ABSTRACT
Improvisation has long been employed as a tool for devising; however, its use for refining a play in the revision stages has remained largely unexplored. This chapter enlists improvisational exercises in the revision stage to explore and establish a basic psychological foundation in a character’s development—a character’s search for authenticity. Drawing from therapist Clara Hill’s three-step Helping Process model, this chapter probes the search for authenticity in four key dimensions of a character’s internal and external life—existential, past, relationship, and psychological. With clear goals and step-by-step instructions, each exercise also concludes with reflective notes, from a writing perspective, to take discoveries forward into a revised draft.
