What are some of the skills and techniques needed to perform in a physical theatre production?

Of paramount importance is the ability to support your voice. Even though microphone use is pervasive, the purpose of amplification is to correct for deficiencies in the room, but a sound system cannot amplify what isn't there. Our reliance on giving microphones to younger and younger performers without also teaching them how to properly annunciate, and project is one of the reasons that we struggle so much with hearing when going to a performance. One way to learn how to do this is to stand on stage and try to have a conversation with someone at the back of the house, use your diaphragm to increase volume, not your throat. Lighting designers have to do this for days on end, and it's a crucial skill we learned from actors.

In my experience, one needs to be directly connected to physical expression. Improvisation is an essential practice to enrich your direct physical-expressive capabilities. A solid consistent technical practice is required to develop and maintain the instrument.

As a lighting designer, the most important conversation I have with performers is this: If you are blinded you are in the RIGHT place. So often, a performer will be too dim, we will bring up a light to make sure they're able to be seen well, and the next time we run the scene, the performer will shift away until they are no longer in the light. This may be more comfortable, but it is no way to support collaboration. This spatial awareness must be extrapolated to all the other disciplines by all collaborators. If I am not looking at the effect my work is having on the others in the room, I am not responsibly taking part in the collaboration. The trick is to over-communicate about it all the time; and that makes it famously difficult.

I would say improvisation games would improve collaboration and communication above anything else. I have done years of theatre and was also a part of an improvisational comedy group. With other members of my group, we reached a point where we could "read" (that is know) what each other was about say or which direction the scene should go - without speaking. This blended over into theatre with my fellow actors. Instincts are sharpened through improv.

The right amount of communication often feels to many of us like "over-communication." Designers need to try to participate in rehearsal when possible, and actors need to be aware of the vagaries of technology. A physical trick often takes input from three or more people with different specialties to make it work. The time required to communicate about everything necessary is enormous, but the time required to correct assumptions and re-rehearse something that wasn't thoroughly explored is even more so. It will feel like overcommunication because the sheer amount of information surrounding us these days makes us feel like everyone should understand everything already; but we must in fact be sharing ideas and receiving feedback regularly.

One of the best ways I have learned how to "learn how to use my imagination" is to look at so much (visual) research that it becomes saturated, and then to give myself one minute, or five minutes to MAKE something - a collage, a painting, a sketch, a poem. Anything that seems like it will be helpful in crystalizing the ideas into a design. I know actors who use movement work along these lines - do all the character research, and then move through the script without speaking it. No matter the strategy, the point is to place limitations on the process in order to find something worth taking forward. Change the self-imposed limitations, and the character of your discoveries will change.

Two words: POST PARTUM. I call them Post Partums because the work lives in us. The traditional phrase is Post Mortem, or a meeting after the show has closed to go over what worked well, and what could have been better, what you might do differently next time. The idea is to take away from the process key lessons that you can apply next time you work on a piece of physical performance. Often, waiting until after the show is over, precludes designer participation, as they have moved on to the next project by then. A Post Partum can be as early as opening night, or a few days after, when the work of the process is still fresh in minds and bodies for analysis.

Performance is about how one presents to the audience. It's all about transferring ones interpretation of the moments in the piece to the audience as a whole. The person down center in the house is just as important as the person up left and one's performance must be as clear to one as the other. So awareness of the audience trumps the inflation of the ego onstage. But that's only one small part of it, from a performance standpoint. AG

Being present during the process is key in movement based theater. The action of the play is entirely present on stage not in the table work or the script analysis. Historical training theories like Stanislavski, Hagen, and Misner ask a performer to create an unseen mental hierarchy or substitute personal life experience to build story. This detracts from the action of the moment that is taking place on stage. It undermines the communication with the other performers.