Designers' Toolbox - Endings

[Channel3]

Developing a show and searching for an ending? These tips from improvisational theater guru Viola Spolin may help. Spolin is the mother of theatrical improv, and a great source for developing a through line and ending for your production. Don't settle for the ending of climbing on top of your prop. Instead, develop a through line of continually heightening action, and the ending will appear.

1. If you can't come up with an ending, that means you haven't decided on a through line yet. Endings come from the heightening of the action you've already set up.
2. Write a brief storyboard of what happens in your show. (e.g., characters pop out of storybooks, they interact in new interpretations, and at the end, a child appears, gathers all the characters and reminds the audience to listen.)
3. Think of an elevator speech for your show, 30 seconds or less. What happens. Define the action. "Geometric shapes evolve into abstract patterns, and back again, just like the 60's political landscape."

Check out these types of endings.

A “hook”, a final repeating of an action or movement (SCV Fog City Sketches)

An unwelcome relapse of an incident indicating a predicament continues (Madison Band of Brothers)

A final absurd instance of an escalated action (VK Shark eats the Valkyrie)

A switching of temperament where one group takes on the other's attitude

A surprise emotion or temperament (SCV Bottle Dance)

Contamination, where all parties take on the same characteristic that they've been resisting (Cavaliers Machine)

An unlikely agreement between two forces (Angels and Demons)

An unexpected reversal of attitude or emotion (Spartacus)

Edited May 4, 2016 by Channel3

[BRASSO]

Developing a show and searching for an ending? These tips from improvisational theater guru Viola Spolin may help. Spolin is the mother of theatrical improv, and a great source for developing a through line and ending for your production. Don't settle for the ending of climbing on top of your prop. Instead, develop a through line of continually heightening action, and the ending will appear.

1. If you can't come up with an ending, that means you haven't decided on a through line yet. Endings come from the heightening of the action you've already set up.
2. Write a brief storyboard of what happens in your show. (e.g., characters pop out of storybooks, they interact in new interpretations, and at the end, a child appears, gathers all the characters and reminds the audience to listen.)
3. Think of an elevator speech for your show, 30 seconds or less. What happens. Define the action. "Geometric shapes evolve into abstract patterns, and back again, just like the 60's political landscape."

Check out these types of endings.

A “hook”, a final repeating of an action or movement (SCV Fog City Sketches)

An unwelcome relapse of an incident indicating a predicament continues (Madison Band of Brothers)

A final absurd instance of an escalated action (VK Shark eats the Valkyrie)

A switching of temperament where one group takes on the other's attitude

A surprise emotion or temperament (SCV Bottle Dance)

Contamination, where all parties take on the same characteristic that they've been resisting (Cavaliers Machine)

An unlikely agreement between two forces (Angels and Demons)

An unexpected reversal of attitude or emotion (Spartacus)

Good suggestions, imo