Acting class teaches improvisation

An excited group of Mini University participants improvised five original plays in an acting class taught by IU theater professor Murray McGibbon Monday.\nMcGibbon, who directed for 10 years in South Africa with the Playhouse Company, taught an hour and 45 minute class called, "What It's Like to Be an Actor."\nHe began with a relaxation exercise while participants lied down on the floor of the Frangipani room of the Indiana Memorial Union trying to focus their minds much like professional actors before they go on stage. He instructed participants to breathe rhythmically and imagine they were going on vacation.\nAfter 20 minutes of relaxation exercises that he said were intended to focus the mind, he talked about some of the guiding principles of actors.\n"There are three component parts to acting," McGibbon said. "Reason, reaction and resolution."\nHe said every piece of acting begins with a problem, progresses to a point where the characters react to it and at the end the problem is resolved.\nThe class was then divided into five groups and given 30 minutes to create a minute-long act with three randomly selected prompts per group. \nThere were three different prompts that had to be incorporated into the act. One was a quote such as "There is a bomb in the building." Another was a character such as a beautician. The last was an object like a candle.\nLater each group went onto a stage in the room to perform skits that varied in theme from a group of women incapacitating a burglar to a young couple winning the lottery.\n"It is a problem-solving task," McGibbon said. "The prompts help them be more creative when acting out a given situation."\nMcGibbon said acting is the most difficult action a human can do because it uses body, soul and spirit.\n"It is even harder to teach acting in an hour and three quarters," McGibbon said.\nJeane Hunt, a Chicago resident, said her group tried to create a serious skit. However, they kept laughing so much that it was easier to make it humorous, she said.\nHer group was given a book of matches, the character of a business executive and the quote, "The plane is going down."\n"This is far removed from what I am used to," Hunt said. "It is great fun and great fellowship."\nKaren Kroczek, a Munster resident who has been coming to Mini University for 12 years, said she enjoyed the activity. Kroczek participated in a humorous skit about three women who used a chair to defend themselves against a burglar.\n"It was really interesting because it gave me an understanding of the improvisational process and how actors play off each other," Kroczek said.\nEvan Boggs, a high school senior form Indianapolis, was the main character in a dramatic skit that used the quote, "Daffodils don't grow in August," a pair of sunglasses and the character of a difficult mother-in-law.\n"I heard about Mini University in the Indianapolis Monthly," Boggs said. "It is close and affordable and covers a large breadth of subjects. I can go to 15 classes in one week on subjects I wouldn't otherwise be exposed to."\nMcGibbon said this was his first year to teach at Mini University, which is a week-long "return to the classroom" open to adults of all ages and held at IU every year, according to the IU Web site.\n"It is wonderful to see people throwing themselves into the assignment and laughing while they are doing it," McGibbon said.\n-- Contact staff writer Karen Yancey at kaeyance@indiana.edu.