II - Acknowlegde how far you've come
In this week's newsletter I reflect on my journey as a performer and facilitator, I talk about the musician role in Playback and more...
Last Sunday we got together to celebrate the 7th anniversary of Acaprov. We ate a lot of snacks and hate-watched Diana: The Musical. It was a fun day. It is nice to celebrate milestones.
When was the last time you stopped and looked back at the path you’ve already walked? That’s something I encourage people to do when I’m facilitating a workshop. No matter how many “failures”, hurdles or stones you found along the way that made you trip. You are way better than you were at the starting point.
I consider myself a strong performer, specially on scripted. I feel it that way whenever I’m delivering storytelling sessions or shows. Whenever I’m about to step on a stage, I think often of my first times performing in front of an audience. In the beginning at the university, and, later on, at several theatre stages. It’s been 25 years since my first time. I kept this mental picture, clear as the day, of being behind the curtains, battling the nerves, waiting for the audio cue to step on the stage. This picture pops in my head most of the times I have to face a show. I think, with my heart filled with gratitude, of my first teachers, Joan Comes and Cesca Salazar, and I nod to them towards the sky (they’re alive though!).
I also consider myself a confident Playback Theatre performer and facilitator. I’m aware of all the work that I put into it. I take pride on the many hours, stories and miles behind my experience. At the beginning, it was a lonely journey as well, specially when I was in Spain and barely no one shared my drive for getting better at Playback Theatre. But here I am, a full-fledged accredited trainer facilitating in London and other countries.
Then, there’s improv…
🧠 On improv
I don’t consider myself a strong improviser. Just decent, average, I guess. In the improv puddle that represents my Spanish hometown, people kept telling me I was good… and then I went out to the ocean and I stained the waters with my faeces trying to keep up.
There’s a world of brilliance out there, people dedicated exclusively to improv, spending so many hours a week developing themselves as improvisers and improv trainers. They run improv theatres, improv schools, improv projects… How could I ever match them with a divided attention?
What helped me to make peace with myself (and the improviser within) upon this overwhelming scene, is being true to my strengths and feelings on the art form. I will never like TJ & Dave, or Katy Schutte, or Nick Armstrong, or Monica Gaga, or Neil Curran, or Susan Messing, or Brian James O’Connell, or any other great improviser I’m lucky to have meet. And that’s OK.
If Brian James O’Connell reads this, he would scold me for talking down about myself. He has a gift of making improvisers feel good about themselves and their work. He helped me look into myself and acknowledge and embrace what kind of improviser I am and what I can put on the table, which is an approach to the human and social awareness factor.
I consider myself a good improv facilitator though, after all, I’m a trained applied theatre facilitator and I feel confident whenever comes to teach a specific improv approach. I might say that I perceive myself as a better improv facilitator than improviser. I’ve seen the opposite (good improviser, bad facilitator) and it’s not good, so, for that, I pat on my shoulder.
Having said that, having looked behind, having acknowledged my path. I will focus on the future for a bit.
How about you? Where in the path are you?
🪑 On Playback Theatre (PT)
There are different roles in PT. There’s the conductor, who acts as nexus between the performers and the audience. There’s the actors. And there’s the musician.
When you are learning playback, you should focus on the second in order to understand how the PT enactments works. With time, experience and training, you can start working the role of conductor. Of course, if it appeals to you. There are tons of PT actors that are not interested in other role.
With the role of musician happens the same. It is sometimes underappreciated. If someone is taking pictures of a performance, only a few would include the musician or feature them. They are present, and so is their work, yet they might feel invisible.
I love music, I love singing, I love strumming a guitar, or an ukelele (only chords), or banging randomly on a piano, like a cat jumping on the keyboard. I am not a skilled musician, I’m lightyears away from being one, however I love taking on the role of musician. Every playback actor should take this role, the same way playback musicians should try the acting role as well. It helps understand each other better.
The musician role is not about underscoring what is happening on stage or just framing the forms, but co-creating with the actors. Yes, sometimes the musician only supports the actions being made, but also the musician has the power to propel the enactment if it is stuck. A playback musician with improv background is a blessing.
My time in Acaprov has been very helpful for facing the musician role. Not only I have a better understanding of how songs work, or how to get better providing rythms and pitch, but I was able to develop certain PT musical forms and encouraging the actors to provide the music acappella.
This week I’ll be stepping again in the role of musician on a True Heart Theatre performance in St Andrews, Scotland. I’m looking forward to it.
Let’s keep exploring a more musical Playback Theatre! 🎵
🎭 On Theatre
Last week’s play of choice was Una família normal by Marta Buchaca. Where we get to know the dynamics between two siblings, Joana and Toni, and their father and respective partners.
I was pleasantly surprised by this play and how this author from Barcelona plays with the narrative in non chronological way, branching both ways in time from a pivotal scene. There’s not a lot of stage directions which I imagine this script being a candy for a director. I could sense, though, some interesting fourth wall breaking when monologuing. If you can read Catalan, I totally recommend it.
🗣️ Shout-out!
How often do you listen to podcasts? I normally listen to them while doing chores or grinding experience playing a RPG. One of my favourites to listen to is Improvly Speaking by Dayna Gowan.
I met Dayna in California at Camp Improv Utopia West. That’s how I knew about her podcast and her involvement in applied improv and public speaking. She is super passionate about it and you can tell by her professionalism.
The podcast features a series of interviews with professionals of improv, public speaking, mental health… whatever in the range of personal and/or professional transformation. It’s very interesting to listen to her guests, and not only the improvisers. Listening to it, I’ve learnt a lot of points of view, some I agree with and some not so much, but the plurality of the content enhances the quality of this podcast. My favourite bit is listening to Dayna closing the episodes with her insight of the conversations and what she gets from them.
Add it to your list on Spotify or Apple.
📆 What is cooking?
If you are in St Andrews, Scotland, this Saturday, 26th of April, True Heart Theatre will be delivering a workshop (at 2pm) and a performance (at 3:30pm) and Saint Andrew’s Episcopal Church framed by the event Pilgrimages: Journey, Encounter, Return which will hold an exhibit on the same place.
Here’s another reminder of the upcoming Playback Theatre core training intensive on the first weekend of May facilitated by London Playback Theatre at Clean Break in Candem. Click here for more info.
Are you planning to attend Brighton Fringe? Acaprov will be there with six shows from the 2nd to the 5th of May. You can get tickets here.
📚 🎮 🎥 📺 The geeky dessert
Last month I got very hard into a hyper-fixation with The Lord of the Rings. I watched the (very) extended versions of the Peter Jackson movies, the animated film from 1978, directed by Ralph Bakshi, and the recent The War of the Rohirrim anime movie. I played the LEGO The Lord of the Rings game until 100% completion and started the Middle Earth: Shadow of Mordor game. Don’t ask me why, ask my brain.
I then realised… I’ve never read these books in English, only in Spanish. I remember my step-brother, who sadly passed away almost a year ago, introducing me to Tolkien’s books as a kid. I read The Hobbit and the trilogy of the ring in my bedroom, when books were the best, and only, way for a kid to scape from reality. By then I was living in a little town in the Pyrenees, surrounded by gorgeous mountains so it was easy for me to imagine myself as a Hobbit looking for adventures walking along the paths through the forest.
The second time I read them was when I started University, just before the release of the acclaimed movie adaptations, which were so good I didn’t feel the need to read them again. Until now.
I’m reading The Hobbit in English for the first time in my life and The Fellowship of the Ring will follow, and so on. I chose the hardcover editions by Harper Collins because they are pretty, or at least they appeal to me.
I’ll let you know when I’m there and back again.
✨ That’s all folks ✨
Thanks for reading Playing Back an Improvised Life, a newsletter by Ferran Luengo.
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