Safety and what's appropriate on stage
Our experience is that students who take part in the competition are overwhelmingly positive, supportive and sensible when it comes to both safety and inappropriate material. However, we are committed to making sure that the competition is safe and has appropriate content for students, teachers, festival staff and volunteers and the audience. The following is a short outline of our general approach to safety and content.
Safety
As improv is made up on the spot, actions which might be safe when performed in a scripted production can carry more risk. For example, it might be safe to carry someone on your back while they juggle in a scripted work where you have time to practice but this will be more risky when its improvised.
We still want students to be dynamic, physical and present on stage. We have just put some simple rules around safety in place to avoid dangerous situations.
Briefings
Teams must arrive in time to attend the pre-show warm up briefing. This gives them an important reminder about the rules and also allows us to raise any venue specific issues.
No physical force or pretend violence
Students shouldn’t engage in stage combat. Its very easy for a pretend strike or grapple to be misjudged and hurt the other performer. These kinds of moves are dangerous in scripted theatre and they are particularly risky in unscripted work.
Slow motion combat is allowed. If students want to act out a fight scene then it can be done in slow motion so that there is no force behind blows or grapples.
The same goes for applying force to another student such as pushing or pulling or dragging a student around stage. This raises the possibility that the other person might trip, lose balance or land awkwardly. Its ok to guide another person around stage or apply gentle pressure.
Teams must listen to any sidecoaching from the MC and scenes will be called down if the MC feels they are unsafe in any way.
Consent
Physical contact must be consensual. Improv is no different to the rest of life in this respect.
There are different ways team maters can indicate they are ok with physical content, either explicitly or through gestures, facial expressions or eye-contact. We don’t want to limit students in what they can do but we do want to ensure they do so in a way which makes sure everyone is comfortable.
For example, students shouldn’t jump on each others backs without the other student giving clear permission and it being otherwise safe to do so. The student who wants to jump on their back might put their hands on the other students shoulders to indicate their intent and wait for the other student to nod or say ‘hop on’ etc.
Similar principle applies to any romantic gestures. If you want to hold someone’s hands or kiss them on the cheek then the student initiating should complete 80% of the movement and let the other student complete the final 20%.
Stay low
Please don’t stand on chairs, stools or tables. These are not designed to be stood on and are not always stable. We would like to avoid any concussions.
You can use stage risers which are designed for standing on.
Appropriateness of material
Students need to remember that the show is being performed for their family and friends. Content should be suitable for a school environment.
This means that swearing, obscenity, bodily functions, and offensive content (racist, sexist, homophobic, ablest etc) will not be permitted on stage. We also find that this tends to affect the work as it is often an attempt at ‘cheap’ laughs rather than trying to tell a story.
We do understand that stuff might slip out (as it is improvised) so MCs will normally try to sidecoach students to change their language or make a new choice in the scene.
Examples of possibly inappropriate content:
Playing a scene involving racial stereotypes or steroetype accents. English language accents are normally ok but please do not play accents from other races or cultures (unless it is yours).
Any scene focused on bodily fluids or excrement. References will normally be fine (it is part of life).
Swearing (depending on the word and context, we may sidecoach or call the scene down).
Scenes which mock people because of some personal characteristic such as sex, race, religion or mental or physical disability.
Students won’t be penalised if their scenes include inappropriate material (unless we feel there is an intention to offend) but we may end a scene early. This is partly to help the team out of what is often an awkward situation and partly to maintain the content level of the show.