Group and opening games
Invocation
The group explores a single word in escalating stages, from third-person description through to speaking as the thing itself.
Also known as: Four-Part Invocation
How to run it
- Take one word from the audience.
- Stage one: describe it in the third person — "it is cold", "it waits".
- Stage two: address it in the second person — "you never call", "you take everything".
- Stage three: speak as it in the first person — "I am what is left".
- Grow more physical and abstract with each stage, then edit into the first scene.
What it teaches
Depth rather than breadth, and generating emotional rather than literal material from a suggestion.
Coaching notes
Encourage physicality from stage two onward. Groups that stay in a line and recite produce openings that are poetry readings rather than springboards.
Where it usually goes wrong. Rushing the stages. Each one needs long enough to become uncomfortable.
Related reading: long form and the Harold.
See it played
We do not link individual videos we have not watched end to end, so this is a search rather than a recommendation: Invocation on YouTube. Quality varies enormously — prefer recordings from working theatres over tutorial channels.