Wednesday 22nd April

Session started with a couple of rounds of names, too fast for me, quite a few people called Alex.
Divided into groups to share the parts, with anything from 3 to 6 actors sharing a part.
The first instruction was to read to a bit of punctuation, then one of your PART-ners would continue reading to the next bit of punctuation, then the next....
Hassell invited us to raise our eyes and address our bit to a person rather than to a piece of paper.
Also to use our line to affect the person you're talking to.
Steve reading in the stage directions.

We read some.

Hassell invited us to correct, confirm, contradict, change or in some way qualify what's just been said, as we were often speaking as the same character.

We read some more.

Hassell invited us to do something other than just "do a different tone to the last person" (we were getting quite good at that).

Yeah yeah yeah. Read.

Hassell offered us the alternative of addressing our PART-ners, as well as our scene buddies.

The pace felt quite frenetic, trying not to drop the ball, frequently busted for not looking up, occasionally busted (or invited to try again) when we hadn't really related our phrase to what had just been said.
Other offers: Good Cop, Bad Cop, even if you're not reading a cop.

I found this all quite fun but struggled to locate an inner calm, could not locate the eye of the tiger, no time to consider the effect I'm having on the audience, no time to give my lovely reading, no time to plan some clever.....oh, I see.

Next:

Up on our feet. With a feeder. A feeder whispers your phrase into your cute little ear, you step forward and address your scene buddy. Like Jimmy Cagney. Look 'em in the eye and tell the truth. Hold your ground until someone replaces you. A sort of conveyor belt of actors, a bit like those old Glasgow Citz open auditions,
or a commercial casting.

We spoke some.

Interesting to see how much variety and inconsistency a part can hold. The teamwork went up a level here, I thought.

When the conveyoring was in danger of getting too slick and the words were becoming non-stick, we changed it so that the feeder moves, the speaker stays where they are. Made a difference.

Most frequent busts/offers
"You don't have to show us how you feel about it, just try to achieve something. Try it again."
Nearly always came out simpler, but not bland or robotic. Still felt.
Lists; improve on what's just been said.
Lists got better.
Improve the situation, solve something, make it better ("Schieder Dust").
Saw people trying to improve the situation.

We spoke some more.

Change feeders, now, once you've been fed your phrase, you have to touch someone when you speak. The group quite quickly got good at finding a variety of physically expressive touches, challengin, teasing, belittling, with the touch and the words.

Then the feeder feeds all the PART-ners the same line, and they simultaneously speak it and touch.
Offer: If more than one of you are talking to the same person, try to get their attention. Fight for it.

We tried.
We fought some.

This is the first exclusively male Factory session, right? And we're all touching each other and fighting for each others attention, right? So inevitably......

.... we all got naked and went to the pub.