Should You Start Your Scene In The Middle?

This week I got to thinking about why we are taught to start our scenes “in the middle”. It’s something that comes up quite a lot and it’s one of those bits of “conventional wisdom” that I like to question every now and again.

At first glance, it’s reasonable advice. You want to cut to the action and leave out the preamble. I get it. We don’t need to see lots of lead up or “hey” / “oh hi” dialogue. We tend to make stronger offers by cutting to the chase and that gives our scene partner something to work with. It can hook an audience in.

So that’s settled then. We need to start scenes in the middle, right?

The fly in the ointment here is the number of great improvisers who I have seen take things from the “beginning”. It’s the two people meeting, it’s the knock on the door or someone sitting down on the train next to someone else. The great thing about these scenes is seeing the reality of the situation, watching it build, being part of the discovery and getting the earned comedic and emotional climaxes of the scene.

So which approach is right?

I suspect you’ve already guessed that I think practicing and using both is useful, so let me explain why.

A bad “start in the middle” scene can overload information. It can be chaotic. Everyone’s entered the scene and within seconds, the spaceship is on fire, the cucumber people are invading and we’ve run low on milk. It’s a lot. And it leaves us with very few places to go. In that situation improvisers prevaricate, go into problem solving mode or negotiate within the scene rather than advancing it. We get stuck in this chaotic, high stakes situation where nothing actually happens, and where there is often a lack of shared reality.

A good “start in the middle” scene has the same listening and shared reality as a “start at the beginning” scene. A good “start at the beginning” scene still needs offers from improvisers. A lot of improv “rules” are just shortcuts to getting a scene that works, but the longer you improvise, the better it is to question those rules.

One thing I like to try with more advanced improvisers is playing a scene in the aftermath of an event. I like this because there are still stakes. Something major has happened. But the pace is slower as the characters are dealing with something big that just happened. Those characters are recovering / exhausted / processing / clearing up. This means we get our stakes and our discovery of who these people are. This has led to some incredible scenes, and helps drill the combination of stakes and discovery that help any “start at the beginning” or “start in the middle” scene work.

As ever, I’d love to know your thoughts on this too!

The Robin Hood International Improv Festival is NEXT WEEK. Grab one of the few remaining passes if you can. All the details are here. I’ll be performing with two shows.

On Thursday 3rd September at 8.15pm, I’ll be with The Secret Show where we turn people’s anonymous secrets into scenes. (I’ll be doing a lot of “start in the middle” scenes in this show). On Friday 4th September at 6pm, I’ll be playing with Katy Schutte and Sam Marshall in Brand New Musical - a Sondheim-inspired improvised musical (I’ll be doing a lot of “start at the beginning scenes” in this). Tickets to all shows here.

Have a great week,

Lloydie