1. GENERAL HEADING: Improvisation

2. TITLE OF EXERCISE: "Imagination"

3. GOALS: To synthesize naiveté and imagination; to encourage actors to think fast.

4. NUMBER OF STUDENTS: Group exercise or individually.

5. EQUIPMENT AND SUPPLIES: Paper and pencils for students.

6. CLASS TIME NEEDED: 10 - 15 minutes.

7. STEP-BY-STEP-DESCRIPTION: Spread your students out in the room. Have them sit with pen and paper. Now tell them to close their eyes and to concentrate on your voice. In a quiet, but reassuring voice take your students on an imaginative journey. Tell the students to imagine the following:

• They are to go to the window and look out
• See a balustrade.
• See a pigeon on the balustrade.
• Watch the pigeon fly away and look at the mess it left behind.
• Look down over the balustrade
• See a UPS delivery truck with the back of the truck open.
• Look at the color and shape of the truck.
• See a child skipping rope past the truck.
• Look at the shoes she is wearing.
• Look at the UPS driver taking a package out of the back of truck
• Look at the way he is dressed.

Now, tell your students to open their eyes and immediately sketch the street and the scene that they have imagined. Their level of artistry is irrelevant-- it is their ability to fill in the details prompted by these few images that is key.

8. POINTS FOR OBSERVATION, DISCUSSION: These snapshot images are analogous to the limited details supplied in a dramatic text. Actors must use--and train--their imagination to fill in the blanks and complete the picture.

9. SOURCE/REFERENCE: Adapted from Stella Adler's The Technique of Acting, NYC: Bantam Books, 1988.

10. ADDITIONAL READING: N.A.

11. VARIATIONS: Endless.