. Adams lays out a concise, doable, rational and fun approach to creating a full-length, improvised play. I have already been exposed to some of Kenn's techniques through word-of-mouth, and can't wait to get to rehearsal to start applying the great stuff I am learning with this book. Buy it! Heck, buy more--I just bought six to share with my company!
Michael Burns, The Mop & Bucket Co.