Continuing Emotions

Objectives

Continuing Emotions targets emotional range, commitment to emotional states, and the ability to justify external direction within a scene's internal logic. It also trains performers to let an emotional state live in the body rather than only in the face.

How to Explain It

"You're doing a regular scene, and whenever I call an emotion, everyone in the scene immediately feels that way. You don't have to stop and explain why -- find the reason in the moment. Something in the scene just happened that makes you feel this. The scene keeps going; only the emotion changes."

Scaffolding

With beginners, call states slowly and give performers time to find the physical life of each emotion before calling the next. With advanced performers, call states rapidly to develop range and speed. A useful intermediate step is asking performers to name aloud what in the scene triggered the new emotion; this makes the justification skill explicit before it is internalized.

Common Sidocoaching

• "Let the emotion live in your body before your face."
• "Find why your character feels this right now."
• "What just happened in the scene that makes this make sense?"
• "More specific. What kind of joy? Whose joy?"

Common Pitfalls

Performers who display emotions rather than inhabit them produce technically correct but emotionally hollow transitions. The emotion should change how the character relates to the other characters and to the scene's circumstances, not just how their face looks. A second pitfall is scenes where the emotional shifts become the entire subject, with performers commenting on the changes rather than living inside them.

Audience Intro

"Our performers are going to play a scene, but there's a twist: I'm going to call out emotions and they have to switch instantly. Every time I call one, they find a reason to feel it right then. Let's see how many they can handle."

Cast Size

Two to four performers in the scene. One caller (host or separate performer). The host can double as caller if comfortable managing both roles.

Staging

Performers play in the standard scene area. The caller stands clearly to the side, visible to the audience but separated from the scene space.

Pacing

The game benefits from varying the speed of calls: several slow calls allow the audience to appreciate how the emotion changes the scene's meaning, while a rapid burst of calls (four or five in quick succession) creates the comedic chaos the game is also known for. Moving between slow and fast within one scene gives the game structure.

Wrap Logic

The strongest wrap is an emotional state that produces a climactic moment in the scene itself -- performers who find a state-and-scene convergence that lands a genuine beat. The host calls immediately after that peak.