Now that I’m finally blogging again, while we’re continuing to catch up on parts of my life, why not do The Groundlings?!
Let me catch you up on an awesome class from July of 2018! I passed intermediate at The Groundlings! [Actually, by now, I’ve passed advanced. And I’m sure we’ll get to that soon. Yay!]
So, I PASSED intermediate! Finally, right?! 🙂
After so many years of on-again/off-again with that school, I’m back in LA for the summer and passed. Now, most people who read my Groundlings posts on this blog just wanna know:
1) How did you pass that level? [Which will be answered in the rest of this post and the next one]
2) Did you like it/would you recommend it to someone else? (Short answer: yes)
[Disclaimer: I’ve never worked or taught at The Groundlings, so in case it isn’t clear, this is from a student’s perspective. Take anything that’s helpful, throw out the rest, and ultimately, do whatever’s best for you!]
So, the elusive passing!
Intermediate revolves a lot around the final, which is called “5-Through-The-Door.”
What is 5-Through-The-Door?
For those of you who don’t know, what happens is, when it’s your turn, you are assigned a store (e.g. Pier One, Sharper Image, The Hallmark Store, REI, and so on.)
You get a partner onstage who plays the clerk. The 5-Through-The-Door scenes are not like normal improv scenes, in that they are basically just character showcases. The person who plays the clerk is not supposed to do all that much. They’re just there to point you to what you’re looking for in the store, and ring you up.
[You have to ask for a *different* thing as each character, but we’ll get to that. Also, I think different teachers may have slightly different rules, but at least with ours, the clerk was not allowed to suggest anything, so even if you didn’t know the store, you had to guess to the best of your ability. And if the clerk accidentally said “what about these [shoes or other good]?”, then boom, you weren’t allowed to buy shoes.]
So, you come through the door, entering the store. You ask the clerk if they have any [whatever you’re looking for]. You give a little explanation of why you need it. Then you take it to the counter and pay.
You’re supposed to think about how your character would do all of those things. How do they open the door? How do they pay? What do they pay with? Do they carry cash, or cards, or what? How do they interact with other people, and with the stuff they’re buying?
After you leave the store, you come back in again as a new character. And, as you can guess from the name, you do this 5 times. [Again, some teachers are different in exactly how they do it. Some give you like 30 – 45 seconds (maybe even a minute) to consult notes and stuff before you come back in. Some want it basically immediately. I tried to come back in pretty quickly with each of mine, because I wanted to keep the momentum going. (My store was Dick’s Sporting Goods, by the way.)
How to differentiate your characters?
The main things the Groundlings stresses in each of your characters is that they have a distinct. point of view. on the world.
That’s the main thing. All your information should back up whatever that is (e.g. “I want to always get everything right.” “Life is a party.” etc.)
In addition to that, you should (to the best of your ability) have different voices, gaits/posture, and resting facial expressions for each one.
One way that I helped keep them straight in my mind was that I gave them each kind of a “theme song,” that to me either helped get a feel for who they were, or sometimes what their favorite jam was. And that was my shorthand for remembering who they were. Like, when I went back behind the door each time, I’d just think like “okay, Carly Rae Jepsen’s I Really Like You. Got it.” And I’d hear like a bar of that song in my head as I was walking out, and I’d know exactly who this character is (because I’d studied and practiced, not because songs could only apply to one character in the whole world haha).
Who were my 5 characters? I’ll get to that tomorrow!